Union killings loom over U.S.-Colombia trade pact

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Reuters

Union killings loom over U.S.-Colombia trade pact
Fri Feb 13, 2009 10:05am EST

By Helen Popper

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Guillermo Rivera Fuquene's widow says her husband was kidnapped, tortured and killed just because he fought for the rights of Colombian workers and opposed President Alvaro Uribe's free-market policies.

Murders of labor leaders like Rivera Fuquene prompted U.S. Democrats last year to block a free-trade deal drawn up under President George W. Bush, and human rights groups are hopeful Barack Obama's arrival at the White House will see the killings face even greater scrutiny.

"It's absurd to approve a free-trade agreement when people get kidnapped and murdered and no one does anything about it," said Rivera Fuquene's widow, Sonia Betancourt, 36, in her apartment in a working-class Bogota neighborhood.

Colombia's trade pact will not be a top priority for Obama as he wrangles with the worst financial crisis in decades and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, his administration has already indicated it wants stronger guarantees on trade union rights from Uribe, a conservative who has twinned a U.S.-backed military crackdown on leftist rebels with market-friendly economics.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/reutersEdge/idUSTRE51C3WL20090213?rpc=401&feedType=RSS&feedName=reutersEdge&rpc=401

[Judi Lynn]

1. Colombia’s Counter-Productive Performance

Colombia’s Counter-Productive Performance
Friday, 13 February 2009, 11:17 am
Opinion: Jose Maria Rodriguez Gonzalez

FTA and Plan Colombia the Minefield for Obama

United States Latin American policy
Part 2: Colombia’s counter-productive performance

Antecedents:

When analyzing today’s US – Colombian relationship, we should keep the history of this relationship in mind. Let us not forget the internal sentiments of many Colombian people against the U.S. related to the instatement of Panama’s independence. The creation of Panama, that was an adjoined province of Colombia, was only for the U.S. purpose of building the Panama Canal to benefit solely from it. The U.S. did it without a better measure of making Colombia a partner in that endeavor. Colombia gained nothing from it - it just lost a part of its territory. This historical fact made Colombians believe that their country was treated as a banana republic by the U.S.

Incidentally, Colombians also have grievances against the U.S. where bananas are concerned. The “bananera massacre” of two thousand Colombian banana pickers who went on strike on December 6, 1928, was instigated by the U. S. United Fruit Company. The more recent, in the 90s, assassination of the organized laborers by the U.S. fruit company “Chiquita Brands International,” has demonstrated that U.S. treats Colombia, literarily, as its banana republic. These and the other criminal events in which the U.S. participated made many Colombians distrust and hate the U.S. partnership and aid.

Alliance for Progress, an economic development program supported by President John Kennedy 1n 1961, was a brief break from those violent practices. Alliance for Progress improved the U.S. image in Colombia. However, the U.S. reverted to its continuous support of the ruling clans behind the Columbian governments, after Kennedy. This policy exploded with the creation of the “Plan Colombia”, an anti-narcotics then counter-insurgency plan unveiled in 1999. Under the pretext of fighting against drug traffickers and guerillas, Colombian government used billions of U.S. money to engage in abuses of power, in corruption, and in violation of the domestic civil rights. This plan also unleashed a period of violence by Colombian paramilitary (organized crime of ultra-right wing death squads). The consequences of this plan ultimately blame the direct military and political intervention of the United States in Colombian affairs. Colombia is the largest recipient of U.S. military financing in the Western Hemisphere now.

Alvaro Uribe’s Failures:

In terms of war on narcotics, more coca plants now exist in Colombia than when Álvaro Uribe first came to power in 2002, according to surveys made by the UN, OAS and DEA. During Uribe’s administration, drug cartels mutated into innumerable mini-cartels that expanded the narcotics market to more countries and younger users. With new criminal partnerships in Mexico, Colombia narco-traffickers have now moved to the U.S. border. Judged by its own goals, the Plan Colombia has proved to be an unquestionable failure.

More:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0902/S00270.htm

[Judi Lynn]

2. Anti-labor violence rises in Colombia: House testimony

Anti-labor violence rises in Colombia: House testimony
Submitted by WW4 Report on Sat, 02/14/2009 - 02:26.

The Colombian government has not done enough to stem the rising violence against labor union leaders or address the backlog of labor union leader killings, witnesses told the US House Education and Labor Committee Feb. 12. A leading Colombian labor think tank, the National Labor School, also testified that killings of union members jumped by 25% in 2008.

"Sadly, Colombia has been the most dangerous place in the world to belong to a labor union for decades," said Rep. George Miller (D-CA), chairman of the committee. "In some recent years, there have been more labor killings in Colombia than the rest of the world combined."

The committee heard testimony from human rights advocates who said that contrary to statements from the Colombian government, violence against labor union leaders is increasing and very little has done to fully investigate and prosecute the backlog of anti-labor murder cases.

"Over the last couple of decades, Colombia’s unions have suffered extreme violence, mostly at the hands of right-wing paramilitary groups that have deliberately targeted unions," said Maria McFarland, a Latin America specialist with Human Rights Watch. McFarland said that although there was an official demobilization of paramilitaries several years ago, new groups have emerged that similarly target labor unions. "The bulk of the threats received by unionists last year have been signed by groups purporting to be paramilitaries, such as the Black Eagles."

More:
http://ww4report.com/node/6848