Venezuela: who killed Aragua unionists?

[Judi Lynn]

Venezuela: who killed Aragua unionists?
Submitted by WW4 Report on Wed, 12/10/2008 - 05:02.
On Dec. 2 Venezuelan interior and justice minister Tarek El Aissami announced the arrest of Julio Cesar Agrinzones (also given as "Arguinzones") Romero the night before on charges of killing three leftist Venezuelan unionists—Richard Gallardo, Carlos Requena and Luis Hernández—the night of Nov. 27 in the city of Cagua, southwest of Caracas in Aragua state. Although El Aissami said the government had not established who was behind the killing, he implied it was "over a job," hinting at internal conflicts in the pro-government National Workers Union (UNT), in which the victims were leaders.

Aragua union leaders rejected El Aissami's implication, saying that Agrinzones Romero was at work at the Pepsi Cola de Venezuela's plant in Villa de Cura in southern Aragua the night of the killing; Luis Hernández was president of the plant's union. Local unionists suspect the Colombian-owned Alpina food processing plant and state police under former governor Didalco Bolivar were involved in the murders. In a speech on Dec. 1 at the inauguration of the state's new governor, Rafael Isea, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez suggested that an unnamed "foreign-owned company against which they were fighting" was responsible.

On Dec. 2 some 7,000 workers from 17 unions protested and blocked roads in Aragua to demand a thorough investigation of the killings. (El Universal, Venezuela, Dec. 2; YVKE Mundial, Dec. 2; El Carabobeno, Venezuela, Dec. 4; Venezuela Analysis, Dec. 3)

Another Aragua unionist was murdered on Dec. 4. Simon Caldea, a leader of the Bolivarian Union of Industry and Construction Workers (UBT), was riding in a pickup truck on the Barbacoas-Camatagua highway when unknown persons in another vehicle shot repeatedly at the truck. Caldea was killed instantly, and two other unionists, Yagle Agrinzones and Hector Mijares, were wounded. (El Nacional, Venezuela, Dec. 4; El Universal, Dec. 4) (The sources did not mention any possible relation of Yagle Agrinzones to Julio Cesar Agrinzones Romero.)

http://ww4report.com/node/6497

[Peace Patriot]

1. Colombia is a charnal house of the dead bodies of union leaders, so it won't surprise me

in the least if a Colombia company and Colombian death squads are involved. I think the workers are probably right. The number of killings of union leaders points to a systematic, planned extermination of the leadership, not to one worker with a grudge.

This is exactly what Bush's pals in Colombia have done--systematic, planned extermination of union leaders, and anyone who supports or is allied with them--political leftists, human rights workers, small peasant farmers, community organizers, journalists and others--voters, union members, their kids. The bloodshed in Colombia is horrendous, and has likely spilled over into Venezuela, as a method for corrupt owners to deal with their "labor problem." Chiquita International executives in Colombia paid $1.7 million to rightwing death squads to kill some 4,000 union leaders, over a seven year period--something that our new Attorney General of the U.S., Eric Holder (if he gets confirmed), appointed by Obama, got the Chiquita execs off for. It's the standard U.S. corpo/fascist business practice in South America. You raise your head to ask for a fair wage, and it gets shot off.

I HATE to see this horror exported to other South American countries, and I hope Venezuelan investigators, prosecutors and courts catch the bastards and come down hard on these crimes. It needs to be nipped in the bud, or the whole continent will start smelling like Colombia: fetid with corpses.