USW Condemns Latest in Wave of Colombian Assassinations

Source: United Steelworkers

USW Condemns Latest in Wave of Colombian Assassinations

PITTSBURGH, Aug. 26 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- United Steelworkers (USW) International President Leo W. Gerard has condemned the unending violence and murder that has claimed the lives of 25 labor union members and activists so far this year in Colombia.

In a letter to Colombia President Alvara Uribe Velez, Gerard expressed grave concern about the latest killing. Gustavo Gomez, of SINALTRAINAL, a union that the USW has worked with for almost a decade, was gunned down in his home in Dosquebradas, Colombia on Aug. 21

"We urge the Colombian government to investigate and punish the perpetrators and instigators of this crime and to protect the lives of members of SINALTRAINAL and their families,'' Gerard wrote.

The Colombia labor movement has been the target of an intimidation campaign without parallel in the contemporary world. Thousands of union leaders and activists have been assassinated there since the mid 1980s.

Gerard also expressed concern to President Uribe over the continued imprisonment of Alirio Garcia, a legal officer of the Colombian Agricultural Workers Union (FENSUAGRO) and his wife, Rosalba Gaviria Toro, a leading FENSUAGRO member.


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cry to the OAS or the US since Colombia is not interested in stopping the murders?

No end to assassinations of trade unionists in Colombia

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Brussels, 27 August 2009: Once again the ITUC must strongly denounce and condemn the death of a Colombian trade unionist. This time the victim was Fredy Díaz Ortiz, a member of the prison workers’ union Asociación Sindical de Empleados del Instituto Nacional Penitenciario y Carcelario (ASEINPEC) affiliated to the Confederación General del Trabajo (CGT), who was killed on 22 August 2009 in the city of Valledupar, César.

The ITUC joins TUCA and its Colombian affiliates in roundly condemning this murder, which is yet another source of grief for workers and the national, regional and international trade union movement. The assassination took place as Fredy Díaz Ortiz was waiting for a lift to his place of work at the Maximum Security Prison in Valledupar. Two unidentified persons on a motorcycle fired several bullets at him and the brutal attack resulted in his death.

In a letter to the Colombian authorities and the Office of the Public Prosecutor the ITUC asked them to take urgent measures to start an immediate, rigorous investigation into the facts of the case and make an example of the perpetrators of this vile murder by punishing them in a befitting manner.

“This new violent death of a trade unionist is intolerable. A true democracy capable of protecting the country’s trade unionists and workers needs to be built in Colombia”, declared Guy Ryder, General Secretary of the ITUC.

http://www.ituc-csi.org/spip.php?article4245