Mission to Colombia calls for justice

Source: International Metalworkers Federation

Mission to Colombia calls for justice
Jul 27, 2010 – Anita Gardner

COLOMBIA: An international delegation of politicians, trade unionists and NGOs visited Colombia from July 20 to 24 to maintain the pressure for improved human and trade union rights in the world's most dangerous country for trade unionists. During the past 24 years, 2,800 unionists have been murdered, this year already 32 have been killed.

IMF general secretary Jyrki Raina participated in the mission to see how the IMF could contribute to efforts on improving conditions for trade unions to operate and to see whether the country's newly-elected President would offer any new hope.

The mission was organized by Justice for Colombia, an organization set up by British trade unions. The delegation, consisting of trade union leaders and members of the European Parliament and UK parliament, met with senior government figures in Colombia, including President-elect Juan Manuel Santos, future Vice President Angelino Garzón and future Foreign Minister María Angela Holguín who will be taking office on August 7, 2010.

Speaking about the mission, Jyrki Raina said, "President-elect Santos gave strong commitments on improving human and labour rights, including the creation of an inter-institutional body and dialogue with trade unions and civil society organizations. We will be watching closely to see what happens after his inauguration." Raina also noted that current negotiations for free trade agreements with the U.S. and the EU offered some opportunities for putting pressure on the Colombian government for improvements.


Read more: http://www.imfmetal.org/index.cfm?c=23658&l=2

Colombia: OAS rights commission condemns murder of indigenous leader

Submitted by WW4 Report on Tue, 08/03/2010 - 00:04. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) on Aug. 2 issued a statement strongly condemning the murder of Colombian indigenous leader Luis Alfredo Socarras Pimienta. The IACHR, an autonomous body of the Organization of American States (OAS), "urges the State of Colombia to investigate the crime committed against the indigenous leader Socarras Pimienta and to prosecute and punish those who perpetrated and planned the crime."

The statement adds that "the IACHR also urges the State to attend to the needs for protection and security of those who defend the rights of the indigenous peoples of Colombia, to ensure that crimes such as this one do not happen again."

Socarras was killed on July 27 in Riohacha, on the Caribbean coast. The murder was reportedly committed by a hit-man, who shot him in the doorway of his house before fleeing. An advocate for the rights of the Wayuu people, Socarras led numerous protests over the past year, and ran in two elections for mayor of Manaure municipality with the Polo Democratico Alternativo. A dentist by trade, he organized dental-care campaigns for communities in the Guajira Peninsula.

http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/11119-oas-body-condemns-murder-of-indigenous-leader.html

Colombia: unionist threatened, campesino leader seized

Submitted by Weekly News Update on Tue, 08/03/2010 - 09:40. Colombian union sources report that Alejandro Betancur, president of the Union of Mining Industry Workers (SINTRAMINEROS) in the northwestern department of Antioquia, received a death threat by telephone on July 26 in connection with his union activities. According to Carlos Julio, president of Colombia's Unitary Workers Central (CUT), Betancur was threatened because of his efforts on behalf of about 100 miners employed by companies belonging to Industrial Hullera, which is now in liquidation. The dispute, which has gone on for 13 years, concerns labor rights and pensions. (El Mundo, Medellín, July 31; Adital, Brazil, July 29)

Also in Antioquia, the Campesino Association of the Lower Cauca (ASOCBAC) charged on July 29 that José Alcides Ochoa, president of the Communal Action group in the village of El Rayo in Tarazá municipality, was illegally detained that morning by troops from the 25th Mobile Brigade of the army's Seventh Division. ASOCBAC called for the Public Ministry to locate Alcides Ochoa immediately and to start an investigation into the detention. The group is also asking for activists to write to Colombian president Álvaro Uribe Vélez (auribe@presidencia.gov.co ), president elect Francisco Santos (fsantos@presidencia.gov.co ) and other officials to demand an end to human rights abuses by the 25th Mobile Brigade and other military units. (ASOCBAC urgent action, July 29 via Colombia Indymedia; El Mundo, July 31)

http://ww4report.com/node/8906

August 3, 2010
Operation False Positive
Behind the Colombia / Venezuela Tensions
By CONN HALLINAN

If you want to understand what’s behind the recent tension between Colombia and Venezuela, think “smokescreen,” and then go back several months to some sick children in the Department of Meta, just south of Bogota. The children fell ill after drinking from a local stream, a stream contaminated by the bodies of more than 2,000 people, secretly buried by the Colombian military.

According to the Colombian high command, the mass grave just outside the army base at La Macarena contains the bodies of guerilla fighters killed between 2002 and 2009 in that country’s long-running civil war. But given the army’s involvement in the so-called “false positive” scandal, human rights groups are highly skeptical that the dead are members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the National Liberation Army, the two insurgent groups fighting the central government.

“False positive” is the name given to the Colombian armed forces operation that murdered civilians and then dressed them up in insurgent uniforms in order to demonstrate the success of the army’s counterinsurgency strategy, thus winning more aid from the U.S. According to the human rights organizations Comision de Derechos Homanos del Bajo Ariari and Colectivo Orlando Fals Borda, some 2,000 civilians have been murdered under the program.

The bodies at La Macarena have not been identified yet, but suspicion is that they represent victims of the “false-positive” program, as well as rural activists and trade unionists. The incoming Colombian president, Juan Manuel Santos, was defense secretary when the murders were talking place. Santos also oversaw a brief invasion of Ecuador in 2008 that reportedly killed a number of insurgents. The invasion was widely condemned throughout Latin America.

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/hallinan08032010.html