Mineworkers’ Leader, Rafael Tobón, Gunned Down in Antioquía, Colombia

Source: International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions

1 August 2011
Mineworkers’ Leader, Rafael Tobón, Gunned Down in Antioquía, Colombia

The ICEM condemns the cowardly assassination of Colombian mineworkers’ leader Rafael Tobón Zea on 26 July. Tobón was shot three times and killed by paramilitaries near his home in the city of Segovia, Antioquía department, about 220 kilometres north of Medellín.

Rafael Tobón, 40, was a leader of the metal and mineworkers’ union Sintramienegética, where he was a founding member of that union at Frontino Gold Mines Ltd. He worked there for 15 years and was still assisting discharged miners of Frontino after the Medellín-based company liquidated and its underground mines were bought last year by Modoro Resources Ltd. of Canada and Gran Colombia Gold S.A.

He was working in a smaller gold mine in Antioquía department and organising workers there when he was killed last week. Sintramienegética had reported threats to its leaders that were believed to be tied to the contested takeover of Frontino by Modora and Gran Colombia, and the sacking of all miners.

The ICEM calls on the government of Colombia and the authorities in Segovia and Antioquía state to spare no resource in apprehending and bringing to justice the perpetrators of this heinous crime. Let there be no impunity for the miscreants of Colombia who take the lives of trade unionists in cold blood.

Read more: http://www.icem.org/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/4575-Mineworkers-Leader-Rafael-Tobón-Gunned-Down-in-Antioquía-Colombia

Right.

Damn them. RIP Tobón.

This is just the latest outrage against Columbian workers in a long history of such attrocities. If the US government even considers treating Columbia as anything other than a outlaw state, it is blow to workers everywhere.

THIS is why we need a worker's militia. They need to be discouraged from trying to kill us.

n/t

...with, among other things, appointment to a cushy academic sinecure at Georgetown University (alumni include, for instance, George Tenet--to give you a sense of its ties with the U.S. government), a local Jesuit priest in Antioquía wrote to his fellow Jesuits at Georgetown, laying out Uribe's history of association with rightwing death squads in Antioquía (where Uribe got his start) and pleading with them not to honor Uribe. Georgetown went ahead with the appointment anyway--as did Harvard. And it's interesting what happened when Uribe showed up at Harvard (to teach "international law"--Gawd!). He got slapped with a subpoena to testify in the Drummond Coal death squad case (a U.S. case brought by the survivors of trade unionists murdered by Drummond Coal's hit squads in Colombia). Next we hear, the U.S. State Department writes a letter to the judge pressuring him NOT to compel Uribe to testify and implying that "national security" is a concern.

There is more to tell about all this (WHY the U.S. government is protecting and coddling Uribe and the other ways they are doing so), but I want first to point out, as the local Jesuit did, that Uribe's career began in Antioquía with death squad murders, intimidation and corruption. That's where Uribe began to build the criminal organization that propelled him to the notice of the Bush Junta and into the presidency of Colombia, where rightwing death squad crimes like this received Uribe's direct government assistance, including a vast, illegal, domestic spying operation--spying against trade unionists, human rights workers, teachers, community activists, Indigenous and peasant farmer leaders, journalists, political leftists and others--thousands of whom have been murdered by the rightwing death squads--as well as spying on judges and prosecutors, to monitor their investigations and anticipate their legal actions, and to issue death threats against them.

Colombia, under Uribe, was the Bush Junta's "best friend"--indeed, just about their only friend--in South America, and received, among other things, $7 BILLION in U.S. military aid and the training and technical assistance of the U.S. military and its contractors, on the ground, in Colombia, at numerous military bases. Amnesty International attributes 92% of the murders of trade unionists to the Colombian military itself (about half) and its closely tied rightwing paramilitaries (the other half)--a study of such murders during the mid-2000s. So clearly the mob that took over Colombia was not confined to Uribe and his government but included the U.S.-funded Colombian military. And not only did these death-dealers hit grass roots advocates of the poor--in an effort to decapitate the labor and other progressive leadership of the country--they also had a military POLICY of rewarding military units with bonuses and promotions on a 'per body' basis, in the U.S./Colombian war against armed leftist guerrillas, which resulted in the military murdering civilians and dressing their bodies up like FARC guerrillas (the infamous "false positives" scandal). The military combined with the paramilitaries death squads created a reign of terror, during which 5 MILLION peasant farmers were forced off their lands--the worst human displacement crisis in the world.

The culture of murder was endemic. This culture of murder is clearly still in place, and is likely in place as an on-going rightwing criminal NETWORK--a massive country-wide 'mafia'--serving the interests of U.S. (and Canadian) multinational corporations and war profiteers, and possibly anticipating Uribe's return to power, after the U.S. government finishes "laundering" Uribe's image. (Uribe quite obviously has such ambitions.)

It all started in Antioquía, and it is still going on in Antioquía--and, under Uribe and the Bush Junta, was spread throughout the country to epidemic levels.

Colombian prosecutors are getting closer and closer to Uribe, on the illegal domestic spying scandal. They just arrested his second in command on the spying program and have an Interpol warrant out for his spying chief, Maria Hurtado, who fled to the U.S. client state of Panama and received instant asylum there from the rightwing government. That asylum is so controversial that it may bring down the (already very unpopular) rightwing government and they may have to yield on it. Also, the Obama government may have to, eventually, jettison Uribe as simply too "hot" to protect. And maybe they want to. It's hard to tell.

I think their CIA Director (Daddy Bush pal) Leon Panetta gave Uribe "the hook" as to the presidency--probably because Uribe is so filthy dirty and prosecutable in Colombia (and Colombia's judges and prosecutors don't seem to be bought-and-paid-for and are apparently impervious to intimidation--some very courageous people there). One of Panetta's first acts as CIA Director was to visit Bogota amidst rumors of a Uribe coup to stay in power. Panetta may have put the kobosh on that. Uribe's former defense minister, Manuel Santos, was then elected president--if "election" is the right word in a country where political murder and terror are so endemic and where the U.S. government and military are so embedded. Nobody seems to have anything on Santos as to criminal activities, and he did make peace with Venezuela. (Uribe and the Rumsfeld/fascist establishment here were trying to instigate a war.) But it remains to be seen whether or not Santos is just a cosmetic curtain over the horrors in Colombia.

Although Colombian prosecutors and judges are doing what they can, most murders such as this go unsolved (murders of the poor and their advocates). Among the reasons for this lack of justice may be U.S. interference in the Colombian justice system--for instance, the U.S. government's midnight extraditions (with Uribe compliciy) of death squad witnesses to the U.S., on mere drug charges, and their "burial" in the U.S. federal prison system (by complete sealing of their cases), out of the reach of Colombian prosecutors and over their objections. This occurred circa 2009-2010, with Obama administration complicity. Another may be the fake "demobilization" of the rightwing AUC death squads, with the death squads merely morphing into a new organization, the "Black Eagles" --which occurred in the mid-2000s, under Uribe and the Bushwhacks.

Underneath the mystery of the Obama administration's behavior regarding Uribe may be Bush Junta crimes in Colombia--because, after Panetta yanked Uribe, the U.S. then began to protect and coddle Uribe. Uribe may know things about Junior, about Rumsfeld and his operatives in Colombia, about where cocaine profits (trillion+ dollar industry) got directed to, and so on. Thus, Uribe gets the immunity that was extended to Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld and other Bushwhacks. But this is a much trickier business in a region that has gone almost entirely leftist and democratic, and where war crimes are being dug up from past "dirty wars" and prosecuted. Our people may be easy to put to sleep. Latin Americans are not--or not any more. And the same people who object to war crimes--the many leftist leaders and their many supporters in South America--also control corporate business, contracts for resource exploitation, labor conditions, environmental protections and economic policies of every kind. And IF the Obama administration wants to serve U.S. corporate interests--rather a given, I would say--they cannot be seen as supporting a war criminal in that region. They may be between "a rock and hard place" on this. Uribe is a pariah and may well end up in jail (or with an Interpol warrant out against him, from Colombian prosecutors). How can the Obama administration protect Bush Junta war criminals (war crimes and other crimes in Colombia), keep Uribe's lip zipped and appear benign as to trade relations and other policies?

I think it's possible that the Obama administration, or some altruistic faction within the Obama administration, wants Uribe's crimes and possible (I would say probable) Bush Junta crimes to be exposed. On the surface--apparent in their actions--they are engaged in a coverup. (They've taken many actions to frustrate Colombian prosecutors and judges--not just the Hurtado asylum and the death squad extraditions--also a secret U.S./Colombia military agreement that included "total diplomatic immunity" for all U.S. military personnel and all U.S. military 'contractors', signed by Uribe--which points to U.S. complicity in crimes.) But maybe, just maybe, there is a conflicting current--some "good guys" in the U.S. government trying to do the right thing. ??? I hope so. But it is probably a naive hope.

In any case--whatever "wars" may be going on within our very secretive, corporate/war profiteer-controlled government--we need to be aware that violence like this in Colombia is NOT RANDOM--it's not some rogue "gang" of narco-traffickers or merely local rightwing thugs. It is a criminal organization--fostered by the Uribe and U.S. governments, and vastly "beneficial" to U.S. (and Canadian) corporations and the super-rich. This criminal organization may not have the direct help of the Colombia and U.S. governments this year. But they've had such help for the last decade and are very likely planning--with murders like this, with on-going terror--their return to direct control of the state apparatus--just like the Bushwhacks are planning here.

Let us hope that Columbia's neighbors become a greater influence on that country than the USA and corporate interests.