Coke trade unionists in the firing line

international | worker & community struggles and protests | news report Friday February 16, 2007 00:41 by Topper - Colombia Solidarity Network

Trade unionists in Colombia have been threatened with execution by right-wing paramilitaries because of their role in the Coca Cola boycott campaign.

Trade unionists in Colombia have been threatened with execution by right-wing paramilitaries because of their role in the Coca Cola boycott campaign. The following message was delivered to the regional offices of the CUT, Colombia’s trade union federation, in Bucaramanga this week:

"AUC BLACK EAGLES

The demobilized [paramilitaries] of Magdalena Medio – Black Eagles make a call to the terrorist Coca-Cola trade unionists Javier Correa, Luis Garcia (alias El Chile), Domingo Flores (alias Fatty) and Nelson Perez that they stop bad mouthing the Coca-cola corporation given they have caused enough damage already, stop this campaign against corporations in Santander that help the f**ked of this country. [If there is] no response we declare them military targets of the Black Eagles as they prefer – death, torture, cut into pieces, coup de grace – in Magdalena Medio style – this defines you as terrorists of the guerrillas – no more noisy fuss – remember our commander Mancuso does not like noise. "

Javier Correa is the president of the SINALTRAINAL trade union which launched the call for a global boycott of Coke products in 2003. Luis Eduardo Garcia is a SINALTRAINAL leader in Bucaramanga who was framed by management in the Coca Cola plant; he spent six months in prison for alleged terrorist offences before the state prosecutor decided that evidence had been fabricated by factory managers. Both men have visited Ireland since 2003 to raise awareness of their campaign and build solidarity links.

The reality of the “peace process” in Colombia

The commander referred to by the paramilitaries is Salvatore Mancuso, the leader of the AUC – a far-right organisation responsible for thousands of killings in the last decade. Colombia’s president Alvaro Uribe has received western backing for his “peace process” with the AUC. Western governments (including our own) have helped fund the demobilization of paramilitary units. But human rights organisations have warned that the “demobilization” of the AUC is a façade, behind which the paramilitaries continue their old practices.

The threats against labour activists by followers of Salvatore Mancuso show how deceitful the “peace process” of president Uribe really is. As Javier Correa of SINALTRAINAL puts it: “This demonstrates that the process of demobilisation of the paramilitaries is purely rhetorical, since the death threats, assassinations, displacement, criminalisation and torture and other like practices are all continuing.”

Alvaro Uribe’s re-election last year was hailed by Washington, which sees his government as a regional bulwark against the rise of the Left in countries like Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador. Ana Corrigan explained in the Irish Times on the eve of the election that the paramilitaries were equally keen to see Uribe returned to power:

“The surge in the popularity of the left-wing candidate, Carlos Gaviria Diaz, has alarmed Mr Uribe's extreme right-wing supporters. Their agitation has been communicated in a series of threats sent to opposition and civic society organisations and individuals. The most recent, received on Wednesday, supposedly came from a "new" paramilitary group calling themselves the "armed wing" of the recently demobilised paramilitaries.

The message read, in part: "El senor presidente and his select group of collaborators know well that they have our total support. Therefore we warn you, one last time, that we are ready to fight to the death for the continuity of the presidential period of our legitimate leader. We will not permit a different result. If, on Sunday, the yellow shirts are in the majority, we will take care of dyeing them a different colour: blood red! This is our declaration of total war. All who do not accept the legitimacy of El Senor Presidente Alvaro Uribe Velez will be our next military target. Viva! The re-election of Alvaro Uribe Velez!"

Despite these threats, Carlos Gaviria Diaz got 22% of the vote, the strongest performance by a left-wing candidate for many years. More than fifty per cent of the electorate chose not to cast their ballots.

Green light for the paramilitaries

Since his re-election, Uribe and his government allies have given clear signals to the “demobilized” paramilitaries that action against trade unionists in the Coca Cola factories is necessary. In December 2006, Vice–President Francisco Santos told a radio station that “there are campaigns to malign Coca-Cola and Nestle as well as other private corporations led by sectors of the extreme radical left, infiltrated in trade unions, that are generating absolutely absurd campaigns against the corporations.”

This sort of talk is standard for the Uribe government: the president himself once described human rights NGOs as “political adventurers ultimately in the service of terrorism.” The discourse of the Uribe regime criminalises all forms of social protest as “terrorism”, and legitimises violent attacks on social organisations by the paramilitaries.

It also shows that the authorities in Colombia are enraged by the success of the international solidarity campaign with SINALTRAINAL. The violent intimidation of trade unionists working for Coke shows the close relationship between paramilitaries, multi-nationals and the state in Colombia – the paramilitaries do the dirty work of killing and torturing, the state makes it easy for them to operate, and the multi-nationals reap the financial rewards by driving labour costs down as far as they can go and trampling all over the rights of local communities.

By highlighting this relationship, the Coke boycott campaign has caused huge embarrassment to the Uribe government, which is heavily dependent on foreign support. US military aid to Colombia was suspended by Congress in the early 1990s because of gross human rights abuses. Bill Clinton and George Bush have restored the supply of weapons for domestic repression, and Colombia is now the 3rd biggest recipient of Washington’s support. Anything that exposes the bloody record of the Colombian state is a threat to this vital backing.

What you can do

The UK Colombia Solidarity Network are urging people to send emails to the Colombian embassy in London (there is no Irish embassy) at the following address mail@colombianembassy.co.uk, expressing concern at the threats made against SINALTRAINAL leaders by paramilitaries and demanding that the Colombian authorities protect them against these threats.

For more information:

www.lasc.ie

www.colombiasolidarity.org.uk

www.killercoke.org