Solidarity with Colombian social movements

dublin | anti-war / imperialism | event notice Tuesday November 11, 2008 00:10 by Grupo Raíces - Grúpa Fréamhacha

Public talk where participants in an Irish delegation to a Colombian conference of social movements will let the public know of the current situation on Colombia, of the efforts and struggle of social organisations to defend their rights and of ways to support and show active solidarity with the Colombian people.

Great changes are happening in Colombia, where an appalling war of terror against trade unionists, indigenous peoples, and communities has left a people caught up in unimaginable violence. Chain saw massacres, forced disappearances and rape, have been a persistent scourge of the people and villages through 30 years of political violence. Now the government, with its gruesome links to paramilitarism is being challenged by the bulk of society and even in the Colombian courts. This has opened a space for a social movements - a broad coalition which gathers trade unions, peasant organisations, Indigenous communities, Afro-Colombians’ movements, women's groups and grassroots Christian communities to come together under the banner of the Coalition of Social Movements (CoMoSoc), to raise a world - wide cry for an end to sixty years of slaughter.

On the 16th-19th of October, the CoMoSoc held a national conference where issues such as a peace agenda with social justice, the rights of victims and the struggle for social rights were discussed. An Irish delegation was present at the event to strenghten the solidarity links we have built for the last year. This delegation was composed of Fr. Raymond Murray (Chaplin of Armagh's prison and an activist of the Civil Roghts movement in the North), Michael Dowling (trade unionist from SIPTU) and a Colombian resident in Ireland who is also a member of Grupo Raíces -Grúpa Fréamhacha.

They will let the public know their views and experiences as part of the delegation, and will appeal to more solidarity with the delicate humanitarian situation of social movements in Colombia, in a Public Talk co-organised by SIPTU and the Grupo Raíces (Grúpa Fréamhacha).

Social Hall in Liberty Hall,
Dublin 1,
November 24th
19:00 o'clock

Also, a docummentary on the reality of trade unionists in Colombia will be screened at the event

"Colombian trade unionists in the firing line" (Justice for Colombia, 2006. 5 minutes)