Volume 10, No.2 - March 2001

We're part of the union

Colombia

77 Colombian trade unionists assassinated in 2000; the murders continue in 2001

The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) has reported new killings of trade unionists in Colombia to the ILO (International Labour Organisation)'s Committee on Freedom of Association.

The Confederation has pointed to assassinations, bomb attacks or kidnappings in 2001 and reiterated its denunciation of trade union rights violations.

In June 2000 the Confederation of Colombian Workers (CUT) declared a human rights emergency, due to the large increase in crimes against trade unionists and CUT members in particular. According to Jesus Antonio Gonzalez Luna, Director of CUT's Human Rights Department, 77 trade unionists were assassinated during 2000.

Moreover, the statistics are almost certainly incomplete, as they leave out people who 'disappeared', who are probably victims of assassinations and in over 95% of cases are never seen again. Gilberto Agudelo Martinez, for example, the national president of the University Workers Union of Colombia, was taken by paramilitaries on 7 April 2000 and has still not been found.

On top of these attacks, three trade union members have been severely injured as a result of assassination attempts by paramilitary death squads. The statistics also miss the numerous trade unionists who have had to flee their homes and become internal refugees or been forced to flee the country and become external refugees.

As part of the state-sponsored 'dirty war' against anyone who opposes government policies, thousands of union members, priests, land reform activists, journalists, community workers and human rights investigators are murdered by the Colombian military and police forces and their paramilitary death squad allies each year.

In Tibu, workers at the municipal hospital, and even patients, have been declared possible guerrilla sympathisers and at least three have been murdered in recent months.

The Colombian government continues to deny that many of these attacks are politically motivated and insists the paramilitaries are not linked to the official security forces. Every trade union in Colombia, and all legitimate human rights groups and NGOs, say this is not so and that the military and police not only cooperate with the death squads but sometimes do so openly. They not only stand by doing nothing whilst such attacks occur but they are also probably participating in them.

I t is very well documented, for example, that General Alberto Bravo Silva, then head of the 5th Brigade of the army was deeply involved in organising the paramilitary massacre outside Tibu in August 1999. The ICFTU has warned that this steep increase in violent attacks against trade unionists will, if continued, leave it with no alternative but to resume its campaign for the appointment of a special ILO Commission of Inquiry, one of the strongest measures available to the ILO.

In March, the ILO Governing Body is expected to examine the second report of the ILO Director General's Special Representative for Colombia, appointed in June 2000 as a compromise, which allowed the Colombian government to temporarily avoid the scrutiny of an international judicial investigation into violence against the country's trade union movement.

For more information, please contact the ICFTU Press Department on +32 2 224 0210

Below is a list of trade union members murdered or disappeared in just a few weeks this year.

8 February Alfonso Alejandro Naar Hernandez - murdered on the inter-municipal highway near Arauca. Member of the teachers union, FECODE.

26 January Carlos Humberto Trujillo - murdered in Buga. Member of the Judicial Workers Union.

26 January Walter Edwin Perea - murdered in Copacabana. Departmental delegate of the education union ADIDA, assassinated in front of his family after paramilitaries forced their way into his house.

24 January Jose Luis Guete - murdered in Cienaga. President of the Banana Workers Union of Magdalena.

21 January Jair Cubides murdered in Cali. Member of the Department of Valle Workers' Union.

19 January Arturo Alarcon - murdered in Piendamo. Member of the teachers union, FECODE, and activist for the CUT. 19 January Ruben Dario Gallego - 'disappeared' by paramilitary forces in Rionegro. Member of the teachers union, FECODE, and an activist for the CUT. He has not been seen since.

17 January Miguel Antonio Medina Bohorquez - murdered in Altagracia, near Pereira. Member of the Education Workers and Employees Union.

17 January Tello Barragan Aldona - murdered in Santa Marta. Vice-president of the local Lottery Workers Union and CUT activist.

14 January German Medina Gavira - taken away by paramilitaries in Cali and has not been seen since. Member of the Municipal Workers Union of Cali.