Hoffa: Colombia doesn't deserve anti-worker trade pact

[Judi Lynn]

Wednesday, September 9, 2009 .James P. Hoffa: Labor Voices
Hoffa: Colombia doesn't deserve anti-worker trade pact

The Colombian government is putting its prettiest face forward this week in hopes of getting an ugly trade deal with the United States.

The Colombian Embassy is placing 47 giant heart sculptures throughout Washington, D.C. It is also giving away 25,000 Colombian flowers in Union Station and encouraging photo ops with Juan Valdez.

But hearts, flowers and Juan Valdez don't tell the whole truth about Colombia.

Colombia engages in systematic aggression against workers. Union leaders are routinely threatened with death, spied on, harassed, blacklisted, kidnapped, imprisoned, tortured and killed.

Gustavo Gomez is the latest of the thousands of innocent union members to be assassinated in Colombia. Gomez was a Nestle employee working on a lawful petition drive for the Colombian Food Service Workers Union. He opened his front door two weeks ago, and strangers shot him point blank 10 times.

His killers haven't been found -- and they probably won't be. In only 3.3 percent of Colombia's 2,700 union murder cases since 1986 have suspects been tried and convicted. Six in 10 union murders haven't even been investigated.

That isn't an accident. The government of President Alvaro Uribe cultivates a climate of fear to weaken trade unions and political opponents. Time and again, government officials accuse trade unionists of links to terrorism. Those are killing words. Paramilitaries and government security forces routinely murder people tied -- without evidence -- to guerrilla groups.

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http://www.detnews.com/article/20090909/OPINION03/909090322/1007/rss07