They Are Still Murdering Labor Unionists in Colombia

[Judi Lynn]

They Are Still Murdering Labor Unionists in Colombia

April 22, 2008
Memo to the Clinton Campaign
They Are Still Murdering Labor Unionists in Colombia
By DAVID MACARAY

Even though the Colombian government argues that the level of violence has, in fact, declined, there have been more than 2,500 union members murdered in Colombia since 1985. More than 400 have been killed since 2002, when conservative president Alvaro Uribe took office, and 19 union members and leaders have already been killed this year.

According to statistics compiled by the National Labor School, a research organization located in Medellin, Colombia, of those 2,500 murders, less than 5 per cent of the cases have resulted in convictions.

So who is murdering these union members and why are they doing it? Based on press reports and information supplied by human rights agencies, the murders are being committed by right-wing paramilitary groups and “private armies” who suspect labor unions of harboring left-wing activists or sympathizers, or of being infiltrated by left-wing rebels who actively oppose Uribe’s conservative government.

In Latin America there is a long history of home-grown leftist opposition to government collusion with Yankee-led business interests. Labor unions in the rough and tumble country of Colombia are even less popular with Big Business and Big Government than they are in the United States. At least, these days, in the U.S., business and government interests combine to litigate or legislate a union to death, not murder it outright.

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/macaray04222008.html