Vice Chair meets Sinaltrainal leader and a massacre survivor

Issued : Wednesday 13 July, 2005

David Geary Vice Chair of Labour Youth met Edgar Paez head of international relations with Sinaltrainal in their offices in Bogota on Monday. David is participating in a delegation of student and trade union activists who are meeting with trade union, youth, student, farmer, peasant, womens and progressive organisations in Colombia.

Edgar Paez outlined developments in the boycott coke campaign. There are boycott coke campaign groups in over 67 US universities while 250 town halls in Italy have joined the boycott. Due to the pressure of the campaign Coca Cola have met with Sinaltrainal to discuss possible reparations. However to date they have not committed a single cent in compensation for Sinaltrainal members, but instead have launced a 10 million dollar fund for victims of violence in Colombia as a PR exercise. This fund as it stands will do nothing for the orphans of Isidro Gil and his wife or the other family members of deceased Coca Cola workers.

Edgar Paez stated that the strength of the campaign internationally has caused Coke to set up a website to dispute the allegations and have forced them to create the 10 million dollar fund. However he stated that the campaign will need to be stepped up over the coming months in order to ensure that Coke meet the demands of the campaign rather than simply investing in PR stunts.

The Labour Youth Vice Chair and other members of the delegation briefed Edgar Paez on developments in the campaign in Ireland and Europe. Sinaltrainal expressed their appreciation for the motions passed sucessfully at the USI congress and ECOSY congress. They also heard how a motion was overwhelmingly passed at the Labour Party national conference in support of Sinaltrainals campaign. Edgar Paez stated that trade unions who were opposing the boycott were legitimising the violent human rights abuses of the paramilitaries operating in the interests of multinationals.

Edgar outlined the importance of the boycott coke campaign as a means of establishing the responsibility of multinationals operating in Colombia as the driving force behing paramilitarism.

Earlier in the day David and the other members of the delegation visited the offices of the Mining Workers Union which had been bombed by the paramilitaries in May 2004. The president of the union Francisco Ramirez outlined the ongoing activity of the paramilitaries in the regions of oil exploration and exploitation. He described how the task of environmental regulation had been transferred from a state agency to the companies themselves. He further described how royalties from oil production had been slashed alongside taxes in a country where 160 children die every day from malnutrition or a lack of medical attention. Furthermore the Harken Energy company which is owned by the Bush family has received even morefavourable treatment with 3 dollars of tax reduced off each barrell of oil it exports.

The delegation then met with Debora Barros Fince a member of the Wayuu indigenous community. She spoke of the events of the 18th April 2004. At 3 am the men in her community had left as usual to travel several miles to work in the fishing industry. Due to severe water pollution by multinationals the men in the port town had to travel a long distance to reach clean waters. At 5.30am 150 paramilitaries entered the village, many of them recognised as members of the local state military. The first house they entered was the house of Deboras aunt. They took her out of the house, cut her head off and chopped it in two with a machette in front of the local children. They moved from house to house and took another aunt of Deboras from her house. This time they stuck a grenade in her mouth and made it explode. They then took three children aged 9, 10 and 11 and chopped them up, put them in car and set it on fire.

Realising that the army were involved Debora and her community fled across the border to Venezuela. She told how her five year old son knows "that my grandmother is dead because he saw me pick up her body parts". Debora who has spoken out publicy about the massacre in her village explained how she has received numerous threats from the paramilitaries. She told the Irish delegation that she "would rather die speaking out than die in silence".

HIGGINS CALLS FOR RELEASE OF TRADE UNION OFFICIAL

Labour Party President and Spokesperson for Foreign Affairs, Michael D Higgins TD, has echoed calls regarding the detention by the Colombian secret police, on Wednesday 1st June, of trade union activist Hernando Hernandez Tapasco.

Mr Hernandez Tapasco works in the human rights department of Colombia's second largest union FENSUAGRO which represents agricultural workers, and has previously visited Ireland.

Deputy Higgins commented: 'The continued harassment and mistreatment of trade union officials is to be deplored and I would like to add my voice to those who have called for Mr Tapasco's speedy release.

'The concern in this instance is heightened due to the fact that the FENSUAGRO General Secretary, Luz Perly Cordoba, was recently detained, for what the Colombian authorities described as 'rebellion', and held for over a year before being released for lack of evidence.

'The fear must be that, without intervention from the international community, a similar miscarriage of justice could occur in this case. I call on the Minister for Foreign Affairs to make representations in this regard to the Colombian authorities and hope that a resolution may be reached'.