Home to Half of World’s Union Murders, Colombia Excluded from ILO’s Sanctions List

[Judi Lynn]

Source: International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions

14 June 2010
Home to Half of World’s Union Murders, Colombia Excluded from ILO’s Sanctions List

In 2009, according to the annual survey of the International Trade Union Confederation’s (ITUC), 101 murders of trade unionists occurred worldwide. Colombia again was the leader among countries with 48. Despite the gruesome repeat, the ILO’s Committee on the Application of Standards, on 5 June, excluded Colombia from the list of 25 countries sanctioned for trade union rights abuses.

The ICEM expresses disbelief over the omitting of Colombia, and itself sanctions employers’ representatives at the ILO for manipulating the exclusion. The ICEM also calls attention to the fact that President Álvaro Uribe Vélez immediately used Colombia’s elimination to promote free trade agreements with North American nations and the European Union.

It was the first time in 20 years that Colombia, far and away the most dangerous country in the world for trade unionists to carry out their activities, was left off the list. The ITUC reports that over the last decade, 63% of all trade union murders occurred in Colombia. It counts at least 10,887 acts of violence against unionists, and over the past 24 years, 2,832 murders occurred.

“The ICEM is appalled at the political power play by employers’ representatives, both from Colombia and elsewhere, to exclude Colombia from the list of 25,” said ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda. “Not only do murders, telephone threats, physical assaults continue there on a regular basis, but despite government rhetoric, impunity for such crimes is nearly always certain.”

Read more: http://www.icem.org/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/3848-Home-to-Half-of-World’s-Union-Murders-Colombia-Excluded-from-ILO’s-Sanctions-List

[xchrom]

1. Recommend

[Dhalgren]

2. And this in conjunction with an increase in US troops in Colombia.

The US Mercenaries may not actually be killing these folk, but their guns are there...

[Peace Patriot]

3. I have some suspicions about the massacre in La Macarena, Colombia, nearby to a U.S. military base.

The La Macarena massacre (includes a description of, and links to docs about, U.S. ops in La Macarena, where a mass grave was recently found, containing up to 2,000 bodies whom local people say were local, 'disappeared' community activists)
http://www.cipcol.org/?p=1303

The UK military connection
http://www.tribunemagazine.co.uk/2010/02/04/silence-on-british-army-link-to-colombian-mass-grave/

U.S. and Colombia Cover Up Atrocities Through Mass Graves, by Dan Kovalik 4/1/10
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-kovalik/us-colombia-cover-up-atro_b_521402.html

Colombia: Mass Grave Discovered In La Macarena
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO1005/S00001.htm

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My suspicion that the U.S. military may have participated comes from attendant facts, not from any direct evidence. The proximity to a U.S. military base (I mean, how could up to 2,000 local people be slaughtered like this, and the U.S. commanders at the nearby base are doing what? Playing checkers? Playing video games? The rot from this pile of corpses was so bad that local children got sick from drinking the water!). The similarity to U.S. military "pacification" programs in Afghanistan (and Iraq). The provision in the secretly negotiated, recent U.S./Colombia military agreement for "total diplomatic immunity" for all U.S. military personnel and all U.S. 'contractors' in Colombia. The SILENCE of the corpo-fascist press about this massacre. Something SMELLS.

I believe that it is U.S. policy (the real policy, not the stated policy) to FUND the use of terror to kill off and intimidate the advocates of the poor--union leaders, human rights workers, teachers, peasant farmer organizers, community activists--in Colombia. The Colombian military is responsible for HALF of the murders of union leaders, for instance (and their closely tied death squads for the other half--according to Amnesty International). And they receive $7 BILLION in U.S. taxpayer-funded military aid--the biggest U.S. military aid package in the world outside of Israel. The mass slaughter of advocates of the poor has been funded by you and me and occurs with a "wink and a nod" from the U.S. government. There is no question that our government is indirectly responsible for this death and mayhem. But U.S. military or U.S. 'contractor' use of these killing fields possibly for "turkey shoot" practice for Afghanistan, or for whatever purpose, is quite another thing. And that is what I suspect that this "total diplomatic immunity" provision may be all about. La Macarena is the first Colombian massacre story that I have reviewed that has hints of possible U.S. military participation and/or collusion. It needs a full investigation--yet it has not even made it into the controlled press, while other instances of Colombian military death and mayhem have at least been mentioned (especially since the CIA apparently decided to dump their boy Uribe and his hit man, Santos, who is running for president to replace him). THIS story seems to be taboo. Why?

[Dhalgren]

4. Great connecting the dots, Peace Patriot!

And thanks fore the links.

"The mass slaughter of advocates of the poor" makes me sick. I came across an article about the systematic destruction of tribal societies by the capitalist powers, this is in line with that. I will see if I can find that article.

[Dhalgren]

5. Here you go:

The Global War on Tribes
By Zoltan Grossman


April 13, 2010

The so-called "Global War on Terror" is quickly growing outside the borders of Iraq and Afghanistan, into new battlegrounds in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and beyond. The Pentagon is vastly increasing missile and gunship attacks, Special Forces raids, and proxy invasions--all in the name of combating "Islamist terrorism." Yet within all five countries, the main targets of the wars are predominantly "tribal regions," and the old frontier language of Indian-fighting is becoming the lexicon of 21st-century counterinsurgency. The "Global War on Terror" is fast morphing into a "Global War on Tribes."

Tribal regions are local areas where tribes are the dominant form of social organization, and tribal identities often trump state, ethnic, and even religious identities. Tribal peoples have a strongly localized orientation, tied to a particular place. Their traditional societies are based on a common culture, dialect, and kinship ties (through single or multiple clans). Although they are tribal peoples, they are not necessarily Indigenous peoples--who generally follow nature-centered spiritual and cultural systems. Nearly all tribal communities in the Middle East and Central Asia have been Islamicized or Christianized, but they still retain their ancient social bonds.

Yet modern counterinsurgency doctrine only views tribal regions as festering cauldrons of lawlessness, and "breeding grounds" for terrorism, unless the tribes themselves are turned against the West's enemies. The London Times (1/5/10), for example, crudely asserts that Yemen's "mountainous terrain, poverty and lawless tribal society make it... a close match for Afghanistan as a new terrorist haven." This threatening view of tribal regions is, of course, as old as European colonialism itself.

Long article very good...
http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/154-general/48954-the-global-war-on-tribes.html

[Peace Patriot]

6. Thanks for the info, Dahlgren! A very interesting analysis! nt