Baltimore Report Back from Bogota

December 16, 2002--Hollywood and the popular media have done tremendous damage to the working class struggleâ??both at home and abroad! Countless movies have saturated the minds of workers and the poor in this country portraying the people of Colombia as ruthless and sadistic drug lords who are bent on doing anything to bolster their profits and empires. This includes torture, murder, and kidnappings. When the average person in the United States thinks of the people of South America it is this image that appears in their mind.

It is also the one that the U.S. government and Pentagon are actively promoting to justify â??Plan Colombiaâ?? or what has now become known as the â??Andean Regional Initiativeâ??.

The tragedy is that this virulent racism has completely obscured the truth.

If Hollywood were to produce a movie that conveyed the truth about Colombia, it would substitute an entirely different cast of characters and the plot would be turned upside down.

Instead of so-called Colombian drug dealers, it would be the well-healed and double-breasted suited executives of Coca-Cola and the other transnational corporations who would be cast as the villains. These clean-cut all American boys would be plotting the murders, tortures and kidnappings of innocent people as they do in real life. They would be soliciting and toasting to the not so-brave and heroic generals of the Pentagon and their junior partners in Colombia and conniving with the good Senators and Congress people to increase funding for a diabolic plot whose aim is to suck dry the very life blood and resources of the beautiful country of Colombia. They would be winking their eye, turning their head, and even arranging Ku Klux Klan style terror and then spouting the worst sort of lies and cover-up. They would be the campesinos, the peasants, who are trying to resist the destruction of their land by the Pentagonâ??s aerial spraying of Fusarium Oxysporum, a fungus that threatens the ecological system and the health of the entire region. It would be the community organizers in Southern Bogot? who are fighting against privatization and fighting to survive in an economy wrecked by capitalist crisis and the IMF that has left over 20% of the population unemployed and 60% under-employed. It would be the indigenous people, the Afro-Colombians and youth who are fighting for survival.

And it would especially be the truly brave union brothers and sisters of Colombia who are enduring murders, jail cells, and torture to win rights for workers.

And if this movie were to be completely accurate, it would also allow the representatives and freedom fighters of the FARC-EP (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-Peoples Army) and the ELN (National Liberation Army), the two largest and oldest insurgent groups, to explain their history and struggle accurately and fairly.

Sisters and brothers, I donâ??t expect that this movie will be produced any time soon.

U.S. DELEGATION TRAVELS TO BOGOTA, COLOMBIA TO PARTICIPATE IN TRIBUNAL AND PROTESTS

I was privileged to be part of a 22-person delegation organized by the International Action Center and the Committee for a New Colombia that attended both an international tribunal to indict Coca-Cola and other transnational corporations and to demand reparations.

In the course of our stay, we were also able to take part in a number of protests and informal meetings.

The conveners of the Tribunal included SINALTRAINAL (the food and beverage workers union representing Coca-Cola workers), the United Center of Colombian Workers (CUT), the General Democratic Workers Confederation (CGTD), Campaign Against Impunity-Colombia Clamors for Justice, and the Corporation for Education and the Development and Popular Studies-National Union Institute (Ced-Ins).

What we learned during this trip was shocking, moving, and inspiring.

Four out of every 5 trade unionists murdered in the world are from Colombia. This figure does not include those that are tortured, jailed, kidnapped or missing. This statistic alone, as shocking and horrible as it is does not fully tell the individual story of the terror inflicted upon the men and women of the union movement in Colombia or their families.

As delegates we were soon to learn first hand from the workers what it means to be a trade unionist in Colombia.

The December 5th date of this tribunal was chosen to commemorate the death of Isidro Segundo Gil who on this very date six years ago was assassinated at the Coca-Cola plant in Carepa del Uraba, Antioguia.

Segundo had been a union leader in this northwestern banana region. He was the General Secretary at the time of his murder and a member of the negotiating committee. Coca-Cola had refused to negotiate with the workers regarding demands presented to the company on November 30, 1996. His brother was later forced to resign from his position due to death threats. On November 18, 2000, Segundoâ??s wife, Carmen Herrera Perez was taken from her house and murdered just a few feet away.

SINITRAINAL, the union representing Coca-Cola and other food and beverage workers has had its union reduced from 5,400 to 2,300 members as a result of systematic repression. Coca-Cola now employs 80% of its workforce as temporary contact employees who are paid less than minimum wage and who are forced to work 16-hour shifts. These contract workers have replaced union workers. In many cases plants have been closed and opened in free trade zones that are exempt from labor laws.

At the tribunal each worker who testified told his or her story.

Others told their story on bus rides and over dinner.

As one of the workers began to testify about the torture he endured eight years ago, he broke down in tears explaining that what was most painful was trying to explain to his children why their father screamed at night and could not sleep.

Javier Correa, President of SINALTRAINAL spoke in a low and painful voice as he described another way that Coca-Cola workers have been driven to desperate acts by the companyâ??s policies. He described the suicide of union organizer Guillermo Gomez Maigual.

Distraught and desperate, he poisoned himself and left a note in his pocket explaining the reasons for his actions. The plant that he worked in had laid-off 150 workers. Their union contract had been terminated. For two years workers stayed in the plant fighting to receive their severance pay but where finally forced to leave. The economic situation for families was desperate. The plant reopened again but with low wage, non-union temporary workers.

I could continue with account after account but much of this is well documented in the video we are about to watch and in written material produced by the tribunal.

DESPITE REPRESSION WORKERS CONTINUE TO FIGHT BACK

Despite this repression workers continue to fight back.

On the first day of our arrival hundreds of workers greeted us at a protest in front of Coca-Colaâ??s headquarters in Bogot?. Chanting â??who is paying for violence in Colombiaâ??Coca-Colaâ?? and â??why do they assassinate us, when we are the hope of Latin Americaâ?? workers and their supporters startled company officials as they peered out their windows seeming somewhat surprised to see such a determined and vocal crowd.

Following this protest we went to the U.S. embassy where police dressed in full riot gear and armed with tear gas and shields tried to stop the march. Following tense negotiations, the march was allowed to continue. Under the cover of the international delegates, the workers were able for the first time to conduct a demonstration without beatings and arrests. Hundreds of Colombian people who passed the march in cars and in buses waved their approval.

Later at the SINALTRAINAL headquarters, our delegation was able to get a first hand assessment of the union struggle in Colombia. We were also able to meet with students from the National University who were representatives of a group called FOCUS.

When students protested increases in tuition and cuts in funds at the public universities they were met with severe repression. Two students were assassinated. Jaime Alfor Acosta Camposâ??s murder led to the latest struggles. The university administration closed the university because it was a center of resistance on December 4th during U.S. Secretary of State, Colin Powellâ??s visit. But students set up an encampment refusing to leave both to avoid assassination and to continue the struggle. Police destroyed computers in an attempt to stop communication and ransacked student homes.

Reports from the delegates that remained in Colombia state that on December 10th 50,000 students and trade unionists marched through downtown Bogota to protest the attempts by the government of President Alvaro Uribe Velez to privatize the universities and industries.

The IAC delegates were able to participate in the march and give a solidarity message. The major focus of the students is a proposal to reorganize and privatize the educational system. Student banners also attacked â??Plan Colombiaâ?? and U.S. intervention.

Before leaving we were able to travel to the Southern part of Bogota with union representatives and a host from the Corporation for Education and the Development and Popular Studies.

As we meandered by bus through the streets of Bogota to its southern end, the contrast was obvious. Here in this teeming and crowded neighborhood of mostly workers and poor, you could see that the infrastructure was tattered and worn. Streets that were previously paved were now dirt roads.

With a crescent moon hanging in the black Colombian sky our delegates trekked up a winding side street to present toys to the community organizers who distributed them to children on the spot. Poverty and pain were palpable in the thin Andean air while candles commemorating the Catholic holiday twinkled in doorways.

Our host explained that the government does virtually nothing for this huge working class area. In fact this was the first year that the government had even provided water. In previous years residents were forced to bring water from the mountainside through makeshift hoses. Health problems are numerous. What has the government done: it has subsidized private roads for the rich and at the workers expense privatized the transit system.

ITS IMPACT AT HOME

What happens to the Colombiaâ??s workers has direct and obvious consequences for workers in the United States.

If Coca-Cola and the other transnational corporations are allowed to break unions in Colombia and pay workers less than minimum wageâ??then workers here in the U.S. are weakened. It is a direct incentive to pay U.S. workers less and to set up operations overseas while laying-off workers at home.

The $2 billion that the Bush administration intends to spend on propping up the Uribe government in Colombia and furnishing the military and the death squadsâ??along with U.S. advisers and troops--could better be spent on books for school children in Baltimore and to stop state budget cuts.

We cannot be passive or silent about this connection. Our own survival depends on solidarity with the Colombian people!

U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE, COLIN POWELL VISITS COLOMBIA

U.S. Secretary of State, Colin Powell, had just left Bogota as our delegation arrived. He arrived one day before we did at a military airport in Bogota under heavy security. Hundreds of soldiers and police were deployed to guard his route and hotel. What is already a heavily militarized country became a virtual armed camp.

State department press releases quote him as saying, â??I want to show the United Statesâ?? support for President Uribe, his administration, for the new national security strategy and for our joint efforts to find narco-trafficking and narco-terrorism and those terrorist elements within Colombian society who are trying to destroy the dream of the Colombian people to have a democracy.â??

He also mildly criticized the paramilitary group the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) that has led some in the human rights movement to express optimism. This would be extremely na?ve! It is like grasping at a straw. Powellâ??s words are a fig leaf trying to conceal a wolf about to devour the sheep.

Support for Uribe is support for the death squads. His previous history is testimony to this assertion. â??Plan Colombiaâ?? is nothing short of a death sentence for Colombiaâ??s workers.

President Alvaro Uribe was the former governor of the northern province of Antioguia in 1995, overseeing a vast expansion of paramilitary death squad activity in the Uraba region. Retired General Rito Alejo del Rio, then military commander in the region and now under investigation for links to death squads, told the Los Angeles Times on May 26 that Uribe â??fully backed his efforts.â??

The Colombian human rights group CODHES reports that close to 200,000 people were driven off their land and into exile during Uribeâ??s term as governor, mostly by military-back Convivir units and death squads.

Uribeâ??s financial backing came from â??Colombiaâ??s top 300 companiesâ?? according to his campaign treasurer as cited in the Los Angeles Times. His backing also included U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson who went to a hotel where his campaign was staying to congratulate him. She predicted Washington would have â??very close relationsâ?? with Uribe.

Powell was more direct in interviews with â??El Tiempoâ?? when he discussed plans to return to the United States to seek additional funding for â??Plan Colombiaâ??. He was also direct in his remarks regarding Colombiaâ??s role as chair on the United Nations Security Council.

Powell stated, â??Colombia was very helpful in the work that we conducted over the past two months to get the Iraqi resolution, and I stayed in close touch with my Colombian colleagues and Iâ??m confident that would be the case for the month ahead.â??

â??Chairing the Security Council is an important responsibility, but I think itâ??s something that Colombia has demonstrated it can do and do well,â?? he ontinued.

The war against the worldâ??s workers and poor is global. From Iraq to Colombia, the Pentagon seeks to destroy any resistance so that the banks and transnational companies can plunder the worldâ??s resources. Their question is not what but how! We in the epicenter of this beast must say no!

WE LEFT RELUCTANTLY

There was a feeling of great reluctance in leaving Colombia. Part of this was due to the strength and courage of the workers and of the Colombian people that compels admiration and respect but another aspect was the knowledge that some of the organizers that we came to know and love in this short period of time may well not be alive when and if we are able to return.

It is a tragedy of immense proportions that the brightest and best of human kind face such destruction. But I wonder whether it is a far worse tragedy to live a life without deliberation and without cause. The union workers of Colombia cannot claim such lives. They have lived their lives and continue to live them in the service of the people and in the fight for justice. There is no greater or more important task at this critical time.

Let us dedicate ourselves to the same fight whether it is stopping the Iraq warâ??fighting racism--fighting against State budget cutsâ??or building solidarity for our sisters and brothers in Colombia. Stop plan Colombia! End U.S. imperialism! Justice for the Colombian workers!

Sharon Ceci