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TAKE ACTIONUNISON has close links with the Colombian municipal workers union, SINTRAEM CALI, and takes action to protest human rights violations and attacks on Colombian trade unionists. Visit UNISON’s UNISON also works with the Colombia Solidarity Campaign (colombia_sc@hotmail.com or 07950 923 448) and organisations such as
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In Colombia trade unionists regularly face extortion, kidnapping, torture and even death. Helen Taylor speaks to one activist willing to put his life on the line for workers’ rights
The Colombian connection
Gilberto Torres wears a large black rosary around his neck. Not that unusual for someone from the largely Catholic country of Colombia. But for Torres, the beads are a constant reminder of his dramatic escape from death and a powerful symbol of solidarity.
Torres, a regional leader of Colombian oil workers’ union, Union Sindical Obrera (USO), had just left a trade union meeting on 25 February when he was kidnapped by paramilitaries.
“I was heading back home when I noticed the head of security for the pipeline company driving behind me,” he told UNISON. “Five minutes later I was intercepted. Two people got out of the car and identified themselves as members of the paramilitary organisation, Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC). I was searched, then handcuffed and blindfolded.”
Torres, a worker at the OCENSA pipeline in Cansare which transports oil for BP and other companies, was then taken to a farm and interrogated by a commandante of the AUC.
“I told him about my work as a pipeline operator and my work for the trade union,” said Torres. “He claimed that USO were the political wing of the guerillas. I refuted his allegations. My work is to check that multinationals don’t violate workers rights.”
During the interview, Torres was only too aware that a regional president of USO had been abducted and assassinated just a few months earlier. He also knew that he had dared to stand up for workers rights in what is the most dangerous country in the world to be a trade unionist. Thankfully Torres escaped death, but his six-week ordeal was a brutal and harrowing experience.
“They had me chained up, handcuffed, manacled and tied with a lassoo to beams in the house,” he recalls. “At 6am one morning they took me outside and put me in a hole. Then they tied me to a tree and covered me with barbed wire. There were ants and various other jungle insects feasting on my body. I couldn’t move to hit the insects. The chains and manacles opened lacerations on my body.”
As Easter week approached, Torres was moved to another farm where a large and unsuspecting family was gathering for the Holy Week celebrations.
“On Holy Thursday the grandmother of the family, who wanted to show her solidarity with me, gave me this rosary which I’ve had ever since,” says Torres, showing the simple beads around his neck.
It was a moment of kindness, but a crucial gesture that proved he was not alone. And unbeknown to Torres other such acts of solidarity were taking place elsewhere in Colombia and in countries far away.
USO had staged a national strike to protest against his detention and petrol workers stopped work for 25 days. The Colombia Solidarity Campaign picketed the Colombian embassy in London and human rights organisations elsewhere demanded his release.
External pressure caused the paramilitaries to back off and Torres was finally set free, but not before a final cruel act on behalf of his captors.
“They said they had bad news for me,” he remembers. “They said that the central command had decided to kidnap my wife and child. I cried a lot. They kept on asking for links with guerillas but I could tell them nothing.”
Torres is certain that his release was a direct result of the solidarity of workers in Colombia and internationally. “I’ve got a heap of letters from all over the world,” he smiles.
And it is to build that solidarity that Torres recently visited Britain. “We want to strengthen the links that we’ve made and encourage more participation in the struggle that we face,” says Torres.
For trade unionists here it is hard to comprehend the ordeal that Torres has been through. And the fact that unions exist at all in Colombia is amazing, never mind that they continue to campaign for workers’ rights.
“The continuous state repression against the trade union movement has reduced the potential for workers to organise for better conditions,” confirms Torres, with union membership now just 5% of the economically active population.
But trade unionists in the country continue to be at the forefront of opposition to the government’s economic policies, which further marginalise the poor.
“One of the main areas of our work is to become a counterweight to the government, the World Bank and the IMF, who are trying to impose their neo-liberal policies on us,” says Torres.
The trade unions are involved in programmes to bring social equality to the Colombian people, particularly in terms of health and education. But it is an uphill struggle, doing battle with the government.
“The government attacks on these schemes are part of the same plan to do away with all rights for workers. And this is all backed up by the IMF and the World Bank,” says Torres.
Without urgent international pressure, many more trade unionists may become casualties of Colombia’s death squads. But Torres hopes that, after hearing his story, trade unionists around the world will offer their support.
“The main thing is that people know the truth. This visit and other visits will start this process.”
Contact the article’s author Helen Taylor
Photos courtesy Andy Higginbottom/
War On Want
COLOMBIA - THE FACTSA trade unionist is assassinated every two days in Colombia. Professional killers earn just $150-200 for killing a trade unionist. The vast majority of these crimes remain unpunished due to the impunity granted to the perpetrators. In 2001, 185 trade unionists were assassinated, 63 of them union leaders. This is an increase of 27% on the previous year. Nearly 2,000 trade union activists received death threats in the last four years. Last year, 12 activists 'disappeared' and another 37 were kidnapped; 23 were the targets of personal attacks and 12 more were harassed. Four bomb attacks were carried out against trade union headquarters in 2001. 21 union leaders had to go into exile abroad last year, giving up their positions of responsibility in their union. 89 members of the Union Sindical Obrera have been murdered by paramilitary death squads since the mid-1980s. In the last decade, 1,336 civilians were killed for their trade union activity. In 2001, the Colombian government forcibly displaced nearly 2,000 people in the name of land development. The displaced population of Colombia is 1.9 million, comparable only with Angola and Sudan. 29% of the population lives on less than $2 a day. Just 3% of the population own 70% of the land. Over the past two years, the US government has spent nearly $2 billion on military assistance to the Colombian army, making the country the third biggest recipient of US military aid in the world. |
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