Everywhere we go we hear disturbing stories from people who have suffered death threats (mostly from paramilitaries) or one or more of their family members has been killed merely because of activism in their union or social justice group or community.
Sometimes too we have heard very painful stories from people like the women in this blog who spent hours with us because they want the international community to know what is happening in Colombia. Their sons were kidnapped by army recruiters and murdered. The post is long - but I would ask you to read it and imagine yourself sitting in the room with these women as you read. The stories must be told and Canadians must know the real story of what is happening to people every day in Colombia....
Friday was a very emotional day for all of us as we listened to Colombians opening their wounds, determined to tell us their difficult stories so that the world can hear the truth.
Two mothers in particular spent several hours with us so that they could explain what happened to their sons and in doing so, clear their sons’ names in the eyes of an international union at least.
Here are some excerpts from the mothers’ testimony to us:
Mother One
“My son Victor was a soldier through the Colombian draft. After his army service he suddenly disappeared on August 23rd 2008 with the actual death noted later. He was 23 at the time of his death.
On September 21 my other son received a phone call from forensic experts to note that his brother had been killed. The death place was distant from the person’s home.
I was informed after I had gone through a medical operation by my daughter. We went to identify the body and the photo the Department of Forensics matched. I fainted.
When I identified the picture we collected money from friends so we could afford to go to the distant place where the body actually was. We went to the funeral home and paid for the coffin. I started to drive with my other son and daughter to Santander, stopping on the way at a small town for rest. We then went to the town of Ocaña where the body was.
The person at the morgue claimed my son was a guerrilla killed in combat with the Army. He repeated this several times. The army had killed him in combat. I asked how this could have happened as he had just joined the group 2 days before his death. This made no sense. He could not have been in battle so soon after first recruitment. I said I would go to the media about this.
NOTE: There were stories in the media that people had been recruited not by the guerillas but by paramilitaries to be killed by the army simply to raise the army body count.
There was a deal made by Uribe as part of the peace process with the paramilitaries that in some government departments, like the forensic service, patronage positions were assigned to demobilized paramilitary members.
I went to fill out the forms to legalize the body transfer and had to look at internet photos of the dead to again verify that this was my son.
They left me there with the body at 11 in the morning on Sept. 3. On September 4 the body went to the funeral home and the funeral was September 5. My son John who went to pick up the body with me immediately went looking for who was recruiting kids for the paramilitary. He was threatened and then survived being pushed off a bridge, but after being released from the hospital he was killed. He had found answers but had been killed before he could convey the information to others.
John had also received many death threats before he was killed. He continued nevertheless. John was the father of a two month baby when he died from a shot from a silenced pistol fired by a man on a motorcycle. (He was 28.)
He was shot in the face. He was first taken to a small hospital and then a larger hospital. I was first told that he had gone into a coma. I was trying to get help for him frantically but the specialist said he had died while in coma.
So I got the news from the doctor and asked for permission to see my son. The doctor did not want to allow it but finally did. I could see that they had left my son to die without any further intervention to save his life. He was in the same condition as when he left the small hospital.
I went door to door,as a single mother of eight, to collect sufficient funds for the funeral. My son John was loved by many. He was a father of three children.
After they killed John my daughter and I received many death threats. They ordered me to be quiet or both would be killed. I did not give out my home address but my daughter had done so once to a reporter. The death threats were mailed.
When the Attorney General’s office offers protection they rent a room and tell people to go there and not go out. I did not want to be a prisoner. Instead I am trying to become a refugee by going to another country. I fear for my daughter.
My parents were also internally displaced. They were peasants when there was violence in the countryside. I was born as a displaced person in Los Janos. My husband was abusive and violent saying that if I left he would kill the children. At 4:00 am one morning I fled to Bogota, becoming another displaced Colombian. I rented a room with my 5 children. I have always been hard working and honest. I started another relationship and through this relationship had three additional children but unfortunately this man was again abusive so again I had to flee.
After this happened other mothers of children who died in combat came forward and started a court case that the Colombian Army had killed their children. Some Army soldiers were charged.
They are now in court facing the charges. The mothers have to face the soldiers in court. The regional court may not convict the soldiers on trial. They certainly will not go after those who gave the orders to do this. The 15th Battalion of the Army had conducted this practice of killing to raise the body count.
When Uribe was elected he had a system of rewards for army units who had a high body count. Positives meant rewards.
The soldiers say that they should not go to jail because they have families. We mothers say that they are simply killers.
I want these people to see justice but it is hard. I have received death threats. Please help me and my daughter. Please help with my refugee claim in Canada. I am a poor and hard working women so please help."
Marina Erman is the second mother who wants to testify.
I am the mother of four. My second child was killed. The child had developmental challenges due to a concussion prior to birth in a car accident. He was premature, born at six months. He also developed meningitis at 1 month of age. The doctors said he will die so they stopped treatment. They disconnected the child and I took him to another city for treatment. Miraculously, the baby recovered from the meningitis.
He was age 26 when he was recruited by the recruiting teams. He had seizures periodically and had treatments frequently. He was not able to be a soldier or work. Because he was disabled he looks like a big man but mentally was nine years old. He was kind in the way a child is, always helping others. He never cared about money so he tried to serve people by delivering flyers. When money was given to improve the neighbourhood he would help on projects. When water to poor areas was cut he would deliver water by bucket to many homes. He brought me flowers. It would have been easy for a recruiter to trick him.
One day he disappeared. I went three times to the Attorney General to report the child missing but they refused to take my submission. They said that he went with a girlfriend so let him have a good time. I then started to search for him. My search went on for eight months worrying always about the fact that he would be without his medication. I looked in hospitals and jails. I walked the streets at night looking for him among the many street people.
On September 16, 2008 I was phoned by a doctor from the Forensic Service Unit asking me to come in to identify a photo of a dead man. So I went to their office and was asked whether I was ready to identify the photo of the dead man. I said I was.
It was my son. I saw that his face was destroyed. I asked when he had died. They said that it had happened on Jan 12, 2008. He had been killed in Ochana. He was in a common grave with others. I then wanted to recover the body, but the doctor said that they would not do the exhumation unless at least three bodies had to be recovered. Each exhumation costs $200. I was asked to find out what the cost of the funeral and body transfer would be. It would be about $7,000. The mothers have to pay all funeral costs even though their children were killed illegally by the army.
I wanted to know how he was killed. They would not say. What was strange was the list of his clothing in that he never wore the kind of underwear the body was found in and never wore rubber boots which they said he had on.
They called me on the 23rd of September to say that other bodies now had to be recovered, so the exhumation could go ahead. During the previous year I had started to pay into the funeral service costs. It is a type of insurance. When I asked how much money was in the fund the company said I wasn’t in their system. I then borrowed 9 million pesos ($4500) from friends and went to get the body.
On September 23rd we received the papers to go to get the bodies in Santander. If he was killed on January 12th why did it take so long to get the notice of deaths?
Whenever there is combat the Army has to report the positives to the forensic service through photos. They are verified through the Forensic Services unit.
I went to the Attorney General where I was told my son died in combat. No photo was shown at the time. They provided a paper to start the process for identifying and processing the body.
The representative from the Mayor’s office in Ocana came to assist with the exhumation. My son was in the cemetery, in a grave with six other bodies. Someone rented a farm to use for common graves as the cemetery was filled. The other 2 bodies were recovered in graves in the farm area of the cemetery. I wanted the exhumation to take place at 5:00 a.m. as during the day the Army arranges for people to show up along with friendly press to witness the exhumation of a guerilla. I responded to Army officers who were there that it was strange that my son was a guerilla, but I really only wanted to take his body for burial. The exhumation took four hours.
Later I asked the funeral home how many bullet wounds there were. They said nine, in his back. With the other families we went to get the bodies and left the town on September 5th.
On September 6th we returned to Soacha and the funeral took place. It was bad for our families as the President went to the press and said that these were delinquent children. The Minister of Justice labeled these deaths not as a massacre but rather as "false positives".
It was ironic that right after this media conference the Minister of Justice had to go to another conference to deny an allegation that his relatives had engaged in laundering drug money. Uribe said that the military personnel who did this were poor and needed the money. They made this mistake due to poverty.
The first court to prosecute the military started on May 1st, 2009. The charged soldiers attended in uniform. It turns out that they are still in active military service pending the result of the trial. In the trial, the witness who dressed as a civilian and recruited my son on January 8 testified. The next day he was transferred to the military at the bus terminal. It was systematic.
The witness was asked how much he was paid by the military for this young recruit. He said $100. He said I gave “the retard” to the soldiers. My son had Downs Syndrome. In the execution they used 480 bullets. The military gave different reports about the combat. One said they confronted six narco-terrorists and killed the leader of the band. Another said there are only four. It was inconsistent and this was pointed out by the Attorney General.
The defence lawyer for the soldiers said the man died in combat. They claim he is a terrorist and had frequently consorted with prostitutes. They presented a picture with a gun in my son’s right hand, yet my son was left handed.
The trial was started in Soacha but then moved to Bogota. Military lawyers claim this is a matter for the military justice system. The military have a team of 5 lawyers. They are charged by the Attorney General with homicide and extra judicial execution and hiding the identity of a person. This case may also be sent to Santander. The case is now suspended until a location for the trial is determined.
The family must pay for the prosecuting lawyers. The lawyers are working for a share of what may be financial compensation offered for these deaths. The Army has already offered the families $2000 to $5000 each.
This is one example of this problem. There are incidents of false positives in areas other than from Soacha.
Moving the trials to Santader benefits the killers in that this area is controlled by the paramilitary. They are in most institutions so they will find it easy to influence the judge in that area. It is also far from the homes of us poor mothers. We could not afford to attend hearings.
The government has now said that they will compensate the mothers with a payment of $9000. We have not taken the money even though we are in debt after paying for the funerals. The guilty cannot buy absolution though a payment for our children’s death. To receive the money we would also have to sign a release saying we will no longer proceed to seek justice.
We must stand and fight now even though we are under extreme pressure.
The Canadian Embassy has not yet responded to our applications for refugee status.
OPSEU women with the two mothers
SINALTRAINAL
On Friday we also visited SINALTRAINAL, the Union for Agricultural and Food Workers. OPSEU has supported this Union on the Killer Coke campaign. We met four leaders: Brother Edgar Paez in charge of the international programs, the lead on the Coke campaign with international partners.
Brother Jose Onofre Esquivel works with Nestle both as a worker and a campaigner. Brother Juan Carlos Galvis is in charge of financial issues and he works for Coke and Brother Carlos Holaya works in education and research.
"What we have is a sinister alliance of forces that has no interest in Human Rights, Labour Rights or the social fabric of the country” said SINALTRAINAL. “They have no interest in consultation, discussion or debate about the important issues faced by the country. This alliance includes paramilitaries, regional warlords, narco-traffickers, colonels and generals in the military, land owners and the government members. Land ownership is at the root of many of the problems in Latin America".
Propping up this regime is foreign investment which has increased from $300 million to $10,000 million. The result of this increase in investment also means more money leaves the country. For every dollar that comes in $3 leaves the country through the profits made and lost to Colombia.
There is a widening of the gap between rich and poor. Based on statistics Colombia could be in 2nd place when measuring the concentration of wealth and control into the hands of the few, according to the union.
There are just five banks and 200 trans-nationals that own all the natural resources of Colombia including the financial, commercial, manufacturing, public and mining industries/services sectors.
Only 6% of the population owns 70% of the land destined for agricultural production - now designed to meet world needs rather than local market needs. This follows the recommendations of the World Bank and IMF. This is especially true when it comes to aromatic products (flowers or plants for perfume), tropical fruits and bio-fuels. Dependency on foreign markets will be fueled by the Free Trade Agreement.
Crisis/emergency legislation has become permanent. As a result of this Colombia has the biggest army in the world when compared to the population. They are the 3rd in world national military spending when compared to GDP. Four million people are in exile; 3 million are internally displaced; 10,000 people have been killed as "false positives"; 10,000 political prisoners; 50,000 are disappeared as part of the 300,000 killed in the last 10 years (the official numbers). Eighty government people are linked to drug traffickers and paramilitaries. All of this has resulted in 30 million people under the poverty line, 14 million people homeless and six million with malnutrition problems.
There is a concerted plan to remove the labour and social rights of working people and laws have been rewritten to accomplish this. In order to remove these rights the government has engaged in a dirty war to jail and assassinate workers. One hundred of this union's members are under death threat today causing these people to leave their homes and towns.
Coca Cola Update
Labour rights have been reduced from those enjoyed in the 1990s. Outsourcing is now a weapon to dismantle the union. So Coke has not hired any workers directly since 1990. Their workers are outsourced from co-ops (employment agencies). Outsourcing violates existing rights and collective agreements. This trend has increased under the Uribe government, with the passage of further labour reforms designed to make this practice even easier. These workers pay for their own insurance benefits with no right to overtime and paid holidays, Colombia’s minimum wage is $250 a month with a legal 48-hour work week. Right now outsourced worker far outnumber those hired directly by the company. They are without the right to strike or negotiate their terms and condition and the situation of outsourced workers has increased workplace accidents and illnesses. Health and Safety issues are much greater now too.
Coke has used the following tactics:
- Police, army and government intelligence institutions label key people as terrorists
- After this, if the workers do not give up their rights the paramilitaries begin to threaten and kill.
Another component of the dirty war is Law 975. It allows the government to negotiate a peace process with the paramilitaries. Paramilitary leaders are encouraged (required) to falsely name labour leaders as their allies and friends. One Coke worker was a paramilitary member. He was demobilized in the process and then falsely named others. After the allegations are made the initial person “disappears”. This however is a favourable disappearance, arranged in advance by the government and paramilitary leaders.
Wire tapping is also pervasive, using the resources of the President’s CIA and assistance from the USA. Part of demobilization of the paramilitaries is to find them jobs. Many now work for Coke.
Comparing directly employed and outsourced workers’ pay and benefits we heard the following example:
A forklift driver:
If directly employed - $800 a month with benefits, workers compensation coverage, overtime and paid holidays. If outsourced -$300 a month only and these workers pay a management fee from their pay to the agency. They are also charged for benefits only to find that there is no coverage.
Workers who deliver soft drinks to stores are paid 40 cents an hour in Colombia. This is just a little more than in China where the same worker gets 30 cents per hour.
Nestlé’s situation
Nestle has followed the example of Coke and changed its labour relations and employment practices.
On the Colombian north coast, Nestle in association with Fonterra (a New Zealand transnational) fired 200 unionized workers. They also fired their employees at distribution points and outsourced the work.
This has affected the public as well as product quality has dropped. Nestle stopped sourcing most of their ingredients in Colombia and they are now using powdered milk imported from places like Uruguay, Argentina and Canada. In 2001 and 2002 it was discovered that this powdered milk was past the due date set for use. When this was reported 385 tonnes of powdered milk was confiscated by health authorities.
Prior to the changes most of the products were bought locally. They even had their own farms to produce some products. Sugar and coffee were bought from national markets rather than the global marketplace.
There are also hidden surveillance cameras in the workplace to track workers and union activities. With these recordings they try to threaten union leaders. For example if people meet and recorded they may be subject to discipline. The recordings have also been given to the police, army and paramilitaries.
Nestle has earned a billion (that is a thousand million pesos) a year in 2008. Nothing was invested in communities as "social investment". We have tried to fight back where ever possible to continue the struggle.
They have used a number of campaigns for this. Trans-nationals all use the same methods but some go further towards violence than others. This has greatly increased the exploitation of natural resources and a great dependency on foreign markets.
Jen Giroux and Archana Mathew in SINALTRAINAL's office
The union has denounced how the Colombian government and the home government of the trans-national are complicit in these major problems.
“Because I love life I do not drink Coke” is one of their campaign slogans. They also continue to remind everyone they speak with about the 11 workers killed at Nestle.
OPSEU is familiar with the Coke campaign. There are also court cases in the United States. Charges of homicide, illegal incarceration and attempted homicide are part of the cases in the USA. There have been partial rulings but the trials continue. SINALTRAINAL also has cases at the International Labour Organization. These are against the Colombian government and pertain to Coke and the sugar cane cutters. The Colombian government has not respected the rights of workers by stopping these practices.
They also participated in an internal tribunal for documentation of these incidents. These tribunals replicate a true judicial process, given that an independent process is not possible in Colombia. Tribunals are one approach to campaigns and protest.
There are international court actions as well. An additional application may be made to the International Court for crimes against the people of Colombia. They have created a monitoring group to observe the practices of key trans-nationals to document the effect of their practices in Colombia. They hope to improve peace, cooperation and collaboration amongst all people, particularly those in Latin America.
Last July the government announced the creation of seven new American military bases in Colombia. This is one way to make the situation worse and worse. This adds to existing American controlled bases already operating in the country.
The Coke campaign is only one of the campaigns taking place in the country. Canadian unions have assisted with their struggle and in particular the CAW assisted with special tribunals with Coca Cola workers.
The Olympics in Canada may be an opportunity to again address the campaign in Canada. This could be used for all aspects of the situation in Colombia, not just the Coke campaign. They have also participated in many events in the US and Europe.
What do they want from OPSEU?
- That we continue to spread the word and educate members and the public about Colombia issues.
- They now have 600 cases in Colombian courts on various rights matters. These range from firings to massacres. They therefore need legal help to track these cases as they make their way through various courts.
- They will now use a different strategy due to interest from other countries. They will highlight the paramilitary peace process. It would be helpful for people and organizations to send letter to the government of Colombia, United States and Canada to ask why human rights defenders are being persecuted through the Colombian courts.
OPSEU presents SINALTRAINAL with an OPSEU banner
The reality of a union office in Colombia
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