Mother?s Day Peace Vigils
Join peace advocates across the United States non-violently protesting U.S. support for Colombia's military despite its continued violations of human rights. Your public witness will help prevent the San Jose case from ending in impunity like the vast majority of violent deaths in Colombia.

Take a stand for accountability and justice! Mother?s Day Peace Vigils: April 26 - May 6.

Witness for Peace/Colombia

New Book Available from Common Courage Press
The Profits of Extermination:

How U.S. Corporate Power is Destroying Colombia

by Francisco Ramirez Cuellar

translated by Aviva Chomsky







Published to acclaim?and death threats against its author and bombings of his union?s offices?in Colombia in 2003, The Profits of Extermination uncovers the role of multinational mining and energy companies in Colombia?s violence. Through legal maneuvers, corruption, and direct use of paramilitary violence, companies like Occidental Petroleum, Harken Energy, and many others, have taken over Colombia?s resources, displacing and murdering those who have tried to challenge them.





This book gives the lie to the claim that the ?drug wars? are the main factor behind Colombia?s violence, and explains the role that the U.S. and Canadian governments and their corporations have played in the war against Colombia?s peasants, indigenous, and Afro-Colombian populations.



Francisco Ramirez Cuellar is president of Sintraminercol, the Union of Colombian Mining Workers.

Aviva Chomsky is Professor of Latin American History at Salem State College and active in Colombia solidarity work.



Common Courage Press

March 2005

$14.95



To order, call 800-497-3207.



"With icy precision, The Profits of Extermination makes real the meaning behind the terms FTAA (Free Trade Agreement of the Americas), globalization and neo-liberalism."



--Cecilia Zarate-Laun, Program Director, Colombia Support Network



"Francisco Ramirez, focusing on the mining industry in which he is involved as a unionist, recounts in detail the struggles of his fellow workers and the violent response by the mining corporations and the U.S. and Colombian military which protect them. We should be grateful for real heroes like Francisco Ramirez."



--Daniel M. Kovalik, Assistant General Counsel, United Steelworkers of America, AFL-CIO-CLC



"Francisco Ramirez provides startling information about how the government and corporations like Coca Cola are actively involved in suppressing social movements of any kind in Colombia."



--Ray Rogers, Director, Campaign to Stop Killer Coke/Corporate Campaign, Inc.



"This investigation makes the vital connections between the exploitative interests of global companies and investors, in concert with the U.S. and Canadian governments, and the dire poverty and exploitation combined with repression carried out by Colombian State and paramilitary forces."



--Grahame Russell, co-director, RightsAction



"The Profits of Extermination vividly illustrates how both blood and electricity flow when North Americans flick on their light switches."



--Garry Leech, editor of Colombia Journal and author of Killing Peace: Colombia's Conflict and the Failure of U.S. Intervention

An initial Achievement Won Through Our Hard-Fought Struggle -- A Boost to help us fight on.
Dear Friends,

I am writing to let you know that, while the struggle is not yet over, there is a positive achievement from our efforts which we can point to. As the article below indicates, Coke has created a $10 million social fund to aid victims of the war in Colombia. As the article also makes clear, this was done in the midst of (and clearly because of) the Coke campaign. While we have not yet achieved everything we want to through the campaign, you should be very proud that your efforts have obtained something real and good for people in Colombia. Many times in the movement, we cannot point to such concrete gains. So, it is important to recognize them when we do; this is such an occasion.

At the same time, we have not yet obtained the key demands of our struggle -- an affirmative commitment on the part of Coca-Cola and its bottlers to take steps to prevent such violence in the future and compensation for the victims of the violence against the Coca-Cola workers in Colombia. For this, we fight on! I am confident that we will achieve victory.

Best wishes and keep up the great work.

Yours,

Dan Kovalik

Assistant General Counsel

United Steelworkers of America, AFL-CIO/CLC

http://money.cnn.com/2005/04/13/news/fortune500/coke_colombia.reut/

Coca-Cola: Destroying Lives, Livelihoods & Communities
From: Avi Chomsky

Many of you will remember when Luis Adolfo Cardona spoke at Salem State a couple of years ago---

Coca-Cola: Destroying Lives, Livelihoods & Communities Wednesday, April 13, 2005, 6:30 - 8:30 p.m. 33 Harrison Ave, 3rd Floor, UNITEHERE! Building, Boston, MA 02111 (see below for directions)

Join Amit Srivastava (India Resource Center) and Luis Adolfo Cardona (former Coke employee and unionist from Colombia) in an evening of sharing knowledge and organizing to hold Coca-Cola accountable. Meeting facilitator: Celina Lee, other presentations by Myriam Ortiz and Kim Foltz.

In India Coca-Cola: => Causes severe water shortages in communities across the country => Pollutes groundwater and soil around its bottling facilities => Distributes its toxic waste as 'fertilizer' to farmers => Sells drinks with high levels of pesticides, including DDT- sometimes 30 times higher than European standards

In Colombia: => Union leaders at Coke's bottling plants have be murdered => Hundreds of union workers have been tortured, kidnaped and illegally detained => Family members of trade unionists have been targeted => All while Coke leaders launch a $250 million advertising blitz keyed to the theme, "Coca-Cola.Real."

The meeting will help launch a New England-wide network of organizations concerned about Coca-Cola's abusive practice both in the United States and abroad.

Sponsoring Organizations: Mass Global Action, Alliance for a Secular and Democratic South Asia, NAFFE, Jobs with Justice, Project Voice/AFSC, Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, MA Chapter, United for Justice with Peace, Boston Mobilization, Tellus Institute, TecsChange, Asian American Resource Workshop, South Asian Center, and BankBusters.

Dinner and refreshments provided, admission free, but suggested donation $5.

To download the flyer: http://www.massglobalaction.org/docs/cocacola.pdf

For more information and to co-sponsor the event: contact stopcoke [at]

http://massglobalaction.org/

Directions: The UNITEHERE! Building is located on Harrison Street at the corner with Beach Street. It is two blocks south of the Red Line/Downtown Crossing's Chauncy Street exit; one block east and one south from the Orange Line/Chinatown stop; two blocks east and one block south from the Green Line/Boylston street stop.

Pay parking is available next to the building on Harrison Street and also under the Boston Common.

Ariana Flores Jobs With Justice 3353 Washington St. Boston, MA 02130 w: 617-524-8270 c: 857-928-2677

DRUMMOND WATCH

Buyers of Drummond coal may not be aware of the company's deadly practices in Colombia. Help us educate them!

Article on Common Dreams website that mentions the Wayu
Published on Tuesday, April 5, 2005 by the Inter Press Service

Venezuelan Indigenous Peoples Protest Coal Mining

by Humberto Marquez

CARACAS -- Bare-chested, clad in traditional dress and wielding bows and arrows, hundreds of representatives of the Bar, Yukpa and Wayu indigenous peoples from the westernmost region of Venezuela marched on the capital to demand a halt to coal mining near their lands in the Sierra de Perij mountain range.

Coal mining operations bring pollution and disease. They are destroying our farming practices, they are going to destroy our water, and they will end up destroying our lives, Cesreo Panapaera, the leader of 32 Yukpa communities in Tokuko, some 600 kilometers from Caracas, told IPS.

Scores of environmentalists and leftist political activists joined the indigenous protestors in their march through downtown Caracas last Thursday. Their destination was the federal government headquarters, but they were stopped 150 meters from its gates by anti-riot police.

We want to tell compaero President Hugo Chavez that he can't continue granting land concessions in the Sierra and in Guajira (a neighboring region along the Venezuelan-Colombian border) without consulting us first, as required by the constitution. He speaks very nicely about us, but they haven't demarcated our lands, said Wayu community leader Angela Gonzalez.

The indigenous protestors are staunch supporters of the left-wing Chavez Most were wearing red headbands with pro-government slogans, which date back to the presidential recall referendum last August, when a majority voted to keep the president in office. Others sported red berets, symbolic of the governing Fifth Republic Movement party.

Compaero Chavez, support our cause, read one protest sign, while another declared, Vito bar ataoo yiroo oshishibain (We don't want coal mining). Yet another was a copy of the No signs used by the pro-government side during the referendum (meaning no to Chavez's removal from the presidency), but altered to read No Coal.

The Sierra de Perij mountain range, which marks a section of the border between Venezuela and Colombia and has suffered severe deforestation in the latter, along with the neighboring Guajira peninsula, also straddling both nations, are home to significant coal deposits.

Colombia produces around 40 million tons of coal a year, mainly from two mines in this region, Cerrejn and La Loma.

In 1987, coal operations started up in the Guasare mines of northwestern Venezuela. Last year, production totaled eight million tons. According to estimates, the Sierra-Guajira region contains coal reserves of at least 400 million tons, which means that current production levels could be sustained for another 50 years.

Coal production operations are directed through consortiums formed between the Venezuelan state-owned company Carbozulia and a number of transnational corporations: the British-South African firm Anglo American; Ruhrkohle of Germany; Inter-American Coal of the Netherlands; Chevron-Texaco of the United States; and British-Dutch energy giant Shell.

Last year, Carbozulia and Companhia Vale do Rio Doce of Brazil established a new consortium, Carbosuramrica, to undertake additional mining operations in the region. According to the president of the Brazilian corporation, Roger Agnelli, the goal is to raise annual output to 10 million tons within a decade from now.

All of the coal is currently transported by truck to the port in the regional capital, Maracaibo. However, there are plans to build both a railway line and a deep sea port off the western coast of the Gulf of Venezuela, in order to facilitate coal exports from both Venezuela and Colombia.

Venezuela is becoming an exit platform to the Caribbean Sea, through the building of ports, bridges, highways and railways which serve the interests of the countries and transnationals that need to get their products out, but which sacrifice the environment and the rights of the people living in the area, said environmentalist Lusbi Portillo from the Homo et Natura Society, a non-governmental group.

As a result, we are opposed to these mining-ports projects that form part of the IIRSA (Initiative for South American Regional Infrastructure Integration, promoted by the nascent South American Community of Nations), which will serve to take our energy, mining, forestry and biodiversity resources to Europe and the United States, added Portillo.

Along the route used to transport the coal for export, the water is polluted, waterways are obstructed, the air breathed by humans, animals and plants is contaminated, the habitat of the aboriginal peoples is disturbed and peasants and indigenous peoples are forced off the land they have traditionally farmed, Jorge Hinestroza of the Front for the Defense of Water and Life told IPS.

Jess Palmar, a Wayu activist, commented to IPS that 17 years ago, the Carbones del Guasare mining consortium purchased the land occupied by his community, a 36-hectare lot in the Matera Nueva area, for under 2,500 dollars. As additional compensation, the indigenous inhabitants were promised employment, a new road and other services.

We made a mistake. It was all lies. They just forgot about us and now we are living two kilometers from the company's gates. In January there was a gas-oil leak of around 120,000 liters in the Paso del Diablo stream, which killed fish, iguanas and squirrels. We used to sow, harvest, and live off of the land, but now we are being driven to the brink of death, said Palmar.

Hinestroza maintained that for years the rivers and streams have been polluted with chemical wastes, detergents and coal residue. The communities near the coal operations breathe smoke. Animals are being born with defects, he added, showing a photograph of deformed goats, and human health is at risk.

The Guasare, Socuy and Cachuir rivers feed into the Limn River, which is the largest north of the Maracaibo lake watershed and supplies the regional aqueduct system.

Another local environmentalist, Alexander Luzardo, told IPS that the coal mining conflict intersects with another debt owed by the Venezuelan government, because according to the 1999 constitution, a law was supposed to be established to demarcate indigenous territory, and this hasn't happened.

Ezequiel Anare, a Yukpa community leader, reported that some company officials have offered us money to keep quiet. But we won't. We are calling on the president to get these companies off of our territory. We want to demarcate our lands, where we live, farm and dream. We are the guardians of the Sierra, he declared to IPS.

The march in Caracas brought together environmental and human rights activists who have voiced opposition to the Chavez administration and enthusiastic supporters of the president, like the representatives of the community media network. Mixed in with the crowd was Douglas Bravo, perhaps the best-known communist guerrilla leader in Venezuela in the 1960s and 1970s.

This is a manifestation of an autonomous and independent revival of the popular movement, said Bravo, who now devotes his efforts to promoting environmental groups. At the same time, it is the beginning of a new stage in the independent environmental movement, against globalization and the multinationals, he said in an interview with IPS.

Environmental activists maintain that Venezuela is following a mistaken policy in pursuing coal production, which contradicts its commitments as a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol, the international instrument aimed at curbing carbon dioxide emissions.

We want the government to hear us: we don't want coal, stressed indigenous leader Panapaera, who added, Here are our bows and arrows, and we will use them against the miners if they come to our lands. And if we have to die fighting for our lands, we will die.

Copyright ? 2005 IPS-Inter Press Service

(the article on the Common Dreams website)

Coal article that mentions Salem
The Chronicle-Herald
Opinion, Saturday, March 26, 2005, p. A11
Ralph Surette

The dirty story of where we get our coal

NOVA SCOTIA POWER gets the best quality coal it can at the cheapest price
on the international market. Always sensitive to the price of electricity
and, increasingly, to pollution, Nova Scotians would blame it if it did
any less.

But there's an underside to the story. NSP gets that coal from the El
Cerrejon Norte coal mine in northern Colombia, a notoriously dirty piece
of business in that unfortunate country where it's hard to tell which is
worse: the army and its paramilitary killers, the armed narco-traffickers,
the rebel insurgents or the foreign corporations backed by the World Bank.

El Cerrejon Norte, one of the world's largest open-pit mines - occupying
an original area 50 kilometres long and eight wide, and expanding
constantly - is a continuing horror story of forced relocations of
indigenous people, human rights violations, environmental destruction and
other assorted injustices that one human rights group calls "a perfect
example of globalization gone horribly wrong."

The subject comes up because Francisco Ramirez, president of the National
Coal Miners Union of Colombia, was in Halifax this week trying to make a
point. The most remarkable thing about Ramirez, apart from his immense
courage, is that he's still alive. A total of 74 unionists were killed in
Colombia last year alone and Ramirez says he has dodged seven
assassination attempts.

He wants NSP and anyone else with clout to pressure the multinationals and
the Colombian government to respect human rights. Despite the
reasonableness of this request, he doesn't appear to have received much of
a hearing at NSP. What should we think, then, since our demand for coal is
part of the problem?

First, here's more of the story. The mine began as a joint venture between
the Colombian government and Exxon Corporation 25 years ago intended to
supply cheap, high-quality coal to North America and Europe.

It bordered on and partly covered reservation land of the indigenous Wayuu
people, whose way of life has been largely shattered.

In 2000, as a result of pressure to privatize from the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund, the Colombian government sold its half to an
international consortium. In 2002, Exxon (now Exxon-Mobil) sold its half
to the consortium as well - but not before the community of Tabaco (pop.
700) was bulldozed flat to expand the mine.

It was done so quickly and without notice that residents, pushed out by
500 soldiers and 200 police who accompanied the mine operator, didn't even
have time to retrieve their personal effects. When the job was complete,
the village's school and clinic were also razed and the cemetery
desecrated. There was no compensation. Critics accused Exxon of doing this
as part of the deal, before it bowed out.

If such corporate degeneracy, done in our name as First World consumers,
shock us, what can we in fact do?

Here's one thing. In 2002, representatives of the Wayuu visited Salem,
Mass., where the power plant imports coal from the mine. Salem city
council promptly passed a resolution supporting their struggle, and the
power plant manager called the El Cerrejon Norte operators telling them
the town expected them to negotiate with the Wayuu and find a just
settlement.

Since our electrical system in Nova Scotia (80 per cent coal) functions on
these people's misery, don't we owe them as much? If we are indeed a moral
people, why wouldn't our legislature pass a similar resolution and NSP
similarly convey its expectation that justice be done?

The Wayuu representatives, in their U.S. tour, went on to the Exxon-Mobil
shareholders' meeting where their story caused some embarrassment.
International support has been growing. Meanwhile, the Colombian supreme
court has ruled that the residents of Tabaco be compensated - although
collecting has proved elusive.

Nevertheless, a half dozen communities beyond Tabaco that were expected to
suffer the same fate by now - their names are Tamaquitos, Guamachito,
Provincial, Roche, Patilla and Chancleta - haven't yet. Meanwhile, the
company's publication, which I found on the Internet, is bragging about
supporting a couple of medical clinics in the area. Maybe even they are
having twinges of conscience. Can we do any less?

Ralph Surette is a veteran Nova Scotia journalist living in Yarmouth
County.

C 2005 The Chronicle-Herald - Halifax. All rights reserved.

No Sweat CT Student Summit, Feb. 26! Come and Spread the Word!!!
From: Avi Chomsky

FYI, in case anybody is interested. I can send you the flyer individually if you want it; it's too big to send out to the whole list. Avi

Bring your friends and spread the word!

Come join students from throughout CT as we organize to pass the most progressive anti-sweatshop law ever!!!

No Sweat CT Student Summit

Saturday, February 26

12:30 - 5pm

Marcus White Living Room,

Central CT State University

Dear CT student organizers and friends,

In the past month, unions, students, and socially conscious people throughout CT have united in a flurry of excitement to mobilize to pass the most progressive anti-sweatshop legislation in the nation yet. The CT legislature is currently considering a bill to ensure that all uniforms (and possibly other items) purchased by the state would be produced in factories and washed in laundries where workers earn a living wage and their rights are respected.

This law would build upon years of organizing by students and the global movement in support of workers and against sweatshops. Students have a crucial role to play in passing this legislation. Please come join students throughout the state at this important gathering of students from throughout CT. This will not be a typical lecture-centered workshop, but rather an opportunity for students to interact and discuss the ways in which students can play a key role in fighting for the most progressive anti-sweatshop law in the nation.

There will be refreshments. A flyer is attached to help you spread the word.

Please invite any and all CT students you know who might be interested.

Bring your friends!!! (And bring your calendar :).

It is now our time to join the global movement against sweatshops!!!

In solidarity, Kath Golub.

And if you have any questions, feel free to contact me by email or at (860) 349-6925.

Directions to Central:

From I-84, take Exit 39A to Rt. 9 South. Take Exit 29 off of Rt. 9 to Ella Grasso Boulevard and take a right turn to the university.

From I-91, North to Exit 22 North to Rt. 9 North. Follow Rt. 9 to Exit 29, Cedar Street (Rt. 175).

From I-95 South, take Rt. 9 North to Exit 29, Cedar Street (Rt. 175). Go through the intersection. Take your first left, Ella Grasso Blvd. Follow until you reach the university.

The Marcus White building (building #3) is the building across from the building with the clock tower. We will have signs to help you out. Please also check out this map:

http://www.ccsu.edu/campus_map/Default.htm

Letter for signon re: Coal mine expansion in Colombia, human rights etc
ecn_ngo_letter_051404.pdf

Report on Salem Harbor Power Station for Healthlink (Avi Chomsky)

In the first six months of 2003, the Salem Harbor Power Station received 76,574 tonnes of coal from the Cerrej?n Zona Norte mine in northern Colombia, and 51,122 tonnes from the La Loma mine, operated by the Drummond Company. In the first half of 2004, it received 42,504 tonnes from Cerrej?n Zona Norte, and 46,210 tonnes from Drummond.

Like other U.S. coal-fired power plant operators, PG&E Energy Trading Company and US-Gen New England Power turned to Colombian coal in the 1980s and 1990s for a combination of reasons: the high-quality, low-sulfur coal from Colombia's mines burned cleaner, allowing power plants to comply with environmental standards without investing in costly equipment, the price was low, and consumers didn't know or care where their coal came from.

Some U.S. coal mining companies, like Exxon and Drummond, were closing their U.S. mines to move production to Colombia where they could pay lower wages and taxes, enjoy profit repatriation and lax environmental standards--and rely on paramilitary death squads to keep their workers and local villagers from protesting poor working conditions, environmental destruction, and forced displacement.

Cerrej?n Zona Norte, the largest open-pit coal mine in the world, began as a joint venture between Exxon and the Colombian government in the 1980s; in the early 2000s it was sold to a consortium of three multinational mining companies: BHP Billiton (British/Australian), Anglo-American (South African), and Glencore, S.A. (Swiss). In 1995, El Cerrej?n's workers were earning about $3.32 per hour, and 14 workers were killed due to unsafe conditions in the mine during its first 11 years of operations. A representative of the indigenous Wayuu people who inhabited the area surrounding the mine visited Salem in the spring of 2002 and told us that the coal burned in our power plant "has its origins in violence. Our communities have suffered greatly. Their human rights have been violated, their territory has been usurped, their houses destroyed and demolished, and they have had to shed their blood in order for this coal to arrive in Salem."

The story of the Drummond mine in Colombia is no better. Union miners in Alabama earn approximately $3000 a month; in Colombia, Drummond pays between $500 and $1000 a month to its workers. Clearly, it was more cost-effective for the family-owned Drummond Company to close its Alabama mines and shift production to Colombia, particularly because paramilitary troops controlled the region around the mine. In 2000, union leaders requested permission to sleep in the mine facility between their shifts because of increasing threats from the paramilitaries who were emboldened by Company flyers equating the union with left-wing guerrilla groups. The mine owners refused, and in February 2001 paramilitary troops stopped a company bus taking workers out of the mine, shot and killed the union president, and dragged the vice president away. His body was found a day later with clear signs of torture. They went to the home of the secretary-treasurer, Francisco Ruiz, and finding him not there, killed his younger brother. Ruiz fled the country; he also came to Salem to tell his story to citizens who were unknowingly consuming Drummond's Colombian coal in the fall of 2003.

All of the union and community leaders who have come from Colombia's coal mines to Salem have brought a similar message. They are not against foreign investment, and they are not against coal mining. But they want foreign investment, and coal mining, to respect human rights and the environment. The companies that buy their coal, and the citizens that benefit from it, need to demand that these conditions be met.

Witness for Peace Action Alert: Say No to Free Trade with Colombia while Violence and Impunity continue!
From: Witness for Peace NE wfpne@witnessforpeace.org

Witness for Peace Action Alert: Say No to Free Trade with Colombia while Violence and Impunity continue! January 10th, 2005

Please act now- we have an extension on this important letter circulating in the U.S. House of Representatives. This action relates directly to both the WFP campaign on Economic Justice and our work on stopping U.S. Military Aid to Colombia. It is important that you ask your member of Congress to sign this letter to end unfair trade with Colombia in the midst of severe violence against those seeking fair wages and decent working conditions. Call today- our time is limited! Thank you for your continued work towards peace and justice in Latin America,

Holly Miller: National Grassroots Organizer / Economic Justice Janna Bowman : National Grassroots Organizer / Military Aid - Colombia Joanne Ranney: New England Regional Coordinator

Note: Apologies for duplicate mailings, but if you do not receive this message twice we have not received your contact information for updating our WFP database. In order to be more effective in our organizing efforts we would greatly appreciate receiving your updated contact information (name, address, phone, email address). Thanks in advance.

Say No to Free Trade with Colombia while Violence and Impunity continue! Action needed by Jan. 12th

Contact your House Representative before Wednesday January 12th, asking him/her to sign-on to a Congressional letter to the U.S. Trade Representative asking for an end to the violence against Colombian trade unionists before the U.S. considers a free trade agreement with the Andean region.

The most basic worker right, the right to life, has been denied to thousands of trade unionists in Colombia. Over 50 Colombian trade unionists were assassinated in 2004, bringing the total to well over 2,000 Colombian trade unionists murdered since 1991. In Colombia impunity has remained near total for those who murder trade unionists, with only a handle of these cases ever making it to the courts.

Despite the horrific levels of violence against Colombian trade unionists, the U.S. initiated negotiations for a free trade agreement with Colombia (and other Andean countries) earlier this year. The proposed free trade agreement would weaken current U.S. protections for worker rights and accelerate the race to the bottom for labor standards.

We ask that you take a moment today to contact your House Representative, asking her/him to sign-on to the Evans-Lynch Congressional letter to the U.S. Trade Representative, sending the message that the U.S. should not enter into free trade agreements with governments that fail to address violence against workers.

To call your member of Congress call: 202-224-3121 and ask for the foreign policy aide. To find your member of Congress visit: www.house.gov See below for the full text of the Congressional sign-on letter.

Here's a sample message:

"My name is ___________ and I'm calling from ___________.

"I'm calling today to ask Representative ___________ to sign a Dear Colleague letter being circulated by Representatives Evans and Lynch on the continuing violence and impunity in Colombia.

"This letter will be sent to the U.S. Trade Representative asking him to use the Andean Free Trade Agreement negotiations as an opportunity to urge Colombia to protect its union leaders and end impunity.

"Colombia continues to be the most dangerous place in the world to be a trade unionist, with over 2,000 trade unionists assassinated since 1991. The Colombian government has permitted this violence to continue by failing to prosecute over 99% of these murders.

"I'd like to urge Representative __________ to sign on to this Dear Colleague letter, sending the strong message that the U.S. should not enter into free trade agreements with countries that fail to address violence against workers.

"For more information or to sign the letter, please contact Stephanie Krenich in Representative Evan's office at 5-5905 by close of business on Wednesday January 12th. Thank you."

Tell U.S. Trade Representative: No Free Trade with Colombia Until Violence and Impunity End "As union activists have fallen by the hundreds here, making Colombia the world's most dangerous country for union organizers, their families and those who have dodged assassins' bullets have had little recourse. Practically all killings of union leaders have gone unsolved." --from "Assassination is an Issue in Trade Talks" by Juan Forero in the New York Times, 11/18/04

Dear Colleague: Last week, the United States, Ecuador, Colombia and Peru wrapped up their sixth round of negotiations for the Andean Free Trade Agreement, a new set of bilateral trade agreements. We urge you to join us in sending a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Robert B. Zoellick asking him to use the negotiations between the United States and the Andean countries as an opportunity to compel Colombia to protect its union leaders, prosecute those who attack unionists, and reform the labor code to bring it into compliance with international standards.

Colombia continues to be the most dangerous place in the world for union leaders; in the last 13 years, over 2,000 Colombian trade unionists were murdered, and thousands more were threatened, displaced, or forced to relocate. Most of this violence has been attributed to the country's right-wing paramilitaries, who have been embroiled in a 40-year civil war with leftist guerillas.

According to the State Department's Colombia Country Report on Human Rights Practices released in February 2004, "impunity remained at the core of the country's human rights problem." The report testifies that "freedom of association was limited in practice by threats and acts of violence committed by illegal armed groups against labor unions and NGOs." Further, "paramilitaries threatened--and sometimes killed--union members who refused to renounce collective bargaining agreements." The U.S. should not enter into free trade agreements with countries that foster an atmosphere of fear and repression.

While these conditions are tragic for Colombian workers, they also affect workers in the United States. We have already seen the loss of many manufacturing and other jobs as companies move jobs to nations where labor is the cheapest and labor rights are not enforced. Colombia's failure to protect union leaders and enforce labor standards encourages businesses to relocate there, furthering an already widespread "race to the bottom." As we have seen with NAFTA, this will deteriorate, not improve, the employment situation for workers in the United States and throughout the Americas. According to the Trade Promotion Act of 2002, the U.S. is required to negotiate language that ensures that a party "does not fail to effectively enforce its own labor laws." Please join us in relaying our concerns about conditions in Colombia to Ambassador Zoellick. This letter asks him to ensure that progress is made on these issues before the U.S. enters into a free trade agreement with the Andean region, and to include enforceable labor rights provisions in the agreement itself.

For more information or to sign onto the letter, please contact Stephanie Krenrich in Rep. Evans' office via email or at 5-5905. Sincerely, LANE EVANS STEPHEN F. LYNCH Member of Congress Member of Congress Witness for Peace 707 8th Street SE Washington DC 20003 Phone 202.547.6112 Fax 202.547.6103

-----

Joanne Ranney, Coord.

Witness For Peace, New England Region

Phone: 802-434-2980

wfpne@witnessforpeace.org

www.witnessforpeace.org/newengland

collect signatures on the following petition asking for the release of one of the witnesses

Dan Kovalik (of the United Steelworkers and the International Labor Rights Fund), who is working on the Drummond, Occidental Petroleum, and Coca Cola lawsuits here in the U.S., asked me to URGENTLY collect signatures on the following petition asking for the release of one of the witnesses in a case being brought against Occidental Petroleum for the bombing of the village of Santo Domingo near their oil pipeline. Dr. Pena has been unjustly detained because his autopsy report confirmed that the villagers were killed by cluster bombs.

Avi ChomskyPlease "reply" to me via email, with your complete name and affiliation as you'd like it to appear on the petition. I will send all of the names to Dan, and he will fax them to the relevant parties in the U.S. and Colombia.

Thanks!

Avi

December 13, 2004

Via Facsimile Transmission (011 57 1 570-2022)

Dr. Luis Camilo Osorio

Fiscal General de la Naci?n

Fiscal?a General de la Naci?n

Diagonal 22B 52-01 (Ciudad Salite)

Bogot?, Colombia

Re: Dr. Ciro Alejandro Pe?a Lopez

Estimado Dr. Osorio:

I am writing on behalf of Dr. Ciro Pe?a who has wrongfully been placed under house arrest and is now awaiting criminal trial. As we all know, despite other scurrilous charges being brought by the Colombian state, the only real offense for which Dr. Pe?a is being charged is his truthfully reporting upon the cause of the deaths of the bombing victims of Santo Domingo in 1998. And, it should be noted that Dr. Pe?a's autopsy report on these victims -- a report which shows that they were indeed killed by a cluster bomb dropped upon the village -- was later corroborated by the U.S Federal Bureau of Investigation.

I just learned that his trial has now been postponed, seemingly indefinitely, most likely because the Colombian state has absolutely no credible evidence of any wrongdoing on his part. The detention of Dr. Pe?a remains an affront to justice, to the medical community, and to those concerned with human rights world-wide.

I hereby demand the immediate release of Dr. Pe?a, the dropping of all charges against him and the public exoneration of Dr. Pe?a by the Colombian state.

cc: Presidente Dr. Alvaro Uribe Velez

c/o Embassy of Colombia (By Fax (202) 232-8643)

Colin Powell, U.S. Secretary of State (By Fax 202 647-1722)

Hon. William Wood, U.S. Ambassador to Colombia (By Fax 011 57 1 315 2163)

Craig Conway, U.S. Embassy (By Fax 011 57 1 315 2163)

----------------------------------------

Francisco in Nova Scotia
Go to the CBC link and scroll down to "stories you might have missed," or click on the "listen here" link.

Avi

http://www.cbc.ca/maritimenoon/

Nova Scotia imports Columbian coal to generate Nova Scotia's electricity. But a Columbian union leader wants the province to stop because human rights violations associated with the industry in his country. Maritime Noon's Steve Sutherland brings us this report. Click here to play RealAudio file (runs7.35)

news update on coal mining in Colombia
Dear friends,

After a long silence, I am sending you an update on the situation of the communities displaced by coal mining in La Guajira, Colombia. I apologise for its length. As soon as the company has responded to concerns which we raised at the recent shareholders' meeting of BHPBilliton, I will send out a short urgent action request asking you to email the company. You will be able to use the current email as background information.

Thanks for your interest.

Richard Solly,
Colombia Solidarity Campaign/Mines and Communities Network

Update on coal mining at El Cerrejon, Colombia, December 2004



Communities around the massive Cerrejon Norte coal strip mine in the northern province of La Guajira, Colombia, are still waiting for justice from the Colombian government and the multinational mining companies who own the mine.



The mine is operated by Carbones del Cerrejon SA, owned by Anglo American, BHP Billiton and Glencore.



Mines and Communities member group Yanama has supported a number of the communities affected by the mine and the Mines and Communities website (www.minesandcommunities.org) has reported on the struggles of two of them: Tabaco and Tamaquitos. London-based Mines and Communities associate Richard Solly visited the area in October 2004 and subsequently attended the annual shareholders' meeting of BHPBilliton plc in London on 25 November. Here he reports on the current situation of these two displaced communities.


Tabaco



The settlement of Tabaco was demolished and its remaining inhabitants evicted by armed force in August 2001; what little remained of the village after that date was finally destroyed in January 2002. This was when Intercor, a 100% owned subsidiary of US multinational ExxonMobil, operated the mine. Intercor, however, only owned 50% of the mine: the other 50% was owned by the same three-company consortium which now fully owns and operates it.



In May 2002 the Colombian Supreme Court ordered the local authority (the municipality of Hatonuevo) to reconstruct a viable settlement for the now displaced community, in a new location acceptable to the people of Tabaco, beginning immediately. This has still not been done. The Alcalde (Mayor) of Hatonuevo claims that it is impossible for the municipality to comply with the court's decision for lack of money. He is adamant that the mining company should finance the reconstruction. The national Procurator's Office insists that the municipality comply with the Supreme Court decision using its own resources; but it does not enforce the decision. A meeting was scheduled at the Alcaldia (municipal offices) in Hatonuevo on 13 October between community representatives, a representative of the national Procurator's Office, and the Mayor. The Mayor, citing `personal business', failed to attend. Meanwhile, the community has found a suitable location for reconstruction of an agricultural settlement at La Cruz, a rural property of 450 hectares whose owner is very happy to sell.



The multinational mining consortium is eager to put the matter of Tabaco behind it because it damages its international image. Both Anglo American and BHPBilliton have repeatedly stated that they were not responsible for the 2001 demolitions, even though their consortium owned 50% of the mine at that time. Carbones del Cerrejon has increased its offer of individual financial compensation to community members still holding out for a community relocation agreement - though not to a level adequate to compensate them for the destruction of their agricultural livelihood and the disruption to community life.



The company has insisted that 95% of Tabaco's original community members opted for individual financial compensation rather than community relocation. It has not, of course, described the intense pressure to which community members were subjected, including being told by representatives of the mine operator that they had better settle quickly or they would get nothing, and this at a time when some of them were already finding it impossible to make a living because of the amount of agricultural land that had been swallowed up by the mine.



The mine's owners are keen to ensure that dissident shareholders visiting Colombia should meet with local mine management. One of the cardinal principles of Mines and Communities is that nobody has the right to represent any mine-affected community without the explicit authorisation of that community; and experience teaches that any meetings with mine management should be in the public domain. So when the President of Carbones del Cerrejon, Alberto Calderon, offered to meet me when I was in Colombia, I consulted with representatives of the Tabaco community. They decided that it may be useful if community representatives could meet Mr Calderon with me there as an international observer.



The meeting took place on 5 October in the Alcaldia de Albania (the Municipal Offices in Albania, one of the towns closest to the mine workings). Mr Calderon did not seem particularly happy to have had to travel from his office in the coastal city of Barranquilla to Albania and community representatives present were certain that had it not been for the presence of an observer from Europe he would not have attended. Mr Calderon himself told me that he was disappointed that I had not taken up his offer of a private meeting and expressed the hope that I might do so in the future, so that I could hear the company's point of view.



Of course, it is quite easy to learn the company's point of view since it is extensively publicised on the company's website and in its publications, as well as in sympathetic coverage in the local and regional press. Mr Calderon was concerned that I may be hearing only one side of the story. He reminded everyone at the 5 October meeting of the company's largesse towards displaced residents of Tabaco, using the example of a community member whom the company had moved to a big city so that her children could receive a better education. This particular example was also being trumpeted in the company's magazine, as proof that the lives of former residents of Tabaco had improved with the company's help. The company had bought her a house and was paying for the children's education. It had also paid for an ophthalmic operation for her daughter.



What neither the magazine nor Mr Calderon mentioned was that the community member in question had resisted relocation until the company's bulldozers destroyed the house that she had built in Tabaco, where I had visited her in 2000, and of which she had been very proud; a simple house, to be sure, but a symbol of independence. There was no mention either of the video of the destruction of Tabaco, in which she is filmed weeping over the ruins of that house. I interviewed her after the 5 October meeting with Mr Calderon and she told me that after the destruction of Tabaco she certainly felt that it would be better to move away and that she was grateful to the company for giving her children the opportunity for a good education - this was extremely important to her. She was also grateful to the company for the help it had given for her daughter's operation. But she admitted that the company gave no other support, not even help with emergency medical care, and that, since she had been unable to find steady work in the city, she was dependent on friends from the displaced community of Tabaco to send her money for food for herself and her children. Without that continued community solidarity, they would go hungry. So perhaps the company's largesse is not quite so large as it wishes people to believe, and perhaps those who want a balanced understanding of the impacts of the company's activities do need to talk directly with those who have been displaced.



At the 5 October Alberto Calderon said that the company had deposited money in the Bank of the Republic to settle the cases of the remaining nine former residents of Tabaco who had not yet come to agreements with the company. He said that the company was willing to listen to their concerns.



The community's legal representatives, Armando Perez, said that he did not agree that the issue was simply about the nine remaining unsettled cases. He explained the history of the case of Tabaco. He spoke of the use of servidumbres: these enable a mining company to gain legal access to private property which it does not own for the purposes of facilitating its mining operations. By law, compensation must be offered, but not at a level equal to the purchase price of the property, since it is only a question of access. In the case of El Cerrejon, these servidumbres had involved the destruction of people's houses and evictions from people's own private property, while compensation had been offered only at a level appropriate for access; in other words, servidumbres had been used as a cheap method of clearing land of its inhabitants.



Jose Julio Perez, President of the community's Relocation Committee (Junta de Reubicacion) spoke about the census which the company had used to determine who was a member of the community for purposes of compensation. Not only did it exclude people who were members of the community but it also included people who had nothing to do with the community. Jose Julio explained that those who carried out the census were in the pay of the company. He explained that a Junta de Accion Comunal had been set up by the company supposedly to represent the community's interests in negotiations with the company. It had been formed from members of the community who were willing to co-operate with the company. Jose Julio had himself been a member of this Junta until he realised that it was simply a creature of the company. He also spoke about the physical attacks on members of the community during the evictions and demolitions of August 2001. Jose Julio said that the community was not against the company and that they wanted to be friends with the company but that company employees had acted badly. Those who had negotiated with the company had done so because they were destitute and hungry.



Alberto Calderon reaffirmed that the company could only consider compensating people who had been `possessors' in the sense meant by the World Bank. People who lived in Tabaco outside this category constituted a problem for the company.



Mr Sarmiento, responsible for land purchase by the company, said that although the company had certainly brought about involuntary displacement, it had not brought about forced displacement as far as Colombian law was concerned. Armando Perez disagreed with this position. Both Colombian and international law included in the meaning of forced displacement the kind of displacement caused by large industrial projects when they were enforced by the authorities.



Alberto Calderon and other company representatives said that the company would be willing to reopen talks with the Junta de Reubicacion both on legal matters and on ways in which the company could help establish small-scale social and economic projects. Community representatives were clear that legal discussions about the righting of a grave injustice should precede talks about company-funded projects, because in their view the company had used the distribution of small amounts of money for such projects as a way of dividing communities and distracting them from the fundamental issue of legal redress. Jose Julio Perez said that any offers of assistance with social and economic projects should be made in writing to the Junta de Reubicacion so that the community could discuss them properly and come to a common mind on them.



Alberto Calderon then said that company lawyer Eduardo Lozano would speak with the community about legal matters. He had not been involved in earlier disputes with the community. They could even look again at the disputed census, even though the list of residents that it contained was of great importance to the company.



The meeting thus ended on a note of cautious hope. It did not last long.



Later in October, a meeting was held between the company's appointed representatives and the Junta de Reubicacion. Progress was made on agreeing a procedure for further discussions. The meeting was to reconvene to discuss what to do if the company and the community could not come to an agreement. But when it did reconvene, company representatives stated that there could be no further discussions for the time being on legal matters, only on the financing of social and economic projects, and that there could be no agreement on what to do in the event of a failure to agree. So it is clear that the company is back to business as usual.



Questioned at the 25 November BHPBilliton shareholders' meeting about the change in policy between 5 October and the follow-up meeting, BHPBilliton Chair Don Argus simply repeated that the company had settled with all but nine former residents of Tabaco and refused any further comment on the matter.



El Cerrejon's multinational owners must be pressured to return to the negotiating table to discuss legal redress for the way they have treated the whole community of Tabaco, and not simply to discuss a few smallscale projects to ameliorate the conditions of the nine property owners who have held out for a better deal for the whole community - especially as the poorest former residents, precisely those whom the company will not accept as legitimate property owners, have never received any compensation at all and are still not being offered any.



The Colombia Government must be pressured to finance the relocation of the community to La Cruz, in fulfilment of the Supreme Court decision of May 2002.


Tamaquitos



Tamaquitos is an Indigenous community consisting of 31 Wayuu families and a few non-Wayuu individuals who have married in. The community owns an area of around 14 hectares. The mining company has in the past claimed that the community is not Indigenous. When this manifestly absurd claim became unsustainable because foreign visitors to the community had noted the Wayuu appearance and language of the inhabitants, the company began claiming that although the community is Indigenous, it has not been in the area long and its member families originate in other nearby Wayuu communities.



However, the whole area around the mine was Indigenous territory, and Wayuu families have been in the area for generations, having migrated from further north in the province of La Guajira. It is ridiculous to suggest that because a particular village has not been in existence for hundreds of years it does not constitute part of the ancestral patrimony of the area's Indigenous inhabitants. Tamaquitos community leaders Enrique Epiayuu and Jose Manuel Epiayuu affirm that Tamaquitos was founded after many struggles by one family. All its inhabitants are related.



The company has until recently claimed that it owns no land adjacent to Tamaquitos. It now admits that it does own land to within a few hundred metres of the settlement, although its mining operations are several kilometres away, over a hill. Community leaders say that despite the distance of the mining operations, fugitive coal dust is a problem at times. They also say that the company owns most of the land close to the community and that as a result opportunities to work on surrounding farms have ceased. The company claims that it has leased land close to the community back to its original owners and that this should enable community members to find work. Community leaders explain that people from Tamaquitos have had to cross the border into nearby Venezuela to find sufficient waged farm work to make any kind of living.



Current road access to Tamaquitos is extremely difficult and may disappear altogether when the closest neighbouring community, Roche, is eventually swallowed up by the mine. In any case, lacking their own transport, community members usually have to rely on the chance passing of vehicles making for Hatonuevo in order to get to the nearest urban centre.



Anglo American and BHPBilliton both claim that Carbones del Cerrejon has no need for the land around Tamaquitos and that there is therefore no need for the community to be relocated. They deny that there is any pressure on the community to leave. But I was told that the fact that the company's land abuts the community means there are problems with private security personnel who have accused people at Tamaquitos of being guerrillas, thus making them potential targets for paramilitary death squads. Allegations were made that there is a surveillance house close to the community, put there by the company. Community members told me that company representatives, including foreigners, are always trying to speak to community leaders, but had so far not found them in, so nobody knows what they intend proposing. Community members have repeatedly told me that representatives of the company have been seeking to buy their land, and some have begun to feel that individual sale may be their only hope.



The community is desperate. Community leaders told me they want the company to talk to them about what the community wants and needs. They need land, work and tools. The community in general wants to be able to continue living as a community. If this is to work, then either the land around the community must be made available again for agricultural work and compensation paid for the disruption of their livelihood, or the community must be relocated to an alternative, adequate site acceptable to the community



Richard Solly,

11 December 2004
richardsolly@gn.apc.org

CRS AND U.S. CHURCH ORGANIZATIONS CALL ON PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES TO REFOCUS U.S. POLICY TOWARD COLOMBIA

October 15, 2004, Baltimore, MD - Catholic Relief Services (CRS) has joined a coalition of ecumenical organizations calling for President Bush and Senator Kerry to reassess their respective strategies toward Colombia. In a letter delivered to the Bush Administration and the Kerry campaign yesterday, the group called on both candidates to "envision a new strategy" in U.S.-Colombia relations.

The faith-based organizations call for a focus on a negotiated resolution of the country's violent conflict; a commitment to sustainable peace through greater investment in development, humanitarian aid and human rights; and increased attention to the drug treatment and prevention in the U.S. as more sustainable, humane and pragmatic alternatives to addressing real needs of both Colombian and U.S. communities.

The letter, signed by more than 700 representatives of faith communities across the United States-including the Presiding Bishops of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Episcopal Church, U.S.A.; the Presidents of Catholic Relief Services; Lutheran World Relief; the Conference of Major Superiors of Men, the national Jesuit Conference, and Church World Services, notes that "strategies that rely primarily on military aid or fumigation, and provide only limited social investment in local communities, will not create lasting change."

This past Wednesday marked the kickoff of an international campaign for peace in Colombia by Caritas Internationalis, a confederation of 162 Catholic humanitarian organizations around the world. The "Peace is Possible" campaign will last for three years and is based on the position of the Colombian Bishop's Conference that "peace can only be obtained through negotiations and peace can only be sustained through social justice." The campaign calls for greater involvement of the international community in supporting negotiations between the armed actors, international aid policies that contribute to social justice and the creation of an environment in which peace negotiations are possible, and national and international recognition of and response to the humanitarian crisis.

Colombia is experiencing the worst humanitarian crisis in the western hemisphere with the third highest rate of internally displaced persons in the world (three million Colombians have been internally displaced since 1985). Colombia has become one the most dangerous places for human rights workers, journalists, union leaders and church leaders. In the last decade 57 Catholic representatives including bishops, priests, nuns and seminarians have been killed; the number is even higher for Protestant pastors.

The current conflict in Colombia is rooted in a long history of economic inequality, a weak state presence in much of the country, political exclusion, impunity and social fragmentation. In recent years the conflict has intensified dramatically due in large part to the infusion of new resources-from both drug-related profits that many of the armed actors currently receive, and more recently from a significant infusion of U.S. military aid.

CRS has worked in Colombia since 1954. The agency's "In Solidarity with Colombia Program," launched in 2000, is a response to the request by the Colombian Church and social organizations, to work in partnership toward a peaceful, secure future for the people of Colombia. CRS/Colombia focuses activities on providing an integral humanitarian response to the victims of the conflict and natural disasters, and supporting church and civil society efforts to defend human rights and work for peace in the country.

Catholic Relief Services is the official international humanitarian agency of the U.S. Catholic community. The agency provides assistance to people in 94 countries and territories on the basis of need, not race, creed or nationality.

Photographs by Scott Dalton for The New York Times Francisco Ramirez, top, a union leader in Colombia, prayed in a small chapel at the Bogota airport before boarding a flight to Miami, where he will seek temporary exile. Sixta Tulia Rojas with a poster of her husband and nine other union leaders, all killed.

Assassination Is an Issue in Trade Talks

By JUAN FORERO

Published: November 18, 2004

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Photographs by Scott Dalton for The New York Times Francisco Ramirez, top, a union leader in Colombia, prayed in a small chapel at the Bogota airport before boarding a flight to Miami, where he will seek temporary exile. Sixta Tulia Rojas with a poster of her husband and nine other union leaders, all killed.

BOGOTA, Colombia, Nov. 17 - With tears in her eyes, 80-year-old Mercedes Cuellar wrapped her arms around her son, one of Colombia's top union leaders, and said goodbye as he boarded a flight to Miami and temporary exile from the country's long conflict.

As the secretary general of the union that represents energy sector workers, Francisco Ramirez had survived seven assassination attempts, including one on Oct. 10. He was still alive, but hundreds of his compatriots, victims of the political assassinations that have been a scourge in this Andean country, have not been so lucky.

"I was so afraid for him that I wanted to see him go to another country," Ms. Cuellar said, dabbing tears as Mr. Ramirez prepared to go through customs on a recent afternoon. "I'm much calmer that he's not here."

As union activists have fallen by the hundreds here, making Colombia the world's most dangerous country for union organizers, their families and those who have dodged assassins' bullets have had little recourse. Practically all killings of union leaders have gone unsolved.

Now, labor rights groups and some members of the United States Congress have promised to do something about the violence and the impunity, using free trade negotiations between Colombia and the Bush administration to prod the government of President Alvaro Uribe to do more to protect union activists and prosecute the killers.

The idea, say labor activists from the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and senior Congressional aides, is to make the issue of violence and impunity as important a component in trade talks as the struggle over agriculture tariffs and intellectual property rights. Its failure to protect union members, the argument goes, gives Colombia an unfair edge over countries that do, like the United States.

"A country should not achieve an unfair comparative advantage by willful omission or noncompliance of labor standards," said Stan Gacek, assistant director of the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s international affairs department, which works with unions in other countries. "The issue of rights is not an obstruction to trade, it is absolutely essential to the success of trade."

An American trade official, who spoke on condition that he remain anonymous, says that Colombia is obligated to enforce its own labor laws, which guarantee freedom of association and other labor standards.

"And how do I know someone is denied freedom of association?" he said. The murder of trade unionists, the official said, is a violation of freedom of association. "So clearly violence against trade unionists or impunity for killers is an issue with Colombia, and we've told them that."

The pressure is already having an effect.

Trying to mitigate the damage, Vice President Francisco Santos in September traveled to the United States to meet with a bipartisan Congressional group and John J. Sweeney, president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. "The government has a right to defend its record and that is the reason for my visit, and surely I'll return several times," Mr. Santos said in an interview.

Mr. Santos says that Mr. Uribe's government, which is widely credited with reducing violence since taking office in 2002, has made the country considerably safer for unionists. While 94 were slain last year, 58 had been assassinated as of Tuesday, according to the National Union School, a research and educational center in Medellin. The numbers are still staggering, Mr. Santos acknowledged, but they do represent a marked drop from 1996, when 222 were killed.

The vice president attributes the improvements to a new emphasis on prosecutions and a protection program that has received budget increases of 45 percent, to $13.8 million, since 2001.

Some rights officials, even those long critical of the Colombian government, said that the government had become more responsive to complaints from unionists fearful of being killed.

"I don't think this is a government where you have to make hundreds of phone calls and lobby them to make a serious case," said Jose Miguel Vivanco, who oversees the Americas division of Human Rights Watch, the rights monitoring organization based in New York.

But Mr. Vivanco, other rights leaders and the unionists say that impunity continues largely unabated, despite the government's assurances.

The vice president's figures show that the number of successful prosecutions of assassins - 19 - represents a small fraction of all the cases involving murders of union organizers. Nearly 2,100 union members have been slain since 1991, according to the National Union School.

Union advocates in the United States attribute the decline in violence to a cease-fire that Colombia's main paramilitary coalition, the United Self-Defense Forces, declared in December 2002 before embarking on disarmament talks with the government. The cease-fire has been violated numerous times.

Those paramilitary groups - right-wing, antiguerrilla militias financed by landowners and the cocaine trade - have long targeted unions, accusing their members of being rebels or working with Colombia's two leftist insurgent groups.

Asked about the murders of unionists, Rodrigo Tovar, one of the group's most feared leaders, was adamant about the need to ferret out guerrillas from unions.

"We have always acted against guerrillas, armed or not armed," Mr. Tovar, who commands 5,000 fighters, said last week in an interview on a ranch in northern Colombia. "Our war has been against the subversives, against communist guerrillas, however they are dressed."

Mr. Tovar denied that paramilitaries had worked with companies to eliminate union organizers. But few in Colombia dispute that union leaders have made enemies in the country's highly stratified society, both for their leftist declarations and for their harsh criticism of fiscally conservative governments bent on privatizing industries and holding down labor costs.

Indeed, Mr. Tovar, who was a wealthy landowner and businessman before joining the paramilitaries, could not contain his disdain for unions. He said that they had been "a disaster in Colombia for business" and that union activists were "the ones who sabotage, who hurt companies."

The deaths of union members here, particularly those who work for big foreign multinational companies, has become a thorny international problem for Colombia's establishment and the Bush administration.

Five lawsuits have been filed in American courts accusing companies like Drummond, a coal producer based in Birmingham, Ala., and two bottlers affiliated with Coca-Cola of using paramilitary gunmen to eliminate union organizers. The companies strenuously deny the allegations.

But the lawsuits, filed in American courts under a 215-year-old statute, have put an unwanted spotlight on Colombia's problems and irritated the Bush administration, which argues that they interfere with foreign policy and open multinational companies to sometimes frivolous grievances.

It is just the kind of pressure that union advocates in the United States want to increase, using the trade talks as a way of further prodding the two governments.

"They're looking for levers of pressure," said Michael Shifter, a senior policy analyst who closely follows Colombia for the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington group. "And it's not surprising as the United States begins negotiations with Colombia on a free trade deal that they're going to explore the possibility of using this as a way of increasing pressure."

Several recent incidents in Colombia have energized union activists in the United States.

In September, the attorney general's office charged three soldiers with having murdered three union activists, an account that sharply contrasted with the army's earlier claim that the unionists were guerrillas killed in a firefight. And earlier this month, an army major escaped - apparently with the help of other military officials - from a military prison where he was serving a 27-year term for the attempted assassination of a union leader.

Mr. Santos, the vice president, said the arrests of the soldiers showed that the government was serious about pursuing the killers of union organizers. The government also quickly fired four military officers at the prison from which the convicted major escaped.

But inaction, union advocates say, is mostly the norm when it comes to the murders of union organizers like Luis Obdulio Camacho, who once headed a cement workers' local in Antioquia province.

Mr. Camacho had lost a son, also a union member, to paramilitary gunmen in 1991. Then, in 1998, he himself was slain; two gunmen shot him in front of several witnesses.

Today, Mr. Camacho's widow, Sixta Tulia Rojas, 69, lives in a small house in Bogota, where she fled to escape her husband's fate. She yearns for justice, but long ago gave up on the government ever making an arrest in the case.

"No one saw anything and that's what's so terrible - the silence," Ms. Rojas said. Pointing to a framed poster of 10 union leaders, including her husband, she said: "Look at that photo. All of them were killed and no one was arrested."

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Workmen's Circle Annual

Children's Protest

Against Sweatshops

Sunday December 5th 2:00-3:00pm

Wal-Mart, 780 Lynnway in Lynn, MA

FACT: Today, the country's largest employer is Wal-Mart. In 2000, Wal-Mart's assets totaled more than the GDP of 155 of the 192 countries in the world, with annual sales of more than 137.6 billion. The Walton family is worth about $102 billion. Yet they produce more goods in sweatshops than any company in the world.

FACT: The National Labor Committee reports, "In country after country, factories that produce for Wal-Mart are the worst." Some of the abuses in foreign factories that produce goods for Wal-Mart include: forced overtime, locked bathrooms, starvation wages, and forced pregnancy tests.

Sponsors: Mass AFL-CIO, Mass Jobs With Justice, Mass NOW, North Shore Labor Council, Neighbor 2 Neighbor Lynn, IUE-CWA 201, UFCW 1445, Union of Needle Trades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE), New England Jewish Labor Committee, Dorshei Tsedek Jewish Labor Committee

Bring Your Kids Out To Show Them Democracy,

Bring Them To The Wal-Mart Protest!!!

Frida Berrigan's account of Situation in Colombia
From: Hope Benne

Dear Friends:

Frida Berrigan, recent graduate of Oberlin College and daughter of Philip Berrigan and Elizabeth McAlister (distinguished Catholic Worker and Plowshare 8 activists) now works for the Arms Trade Resource Center in New York City. She recently wrote a newsletter article about Colombia, and, while it's a story indeed familiar to us, I thought you might like to see it. Best wishes, Hope Benne

--------------------

COLOMBIA'S OIL, OUR WEAPONS

Frida Berrigan

Mario Murillo, the host and producer of Wake Up Call Fridays on WBAI radio in New York City, says that if you really want to know what's going on, you have to read the "World Business" section of the New YorkTimes. He sure is right.

On Friday, October 22, on the front page of the "World Business": section, sandwiched between "Arts and Leisure" and "Real Estate" the following blaring headline is buried: "Safeguarding Colombia's Oil."

If the New York Times wanted to engage in real truth telling, it should actually read "Safeguarding America's Oil," because, as the article goes on to explicate, that is how the United States is treating Colombia's oil.

With a dateline: Puerto Vega, Colombia, reporter Juan Forero writes:

"In the biggest, most ambitious army offensive in Colombia's 40-year rebel war, 18,000 counterinsurgency troops have since January fanned out across four isolated southern states, a lawless swath that for years functioned as a de facto republic for Marxist rebels.

"Aided by American helicopters, planning and surveillance, Colombian forces have the stated goal of penetrating the historic heart of Colombia's largest rebel group to "strike a decisive blow to narco-terrorists," as Gen. James Hill, the commander of United States forces in Latin America, put it earlier this year.

"The Bush administration, meanwhile, reversed American policy and dispatched Special Forces trainers from Fort Bragg, NC to train Colombian soldiers to protect a 500 mile pipeline used by Occidental Petroleum."

The article goes on to talk about how this level of American intervention is helping Colombia attract new investment in its oil production: ExxonMobil has moved in, ChevronTexaco has extended contracts, Harken Energy Company, Bush's former company, has signed a new exploration contract.

As Major Pedro Sanchez, who is the second in command of the battalion protecting oil installations, says, "there's a feeling of safety, that we are keeping the peace. We provide confidence so companies can explore here."

But what about the Colombian people? Do they enjoy a feeling of safety? Do they have any confidence?

According to the Washington Office on Latin American, Colombia suffers the most dire human rights situation in the Western Hemisphere. Leftist guerrillas fight the state and officially outlawed right-wing paramilitary organizations, which are often allied with sectors of the Colombian armed forces. Civilians caught between the warring groups suffer the majority of the casualties, and 2.7 million Colombians live as internal refugees. The State Department's annual human rights report 2003, found that the Colombian military continued to collaborate with illegal paramilitary groups, and impunity remained a core problem

COLOMBIA RESOURCES: The Arms Trade Resource Center is tracking this issue carefully as we put the "finishing touches" on our long awaited WEAPONS AT WAR report, documenting U.S. weapons sales and military aid to regions of conflict. We will let you know when this report is available.

In the meantime, Center for International Policy, Latin America Working Group, and the Washington Office on Latin America have worked together on an important new report, "BLURRING THE LINES: Trends in U.S. Military Programs With Latin America," http://ciponline.org/facts/0410btl.pdf

In 2003, write the report's authors, U.S. military aid to Colombia came to $860 million dollars, just short of the $921 million spent on economic and humanitarian assistance in the same year. The report warns that, if recent trends hold, military aid may actually exceed economic assistance.

Mirian Olivas Jarquin

Campesina activist and leader in community development in El Regadio, Nicaragua

Collateral Damage Tour

Political, Economic and Social Fallout of the present Globalization Model and Prospects for Transformed U.S. Trade Relations

Thursday, October 21, 7:00 (come at 6:30 to enjoy a Dominican dinner!)

Heritage Room, Ellison Campus Center

Salem State College

* What is the "Collateral Damage" of globalization?

* What do we mean by the "cycles of military and economic violence"

* How does the U.S.-Central America Free Trade Agreement threaten the livelihoods of rural communities in Central America

* What can you do to assure US policies are fair and sustainable for the "Seventh Generation"?

Witness for Peace speaker tour will host Mirian Olivas Jarquin a campesina activist and leader in community development in El Regadio, the farming community near Esteli, Nicaragua where she was born. She worked in the education system for 42 years, beginning teaching at age 15 in two rural, one-room schools. After going back to finish high school and teacher's college as a mother, she worked as the school's administrator. She also worked on the literacy campaign that attempted to eliminate illiteracy in Nicaragua in 1980. Despite IMF-forced cutbacks in education, she led the struggle to bring high school-level education to El Regadio, bringing new opportunities to the children of farming families.

Mirian has experienced many of the cycles of military and economic violence that have affected El Regadio. She participated in the Community Defense Committee during the insurrection that ended the US-backed Somoza dictatorship. And after the Sandinista government came into power, she watched as several of her children defended Nicaragua from US-back Contra rebels.

Mirian has never tired of working towards community development. During the 1980's she was a leader in the town council, and worked with national women's organizations to "get women out of the house and active in the community". Since 1990, she has worked on the community development board successfully bringing drinking water and electrification projects to El Regadio. After IMF-imposed reforms left small, family farmers "totally abandoned, without credit or access to technical assistence", she worked to organize local farmers into a cooperative to gain access to financing. Since 2000, the El Progreso "Progress" Cooperative has expanded from 120 to 274 members, including 145 women, and it serves 12 rural communities.

Now, the US-Central America Free Trade Agreement threatens the livelihoods of rural Nicaraguan communities. If ratified, CAFTA would increase competition between struggling Nicaraguan farmers and the farming industry in the United States, forcing even more Nicaraguans to leave the countryside for cities, or to leave Nicaragua altogether. New England WFP's Fall Speakers Tour 2004

For more information call 978-542-6389; leave a message! Or email achomsky@salemstate.edu.

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A quick report on yesterday's meeting
The highlight was hearing from Peter Knowlton of the UE and Raul Cisneros of SITESABES/FAT and professor of adult basic education in Mexico. Raul talked to us about the gap between Mexican labor law and reality, the corruption of Mexico's "official" unions, and the struggles of his teacher's union (affiliated with the dissident Frente Autentico de Trabajadores) in Guanajuato. Peter talked about the history of the UE as an independent union in the US and its cross-border solidarity with the FAT.

Avi gave a brief report on her trip to the Voces por la Vida human rights conference in Bogota at the end of August. The conference brought together international solidarity people, Colombian academics, activists in Colombia's social movements, and testimonies from victims of massacres, displacements, etc., especially from Colombia's "regions" where U.S. investments, military aid, and Plan Colombia are devastating communities. A Brazilian Workers Party speaker called Colombia "the Chile of the 2000s"--the place where the U.S. is trying to carry out its neoliberal experiment no matter how much violence it entails. As other countries in Latin America (Venezuela, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil) are electing leftist parties and trying to find economic independence from the US and create more social equality, the US is using Colombia as its bastion.