Forty union members were killed in Colombia during 2009. Colombia has become one of the most dangerous countries for union activists as workers struggle for justice there. This adds to the tally of over 2,700 union and labor activists who have been slain in Colombia since 1987.
“It’s a complete genocide of the union movement,” Alberto Vanegas, the head of the Human Rights and Solidarity Department of a labor organization in Colombia, said. “The families of the murdered unionists struggle for truth, justice and reparation.”
Colombia’s president, Alvaro Uribe, has been accused of collaborating with reactionary anti-union forces in the country. Several western powers, including the United States and Canada, have signed trade agreements with Colombia ostensibly to fight poverty, but nothing has been mentioned about the rampant murder of union activists there.
The struggle for union rights and the defense of labor activists in Colombia deserves the solidarity of all revolutionaries.
