Uribe's
Onslaught
By
Justin Podur
ZNet Colombia Watch
02 July, 2003
At the end of May, the 'Rio
Group' of Latin American countries discussed how to handle Colombia's
civil war. Colombia's president, Alvaro Uribe Velez, was seeking a declaration
from the group that asked Kofi Annan to give the FARC-- the main Colombian
guerrilla group-an ultimatum. The ultimatum was that the FARC come to
the negotiating table, or else. Or else what, wasn't specified. President
Hugo Chavez of Venezuela registered his dissent with the ultimatum.
He said such a declaration could only have the effect of preparing the
way for a multilateral intervention in Colombia. Uribe said whether
an ultimatum was given or not, the future of Latin America was in fighting
terrorism and the drug trade.
Uribe then proceeded to preside
over a month of extraordinary violence of all kinds, at every stage
making decisions to escalate that violence.
One of the first decisions
was to change the terribly inadequate system in place since 1998 for
protecting unionists. Thousands of unionists have been killed by paramilitary
violence over the course of Colombia's war. This year alone 35 activists
have been killed. In 2002 the number was over 150. In the scheme Uribe
decided to replace, unionists were allowed to have bodyguards. In the
new plan, the bodyguards are to be appointed by the government. Given
that the strength of the paramilitary comes from its connections to
the army and police, having the government appoint bodyguards for unionists
is like letting the fox guard the henhouse.
Whatever the current state
of protection for unionists, the system certainly failed two weeks after
Uribe's announcement when on June 16, Luis H. Rolon from the Union of
Lottery Vendors was killed in Cucuta, Morelly Guillen of the health
worker's union was killed in Tame, and on June 17, Orlando Fernandez
of the public sector union in Valledupar was killed.
Another inventive program
for punishing unionists developed by Uribe's government is the "Program
of Improvement and Competencies". In this program, unionists are
sent into isolation to 'work' with a 'tutor'. The tutor assigns them
work, evaluates them weekly, and prohibits them from returning to their
work site.
After testing the 'privatization
by bombing' strategy in May (http://www.en-camino.org/may202003podur.htm),
Uribe's government escalated the liquidation of state enterprises massively.
On June 14 (days before three unionists were killed) the government
announced the privatization of TELECOM, Colombia's phone network. The
union estimates job losses of 10,000. A UK-Colombia Solidarity Campaign
Communique provides background for the TELECOM liquidation:
'Decisive pressure came from
Washington. As Miguel Caro CUT's Director for the public sector points
out: "the US has insisted as a condition for including Colombia
in the Free Trade Area of the Americas negotiations that one-sided 'shared
risk' contracts signed with US companies be implemented".
'The misnamed 'shared-risk'
contracts were of course nothing of the sort, merely a mechanism for
foreign multinationals to rip off the state sector. Back in 1993 TELECOM
signed contracts with six multinationals to provide 2 million telephone
lines. They put 1.8 million lines in place, but only 1.15 million were
sold. While the investment came from state funds, the 'shared risk'
meant that the multinationals were guaranteed an income irrespective
of the number of lines sold. NORTEL and the other companies demanded
a US $2 billion contract settlement. The previous Colombian government
offered $600 million, but this was not enough for NORTEL who lobbied
the US Congress to block any general trade and investment agreements
until its demands are met. Uribe has accepted, hence the liquidation
and sell off which, according to Miguel Caro "shows once again
the submission of the Colombian government to the dictates of US imperialist
power".'
But TELECOM was just the
beginning. Also slated for privatization are-among hundreds of others--
Social Security, and ECOPETROL, the national oil company. ECOPETROL
was created in 1948, itself the outcome of a struggle by workers. It
has assets of more than $8 billion and brings in revenues of $2 billion
annually. The oil worker's union, USO, is one of the most combative
and organized unions in Colombia and also one of the hardest-hit. ECOPETROL's
installations have been militarized in advance of the privatization.
The war against the indigenous,
afro-Colombians, and peasants in the countryside continued as well.
On June 8, in Riosucio, Caldas, 4 indigenous activists were murdered
and 4 others severely wounded in a paramilitary attack. Like most paramilitary
massacres, this one had been preceded by death threats well in advance,
followed by pleas to the government for protection. The government offered,
as help, a cellular phone and help with transportation, before the massacre
came.
In the Afro-Colombian community
of Zabaletas, Buenaventura, paramilitaries killed 5 people on June 14.
The PCN (Black People's Process), reported that this was one of many
massacres in their communities-waves of massacres occurred in 1996,
2000, and 2001. The intent, then as now, was the get people to flee,
to 'clear' the territory for the development of natural resources and
megaprojects.
It amounts to a country-wide,
violent assault on every front.
And at every point, Colombians
are resisting, heroically. On June 19th, some 600,000 state sector workers
went on strike to stop the privatizations. They marched in Bogota and
in Barrancabermeja (where ECOPETROL has its installations), where government
security forces broke up demonstrations with water cannons and tear
gas. The fate of tens of thousands of workers, of Colombia's public
infrastructure, could be decided by the outcome of this strike. In the
UK-Colombia Solidarity Campaign's words, "It will take enormous
pressure from within and without to halt the march of fascism in Colombia.
The CUT Human Rights Department has called for solidarity, highlighting
the need for mobilisation of protest internationally and physical accompaniment
in Colombia."
On July 22, 2003, a boycott
against Coca Cola will begin. SINALTRAINAL, the Colombian Food and Drinks
Workers Union, has better reason reason than most to want such a boycott.
Eight of its members have been assassinated by paramilitaries financed
by Coca Cola bottling companies. Hundreds of their workers have been
sacked and detained, even kidnapped, tortured, and disappeared, as part
of the dirty war in Colombia that kills members of the social opposition
so that multinational corporations can make profits.
SINALTRAINAL tried a legal
route, with help from the United Steelworkers Union. The judge ruled
that Coca Cola's bottlers have a case to answer, but Coca Cola decided
not to play. The demands are for reparations, a change in policy, and
a commitment to respect the human rights of workers and the population.
In a public tribunal against impunity, SINALTRAINAL found Coca Cola
guilty of violating human rights of its workers; benefiting from attacks
on unionists in Colombia, Guatemala, Peru, Brazil, the US, Venezuela,
Palestine, Turkey, Iran and elsewhere; contamination of water sources
by pollution from bottling plants; racial discrimination; the irrational
use of water in the world and robbery of water from communities in India;
support for the Venezuelan oligarchy. The boycott is to last, in its
initial phrase, for one year. It "does not solely consist of not
consuming the products of the transnational corporation Coca Cola, but
is also a permanent and sustained campaign of denouncement, organization,
and struggle against the policies of the company."
Uribe ended the month with
a 53-page document outlining his new strategy. It's called 'democratic
security', and it speaks for itself. It is part of the US's wider, accelerating
project of plundering the resources and the public sectors of every
country in the world by terror, warfare, and capitalist globalization.
Years ago, the Zapatistas
in Mexico also faced a President who was outlining a 'new strategy'
against them. They commented that it was not new, nor was it a strategy,
just the same stupid pounding that assumes that a people who have resisted
for five hundred years will suddenly forget how.
Colombians are not going
to forget how. But will they have to face the onslaught alone?
Justin Podur maintains ZNet's
Colombia Watch pages (www.zmag.org/crisescurevts/colombia/colombiatop.htm).
He can be reached at [email protected]