Colombia: Sigue la matanza de sindicalistas

Nota de la Redacción de piensaChile: Artículo publicado en The New York Time. Vea a continuación versión original en ingles. Más abajo le ofrecemos la traducción al castellano.

Union Killings Peril Trade Pact With Colombia
 
By SIMON ROMERO
Published: April 14, 2008
BOGOTÁ, Colombia — Lucy Gómez still shudders when speaking of the murder of her brother, Leonidas, a union leader and bank employee who was beaten and stabbed to death here last month. His murder was part of a recent increase in killings of union members in Colombia, with 17 already this year.

Scott Dalton for The New York Times
Lucy Gómez and Luis Humberto Ortiz recently discussed the killing of Ms. Gómez’s brother.
“I want those who did this to pay for their crime,” said Ms. Gómez, 37, a seamstress, clutching a faded photograph of her brother, an employee of Citigroup’s Colombian unit who was 42. “But I feel in danger myself,” she said. “This is not a country where one can express such a wish without fear of being eliminated like my brother.”

Ms. Gómez’s fear and similar dread felt by union members and their families have long been features of labor organization during this country’s four-decade civil war. More than 2,500 union members in Colombia have been killed since 1985, with fewer than 100 cases resulting in convictions, according to the National Labor School, a labor research group in Medellín.

Now those killings are emerging as a pressing issue in Washington as Democrats and Republicans battle over a trade deal with Colombia, the Bush administration’s top ally in Latin America.

Colombia’s government is already struggling to recover from the latest salvo in this fight, a vote by House Democrats on Thursday to snub President Bush and indefinitely delay voting on the deal.

Since President Álvaro Uribe’s conservative government took office in 2002, there has been a marked decline in union killings. That has accompanied a broader decline in overall murders and kidnappings as the civil war, between leftist rebels on one side and government forces and right-wing paramilitary groups on the other, has eased somewhat from its peak in the 1990s.

Still, 400 union members have been killed since 2002, and dozens of Mr. Uribe’s supporters in Congress and his former intelligence chief are under investigation for ties to paramilitary death squads, which are classified as terrorists by the United States and responsible for some of the union killings.

Unions were often pulled into Colombia’s war when faced with suspicions among paramilitaries that their ranks had been infiltrated with leftist guerrilla sympathizers. Or sometimes union members suffered simply because they opposed the paramilitaries’ brutal assertion of control over large parts of Colombia.

In recent weeks a new wave of threats has emerged, from groups identifying themselves as a new generation of private armies, against human rights and labor organizers. Many of those organizers have opposed the trade deal, raising the specter of still more anti-union violence to come.

This year, 17 union members have been killed, a rate that suggests a substantial increase in anti-union violence compared with 10 such killings in the same period the year before. Several killings occurred in the days surrounding unusual protest marches against paramilitary forces here last month.

Complicating matters further, leftist guerrillas, who have sought to topple the government in Colombia’s long war, have also made union officials targets for assassination. Union leaders who are in favor of the trade deal, largely from export-oriented industries, have suggested some of the recent killings may have been carried out by factions opposed to stronger trade ties with the United States.

Some supporters of the trade deal are quick to point out that union members are still statistically less likely to be killed than members of the general population. But that ignores geographic and socioeconomic factors — poor rural residents in the country’s war zones bear a disproportionate risk from violence — and it is clear that union officials continue to be specific targets for intimidation and violence.

The case of Leonidas Gómez, Ms. Gómez’s brother, is one of several examples of union officials killed in recent weeks who were involved in organizing rare protest marches last month against paramilitaries. Government investigators here said they were investigating all the recent killings but had not yet identified those responsible.

Segunda parte del reportaje de Simón Romero

Carlos Burbano was a vice president in the hospital workers' union of the municipality of San Vicente del Caguán in southern Colombia who disappeared March 9. His body was found four days later in a garbage dump in an area considered paramilitary territory. Mr. Burbano, who had received threats before from paramilitaries, had been stabbed multiple times and burned with acid.

Like Mr. Burbano, Mr. Gómez, a member of the Bank Workers' Union here in Bogotá, was an outspoken critic of the paramilitaries. He had also traveled throughout Colombia to speak against the trade deal, which he expected to raise salaries of senior Citigroup executives while eroding the benefits of employees, said Luis Humberto Ortiz, a fellow union official and Citigroup employee.

Mr. Gómez, last seen at a meeting with leftist politicians on the night of March 4, was found dead in his apartment on March 8, with stab wounds and his hands tied behind his back. Missing from his apartment were his laptop computer, U.S.B memory sticks and cash from his pockets, said his sister, Ms. Gómez.

Mr. Gómez's family and his colleagues from the Bank Workers' Union said they were convinced that he had been killed because of his union activities. But Maria Isabel Nieto, a vice minister of justice, said in an interview that investigators could not rule out a "crime of passion."

Such uncertainty surrounds many union killings here, and critics of the unions insist that some of the killings are simple criminal cases rather than political violence. Union leaders say that despite a recent increase in murder convictions in cases involving union deaths, there are still relatively few convictions and that prison terms have been too lenient.

"Colombia has a horrible record of bringing the vast majority of those responsible for these killings to justice," said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas Director for Human Rights Watch.

Some of the killings linger over commercial ties with the United States, Colombia's largest trading partner. Paramilitaries, for instance, killed three union leaders in 2001 who were employed by Drummond Company, an Alabama coal producer with operations in northern Colombia. A jury in Birmingham, Ala., cleared Drummond last year of claims that it was responsible for the killings.

No one denies that assassinations of union members have dropped significantly from the 1990s, the worst years of Colombia's war, when more than 200 such killings a year were reported.

In 2007, union killings fell to 39 from 72 the previous year, according to the National Labor School in Medellín. They were expected to decline further this year until the recent spike in killings.
(Figures from Colombia's government are often lower because of methods that refrain from including killings when motives are unclear; so far this year the government has counted 15 union killings compared with
17 documented by labor groups.)

"We must remember that these killings are not a matter of state policy," Vice President Francisco Santos said in an interview here in March. "On the contrary, we abhor these acts and are doing everything we can to bring the number down as low as possible," he said, citing an unprecedented increase in prosecutions of union killings in the past year.

For 2008, the government budgeted $45.7 million for protecting people at risk of assassination, of which about a third goes to threatened union members. Under the program, more than 200 unionists have armored cars or bodyguards, and more than 170 union buildings and homes of union members have bulletproofing improvements.

Still, revelations of ties between the private militias and some of Mr. Uribe's most influential political supporters haunt official efforts to lower union killings. For instance, Jorge Noguera, Mr.
Uribe's former intelligence chief, is under investigation for handing over lists to paramilitaries of union leaders and other left-wing figures who were singled out for assassination.

Widespread ambivalence, bordering at times on hostility, persists in Colombian society over the role of unions. Many Colombians still view unions as redoubts of privilege for union leaders at a time when the private sector is driving an economic boom, through exports of legal commodities like coal and illicit ones like cocaine.

"Why don't the Democrats worry about Chinese products that take jobs away from Americans or about trade with countries with terrible human rights violations?" asked Rafael Jordán Rueda, 54, a management consultant here. "I'm completely convinced Colombia has become a victim of the struggle for power in the presidential elections in the United States."

Faced with the delays in Washington, senior government officials here are somewhat more cautious in expressing their shock at the possibility that Colombia might be denied the trade pact. "If the United States takes the rug out from under us, we would look like imbeciles internally and in the region," Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos said in an interview.

El Espectador, an influential weekly newspaper in Bogotá, said in an editorial on Sunday that such a move would be misguided. "Blocking a tool like the free trade agreement, which seeks to foment development, does not seem like the best mechanism for defending Colombian trade unionists," the editorial said. Instead, the newspaper suggested redirecting American aid to strengthen the Colombian judicial system's investigations of human rights violations.

Still, for union leaders like Rafael Boada who are living with threats, the focus on political violence is welcomed as part of the debate over the trade pact. Mr. Boada, a bank employee in Bucaramanga in northeastern Colombia, escaped March 7 after two men on a motorcycle shot at him, their bullets lodging in the windshield of his car.

"We are a stigmatized group," said Mr. Boada, explaining his role in helping to organize last month's march against paramilitaries. "I am certain this happened because of my union activities."

Jenny Carolina Gonzalez contributed reporting.Segunda parte del reportaje de Simón Romero

Carlos Burbano was a vice president in the hospital workers' union of the municipality of San Vicente del Caguán in southern Colombia who disappeared March 9. His body was found four days later in a garbage dump in an area considered paramilitary territory. Mr. Burbano, who had received threats before from paramilitaries, had been stabbed multiple times and burned with acid.

Like Mr. Burbano, Mr. Gómez, a member of the Bank Workers' Union here in Bogotá, was an outspoken critic of the paramilitaries. He had also traveled throughout Colombia to speak against the trade deal, which he expected to raise salaries of senior Citigroup executives while eroding the benefits of employees, said Luis Humberto Ortiz, a fellow union official and Citigroup employee.

Mr. Gómez, last seen at a meeting with leftist politicians on the night of March 4, was found dead in his apartment on March 8, with stab wounds and his hands tied behind his back. Missing from his apartment were his laptop computer, U.S.B memory sticks and cash from his pockets, said his sister, Ms. Gómez.

Mr. Gómez's family and his colleagues from the Bank Workers' Union said they were convinced that he had been killed because of his union activities. But Maria Isabel Nieto, a vice minister of justice, said in an interview that investigators could not rule out a "crime of passion."

Such uncertainty surrounds many union killings here, and critics of the unions insist that some of the killings are simple criminal cases rather than political violence. Union leaders say that despite a recent increase in murder convictions in cases involving union deaths, there are still relatively few convictions and that prison terms have been too lenient.

"Colombia has a horrible record of bringing the vast majority of those responsible for these killings to justice," said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas Director for Human Rights Watch.

Some of the killings linger over commercial ties with the United States, Colombia's largest trading partner. Paramilitaries, for instance, killed three union leaders in 2001 who were employed by Drummond Company, an Alabama coal producer with operations in northern Colombia. A jury in Birmingham, Ala., cleared Drummond last year of claims that it was responsible for the killings.

No one denies that assassinations of union members have dropped significantly from the 1990s, the worst years of Colombia's war, when more than 200 such killings a year were reported.

In 2007, union killings fell to 39 from 72 the previous year, according to the National Labor School in Medellín. They were expected to decline further this year until the recent spike in killings.
(Figures from Colombia's government are often lower because of methods that refrain from including killings when motives are unclear; so far this year the government has counted 15 union killings compared with
17 documented by labor groups.)

"We must remember that these killings are not a matter of state policy," Vice President Francisco Santos said in an interview here in March. "On the contrary, we abhor these acts and are doing everything we can to bring the number down as low as possible," he said, citing an unprecedented increase in prosecutions of union killings in the past year.

For 2008, the government budgeted $45.7 million for protecting people at risk of assassination, of which about a third goes to threatened union members. Under the program, more than 200 unionists have armored cars or bodyguards, and more than 170 union buildings and homes of union members have bulletproofing improvements.

Still, revelations of ties between the private militias and some of Mr. Uribe's most influential political supporters haunt official efforts to lower union killings. For instance, Jorge Noguera, Mr.
Uribe's former intelligence chief, is under investigation for handing over lists to paramilitaries of union leaders and other left-wing figures who were singled out for assassination.

Widespread ambivalence, bordering at times on hostility, persists in Colombian society over the role of unions. Many Colombians still view unions as redoubts of privilege for union leaders at a time when the private sector is driving an economic boom, through exports of legal commodities like coal and illicit ones like cocaine.

"Why don't the Democrats worry about Chinese products that take jobs away from Americans or about trade with countries with terrible human rights violations?" asked Rafael Jordán Rueda, 54, a management consultant here. "I'm completely convinced Colombia has become a victim of the struggle for power in the presidential elections in the United States."

Faced with the delays in Washington, senior government officials here are somewhat more cautious in expressing their shock at the possibility that Colombia might be denied the trade pact. "If the United States takes the rug out from under us, we would look like imbeciles internally and in the region," Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos said in an interview.

El Espectador, an influential weekly newspaper in Bogotá, said in an editorial on Sunday that such a move would be misguided. "Blocking a tool like the free trade agreement, which seeks to foment development, does not seem like the best mechanism for defending Colombian trade unionists," the editorial said. Instead, the newspaper suggested redirecting American aid to strengthen the Colombian judicial system's investigations of human rights violations.

Still, for union leaders like Rafael Boada who are living with threats, the focus on political violence is welcomed as part of the debate over the trade pact. Mr. Boada, a bank employee in Bucaramanga in northeastern Colombia, escaped March 7 after two men on a motorcycle shot at him, their bullets lodging in the windshield of his car.

"We are a stigmatized group," said Mr. Boada, explaining his role in helping to organize last month's march against paramilitaries. "I am certain this happened because of my union activities."

Jenny Carolina Gonzalez contributed reporting.

---

Colombia: Ejecuciones y tratado de libre comercio por Simón Romero

[Bogotá, Colombia] Asesinatos de sindicalistas ponen en peligro tratado de libre comercio entre Estados Unidos y Colombia. Lucy Gómez todavía tiembla cuando habla sobre el asesinato de su hermano Leónidas, dirigente sindical y empleado bancario que, el mes pasado, fue golpeado y apuñalado hasta la muerte aquí en la capital. Su asesinato forma parte de una reciente ola de asesinatos de dirigentes sindicales y miembros de sindicatos en Colombia, que este año ya suman diecisiete.
Amado de Mérici

"Quiero que paguen por el crimen que cometieron", dice la señorita Gómez, 37, costurera, apretando una desvanecida fotografía de su hermano, empleado de la unidad colombiana del Citigroup, que tenía 42 años. "Pero yo misma corro peligro", dijo. "Este no es un país donde uno pueda expresar un deseo sin temer que te asesinen, como a mi hermano".
El miedo de Gómez y temores similares expresados por sindicalistas y sus familias han sido elementos permanentes de las organizaciones sindicales durante la guerra civil de cuatro décadas de este país.

Desde 1985 en Colombia han sido asesinados más de dos mil quinientos sindicalistas, aunque se han dictado sentencias apenas en menos de cien casos, de acuerdo a la Escuela Nacional Sindical, un centro de investigación laboral de Medellín.
Ahora esos asesinatos están emergiendo como un urgente problema en Washington cuando demócratas y republicanos disputan sobre el tratado de libre comercio con Colombia, el principal aliado de Bush en América Latina.

El gobierno de Colombia ya está esforzándose para recuperarse del último salvo en este debate, la votación de los demócratas de la Cámara Baja el jueves que rechazó la urgencia del presidente Bush y postergó indefinidamente la votación sobre el acuerdo.

Desde que el conservador gobierno del presidente Álvaro Uribe asumiera el cargo en 2002 ha habido una marcada disminución de los asesinatos de sindicalistas. Este desarrollo ha sido acompañado por una reducción general de los asesinatos y secuestros a medida que la guerra civil, que opone a rebeldes de izquierdas, por un lado, contra tropas del gobierno y grupos paramilitares de extrema derecha, por el otro, se ha ido mitigando desde su momento más álgido en los años noventa.

Sin embargo, desde 2002 han sido asesinados más de cuatrocientos sindicalistas, y decenas de partidarios de Uribe en el Congreso y su ex jefe de inteligencia están siendo investigados por sus vínculos con escuadrones de la muerte paramilitares, que son clasificados como terroristas por Estados Unidos, y que son responsables de parte de los asesinatos.

Los sindicatos fueron a menudo empujados a intervenir en la guerra de Colombia cuando fueron atacados por paramilitares que sospechaban que sus filas habían sido infiltradas por simpatizantes de las guerrillas.

A veces los sindicalistas fueron atacados simplemente porque se opusieron a las brutales acciones de los paramilitares para controlar grandes extensiones del territorio colombiano.

En las últimas semanas ha estallado una nueva sola de amenazas, proferidas por grupos que se identifican como una nueva generación de ejércitos privados, contra activistas de derechos humanos y sindicalistas. Muchos de esos activistas se oponen al tratado de libre comercio, provocando temores de una nueva ola de violencias contra los sindicalistas.

Este año los sindicalistas asesinados se elevan a diecisiete, una cifra que sugiere un substancial aumento de la violencia antisindical cuando se la compara con los diez asesinatos de sindicalistas durante el mismo período el año pasado. Varios asesinatos ocurrieron en días que vieron inusuales protestas contra las fuerzas paramilitares aquí el mes pasado.
Para complicar más el asunto, las guerrillas, que han tratado de derrocar al gobierno colombiano en una larga guerra, también han atacado a sindicalistas. Sindicalistas que están a favor del tratado comercial, en gran parte de las industrias orientadas hacia la exportación, han sugerido que algunos asesinatos recientes pueden haber sido cometidos por grupos que se oponen a lazos comerciales más estrechos con Estados Unidos.

Algunos partidarios del acuerdo se apresuran a señalar que es estadísticamente más probable que se asesine a gente corriente que a sindicalistas. Pero ignoran factores geográficos y socioeconómicos -los habitantes de zonas rurales pobres en las zonas de guerra del país corren riesgos desproporcionados de ser víctimas de violencias- y está claro que los dirigente sindicales siguen siendo blancos específicos de violencia e intimidación.

El caso de Leónidas Gómez, el hermano de la señorita Gómez, es uno de varios ejemplos de sindicalistas asesinados en las últimas semanas que participaron en la organización de las raras marchas de protesta contra los paramilitares el mes pasado. Investigadores del gobierno dijeron que estaban investigando todos los asesinatos más recientes, pero todavía no habían identificado a los autores.

Carlos Burbano era vicepresidente del sindicato de trabajadores hospitalarios de la municipalidad de San Vicente del Caguán en el sur de Colombia cuando desapareció el 9 de marzo. Su cuerpo fue encontrado cuatro días después en un vertedero en territorio de los grupos paramilitares. Burbano, que ya había recibido amenazas de los paramilitares, fue quemado con ácido y apuñalado múltiples veces.

Como Burbano, Gómez, miembro de la Unión Nacional de Empleados Bancarios de Bogotá, era un declarado crítico de los paramilitares.

También recorrió Colombia denunciando el tratado de libre comercio, que pensaba que subiría los salarios de los ejecutivos del Citigroup y erosionaría los beneficios para los empleados, dijo Luis Humberto Ortiz, funcionario sindical y empleado del Citigroup.
Gómez, que fue visto por última vez con políticos de izquierdas la noche del 4 de marzo, fue encontrado muerto en su apartamento el 8 de marzo, con heridas de arma blanca y sus manos atadas a la espalda.

Según su hermana, de su apartamento desaparecieron su ordenador portátil, memorias USB., y el dinero que llevaba en los bolsillos.

La familia de Gómez y sus colegas de la Unión Nacional de Empleados Bancarios dijeron que estaban convencidos de que había sido asesinado por sus actividades sindicales. Pero María Isabel Nieto, vice-ministro de Justicia, dijo en una entrevista que no se podía descartar que se tratase de un "crimen pasional".

Ese tipo de incertidumbres rodea el asesinato aquí de muchos sindicalistas, y críticos de los sindicatos insisten en que algunos de los crímenes son simplemente casos criminales antes que motivados políticamente. Los sindicalistas dicen que pese al reciente aumento de condenas en casos de asesinatos de sindicalistas, todavía hay muy pocas sentencias y las penas de prisión han sido muy leves.

"Colombia tiene un terrible historial en lo que se refiere a llevar a justicia a los responsables de esos crímenes", dijo José Miguel Vivanco, director de la división Américas de Human Rights Watch.

Algunos de los asesinatos tienen que ver con los lazos comerciales con Estados Unidos, el más importante socio comercial de Colombia. Los paramilitares, por ejemplo, asesinaron en 2001 a tres dirigentes sindicales que eran empleados por la Drummond Company, una productora de carbón con operaciones en el norte de Colombia. Un jurado de Birmingham, Alabama, absolvió a Drummond el año pasado de ser responsable de esos asesinatos.

Nadie niega que los asesinatos de sindicalistas se han reducido significativamente desde los años noventa, los peores años de la guerra de Colombia, cuando se reportaban más de doscientos de ese tipo de asesinatos al año.

En 2007 los asesinatos de sindicalistas bajaron a 39, de 72 el año anterior, según la Escuela Nacional Sindical de Medellín. Se esperaba que siguiera esa tendencia a la baja este año, hasta que empezó la reciente ola de nuevos asesinatos. (Las cifras del gobierno colombiano son más bajas debido a los métodos que utiliza, que impiden incluir casos con motivos poco claros; hasta el momento, el gobierno ha contado quince asesinatos de sindicalistas, en comparación con los diecisiete casos documentados por organizaciones sindicales).

"Tenemos que recordar que estos asesinatos no son una política de estado", dijo en una entrevista en marzo el vicepresidente Francisco Santos. "Al contrario, nosotros rechazamos esos actos y estamos haciendo todo lo posible para reducir lo más posible esas cifras", dijo, mencionando un aumento sin precedentes en los casos de asesinatos de sindicalistas llevados a justicia.

Para el 2008 el gobierno destinó 45.7 millones de dólares para proteger a personas que han recibido amenazas de muerte, de las cuales casi un tercio son sindicalistas. Con el programa, más de doscientos sindicalistas se trasladan en coches blindados o con guardaespaldas, y más de 170 edificios de sindicatos y casas de sindicalistas han sido protegidos con materiales a prueba de balas.

Sin embargo, las recientes revelaciones de lazos entre las milicias privadas y algunos de los partidarios más influyentes de Uribe torpedean las campañas oficiales para reducir esos crímenes. Jorge Noguera, por ejemplo, ex jefe de inteligencia de Uribe, está siendo investigado por entregar a grupos paramilitares listas de sindicalistas y otras figuras de izquierda que debían ser asesinadas.

Todavía persiste en la sociedad colombiana una extendida ambivalencia, y a veces una franca hostilidad, sobre el papel de los sindicatos.

Muchos colombianos todavía consideran a los sindicados como reductos de privilegio para sindicalistas en una época en que el sector privado está empujando un auge económico a través de las exportaciones de productos legales, como el carbón, y de mercaderías ilegales, como la cocaína.

"Los demócratas deberían preocuparse de los productos chinos que les quitan trabajo a los norteamericanos o sobre tratados con países donde se cometen terribles violaciones de los derechos humanos", dijo Rafael Jordán Rueda, 54, consultor de administración. "Estoy completamente convencido de que Colombia se ha convertido en víctima de la lucha por el poder en las elecciones presidenciales en Estados Unidos".

Enfrentados al retraso en Washington, altos funcionarios de gobierno aquí se han mostrado más cautos a la hora de expresar su consternación con la posibilidad de que se rechace el pacto comercial con Colombia.

"Si Estados Unidos nos da la espalda, quedaremos como imbéciles, en el país y en la región", dijo el ministro de defensa Juan Manuel Santos en una entrevista.

El Espectador, un influyente semanario bogotano, dijo en su editorial del domingo que esa decisión podría ser un error. "Bloquear una herramienta como el tratado de libre comercio, que busca el fomento del desarrollo, no parece ser el mejor mecanismo para defender a los sindicalistas colombianos", dice el editorial. En lugar de eso, la revista sugiere redirigir la ayuda americana y fortalecer al poder judicial colombiano para la investigación de violaciones de los derechos humanos.

Sin embargo, dirigentes sindicales como Rafael Boada, que están viviendo bajo amenaza, el interés en la violencia política es un tema que debe ser discutido en el marco del pacto comercial. Boada, empleado de banco en Bucaramanga al nordeste de Colombia, escapó apenas de la muerte el 7 de marzo después de que dos hombres en motocicleta le dispararan, impactando las balas en el parabrisas de su coche.

"Somos un grupo estigmatizado", dijo Boada, explicando su papel en la organización de la marcha del mes pasado contra los paramilitares.

"Estoy seguro de que esto ocurrió debido a mis actividades sindicales".

[Jenny Carolina Gonzalez contribuyó al reportaje]
[14 de abril de 2008]
[(c)new york times]
 
[versión en español en mQh]