Colombian union leader tells S.I.T. crowd of fearful nation

www.reformer.com88621143873,00.html Article Last Updated: Wednesday, January 29, 2003 - 7:58:49 AM MST

By MICHAEL NEARY Reformer Staff

BRATTLEBORO -- Colombian union leader Hector Giraldo described a Colombia he said was invisible to the American media Tuesday night. He depicted a paramilitary that executes union workers at will -- even after they have already resigned. Giraldo, a member of Central Unitaria Trabajadores (CUT), spoke at the School for International Training.

Speaking through an interpreter, Giraldo said he began his union work in 1980, at a time when "there were still some protections for your right to unionize and organize." He said the situation degenerated in subsequent years, reaching a crisis stage in 1995 when current president Alvaro Uribe, as governor of Antioquia, cracked down on the labor movement.

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Giraldo said Uribe's "policy was to exterminate the unions and do away with collective bargaining." He said union members were ordered to resign and executed if they did not quit by an appointed time. One man, he said, was killed even after he stepped down because his letter of resignation was unacceptable to the paramilitary.

Contending that U.S. tax dollars funded such executions, Giraldo posited a connection between the military -- a recipient of U.S. money targeted to the "War on Drugs" -- and the paramilitary. He condemned "Plan Columbia," a program begun under the Clinton administration and continued under Bush that funds Colombian military exploits.

"If (U.S.) tax dollars go to Colombia," he said, "they should go for health care ... not helicopters and rifles."

Giraldo also described a U.S.-backed policy of fumigation, in which the Colombian government attempted to destroy 350,000 hectares (864,500 acres) of cocoa leaves -- integral to the manufacture of cocaine -- and ended up, he said, contaminating corn, bananas, water and other natural resources. He said that the exercise, conducted from the air, also seeped into school rooms and produced diarrhea, nausea, headaches and skin rashes among the students.

Giraldo praised what he called "sistering relationships" between community and labor groups in the United States and Cuba. He cited Jobs for Justice and Communication Workers for America as two such groups in the United States.

During the question-and-answer session, one member of the audience expanded the discussion to Venezuela, explaining that she was worried about the negative media coverage received by President Hugo Chavez in the United States. Giraldo laughed slightly and said, "You should be worried." Then he offered an explanation.

"This is a country and a people trying to capture their own identity," he said. "And any country that does not get down on its knees to the United States will be attacked -- and that's why Venezuela is being attacked right now."

Giraldo continually returned to American media portraits of Colombia, asserting that newspapers and television stations depicted the country only as a land of guerrillas and terrorists. Media coverage did not, he said, include analysis of governmental corruption, ethnic discrimination and unequal distribution of wealth.

He also painted the country as one of great natural riches, including oil, gold, coffee, flowers and a biodiverse ecology. His speech was received by a standing ovation from the audience, which filled one classroom and spilled into another.

Giraldo has been in New England since the fall. He will deliver several speeches in Vermont in the next few days -- a tour sponsored by Communication Workers of America District 1 and the AFL-CIO, Vermont Workers' Center and Action for Social and Ecological Justice.

Before Giraldo's speech, local union member Steve Ward and Action for Social and Ecological Justice member Brendan O'Neill placed Giraldo's struggle in a context that included Vermont, as they discussed job loss they attributed to NAFTA, along with resistance to unions in the state.