Friday 6 June 2008

Colombia: Keeping Up The Pressure

Colleagues,

If you have attended a course with me that has an international dimension you will have heard me repeat the phrase that Colombia is the most dangerous place in the world to be a trade unionst. Nearly 200 trade union activists have been murdered in Colombia since January 2008.

Last month I was fortunate enough to spend some time delivering a course for UNISON with Miguel Puerto the Latin American officer for the International Centre for Trade Union Rights (he is a great speaker - please contact him via http://www.ictur.org/). Miguel documents these murders and undertakes great work to maintain the pressure on the Colombian government. ICTUR reports the total number that have died since the election of the right wing Uribe government at approximately 2,500.

The fantastic work of ICTUR and other organisations has now led to the Colombian government being hauled before the ILO to account for the persecution, torture and muder of trade unionists. Read the article on the PSI web site:


As a modest but important step to keep the pressure on the Colombian authorities, UNI Global Union would like every trade union activist in the UK to send a message to Colombian embassies around the world.

Please send a message via the LabourStart web site:


Thanks

Ian

4 comments:

Peter Chigana said...

Hello Ian,

I would not personally hope that the ILO could place sufficient pressure on Colombia.

I am not being defeatist but, the government there is backed by both the UK and US who support their view that they are fighting a guerilla army.

I will be interested to see what happens from this.

Best wishes

Peter Chigana

GT said...

Hello Ian,

I've signed and sent off my entry on the UNI petition.

I hadn't realised you could do such things until I followed a link you gave me to the Labour Start web site.

Cheers

Graham

Ian Manborde said...

Hi Graham,

You should know better.

When we did the course at Quorn Grange we talked about being able to sign e-petitions.

Thankfully however at least you followed the link to LabourStart.

So I still hold out hope that you will at least joint the 20th Century!

Cheers

Ian

Unknown said...

I am adding in a 'real world' perspective to the crap that you people put on this blog.

You people want to get real, you whinge on about shit and when real peopple suffer you ahev nothing to say