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Another Colombian labor leader has been gunned down, a chilling reminder of the realities of organized labor in that country. The killing comes just weeks before the US Congress will vote on a trade agreement with Colombia.
An official of a union representing university employees in the northwestern Colombian province of Cordoba was murdered, the CUT labor federation said Tuesday.
Luis Diaz Villa was fatally shot Monday night on a street in Monteria, the provincial capital.
The victim was vice president of the Cordoba local of the Sintraunicol union, CUT regional leader Eleazar Perez told Efe from Monteria.
Diaz Villa was linked to the University of Cordoba, an institution that suffered in the past from the activities of right-wing militias, blamed by Perez for the deaths of “more than 100 union and student leaders and of a candidate for the post of dean.”
Diaz Villa at one point had an agreement for police protection, but it was withdrawn.
In 2008 Barack Obama said in a Presidential debate that “the history in Colombia right now is that labor leaders have been targeted for assassination on a fairly consistent basis and there have not been prosecutions.” This is still the history in Colombia. And while the President claimed to have put in some enforcement mechanisms to improve the labor environment there, those meant little to Luis Diaz Villa. There is no free exercise of unionization in that country. There is no freedom of assembly. And by signing a trade deal, the United States would essentially bless that environment for labor in Colombia.
The CUT labor federation has demanded a “prompt investigation” of the murder of Diaz Villa.
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“In 2008 Barack Obama said in a Presidential debate that “the history in Colombia right now is that labor leaders have been targeted for assassination on a fairly consistent basis and there have not been prosecutions.” This is still the history in Colombia.”
Thank you for emphasizing this and pointing out the fate of far too many trade unionists over the past many, many decades in this tired old, blood-soaked world.
This is Obama’s “jobs program.”
Let us by all means celebrate the ten thousand or so jobs it will create (while ignoring a few hundred thousand these deals will move to Columbia, Korea, and Panama.)
Yet no Democrat will step forward to primary this man!
“Democrat” is no longer my party.
Barack Obama displays his hypocrisy once again by making that pronouncement in the 2008 campaign and then installing the “Defender of the Colombian Paramilitary Killers of Unionists” Attorney General Eric “United Fruit” Holder.
Well better late than never for you.
But the whole Democratic party is a Corporate shell.They will use certain phrases now that the 2012 election is upon us.But that’s all it is lip service to hook most Americans into returning em to office & then come up with the usual excuses for why they couldn’t do anything to help ordinary Americans…
Folks you can’t get help from folks(congress,DEM & GOP) who had no problem giving themselves raises why the minimum wage remained stagnant for 14 yrs.
That is the calibre of conscience that are members of congress.think about that for a minute,these people had no problems voting for raises for themselves but refused to vote for an increase in the minimum wage for the least fortunate in our society for 14yrs.
That is the exact reason Obama and his campaign/corporatist supporters want a Free Ride/Trade deal with them!
If this give away to global capitalism passes and Obama signs it the labor movement has a decision to make. Continue the charade or actually stand up for American workders.
Wonder how many of the labor leaders in Colombia are assassinated by CIA operatives?
I’ve wondered the same thing. It’s highly likely that if it’s not a CIA operative, it’s someone trained by them…
We just train the hit-men.
Call the White House and Tell Obama to Close the SOA
We train the people who kill their labor leaders.
Obama could shut the training school down but why would he. He believes in extrajudicial killing and freedom of the corporate class to destroy human lives.
Unprincipled Obama never saw an injustice he couldn’t tolerate or ignore. That is why the so-called left is so dangerous. We are the closest thing the rulers have to a conscience.
The CIA would only murder the labor leaders if they interfered with their income source, the cocaine trade.
They’ll perform a little kabuki for the workers and then continue the charade.
Like other mainstays of the middle class labor was targeted and carefully rotted from the inside out.
My dad was a Teamster and we watched it happen from the inside.
This is nuts for Obama to push a vote – guess he really wants to piss off unions and the left so he can prove black loyalty and the Democratic Party’s fear of a Woman as President will get him re-elected in 2012