Sign Resolution: Stop Coca-Cola Death Squads in Colombia
Please take a minute to read the following resolution of Boston Labor's ANSWER which will be presented to the international labor tribunal in Bogotá, Colombia this week. If you'd like to sign it, please copy and paste it on an email today, including any title or union/organization affiliation you'd like next to your name. For further information on assassinations of union activists in Colombia, please check out the links below the resolution.
Boston Labor’s A.N.S.W.E.R.
(Act Now to Stop War & End Racism)
31 Germania St.; Boston, MA 02130
tel: 617 522-6626 fax: 617 983-3836
email: LaborsANSWER@iacboston.org web: www.iacboston.org/LaborsANSWER
Resolution of Boston Labor’s A.N.S.W.E.R.
to the International Public Hearing of SINALTRAINAL
(Colombian National Food Industry Worker’s Union) in Bogotá, Colombia on Dec. 5 – 7, 2002
Coca-Cola’s Crimes in Colombia Must Not Go Unpunished!
Stop the Coca-Cola sponsored Death Squad Assassinations
Against Colombian Union Leaders, Now!
Whereas
On Aug. 31, 2002, Adolfo de Jesus Munera - a regional leader of the SINALTRAINAL Colombian food industry worker’s Union, who had filed a lawsuit against his employer at the Coca-Cola plant Embotelladora Roman in the town of Barranquilla, seeking re-instatement to his job, after Coca-Cola fired him for absenteeism during a time when Mr. Munera was a target of military raids on his house and threats from right-wing death squads due to his Union activities – was shot dead by gunmen on his mother’s doorstep, and
Whereas
Before Mr. Munera, seven other union leaders at Coca-Cola plants in Colombia have been assassinated in recent years after demanding that the company pay fair wages and respect the local environment, and many others disappeared and tortured, joining almost 4,000 union activists of the Colombian Labor Confederation (CUT) who have been murdered by corporate sponsored death squads since 1986, and
Whereas
Nothing is more American than Coca-Cola, we as Union activists and supporters of the Labor Movement in the United States are compelled to extend our urgent hand of Solidarity to our Union sisters and brothers in Colombia, who are increasingly the victims of this long and bloody war being waged in many instances in the interests of U.S. corporations operating in Colombia against the Colombian movement for workers rights, and
Whereas
President Bush and President Uribe have proposed nothing but an intensification of this war in Colombian society, with hundreds more U.S. troops, along with billions of dollars worth of armaments, sent by the Bush administration to the Colombian military under the plan of war known as Plan Colombia, whose immediate result has been a dramatic increase in the repression against the Union and workers’ movements in Colombia, clearly demonstrating for workers in the U.S. and Colombia that "War Is Not the Answer!"; and furthermore, the stated goal of the Bush administration’s military campaign in Colombia is to protect oil pipelines and other corporate infrastructure, and not the oil workers and other unionists there, 145 of whom have been assassinated so far this year, and
Whereas
The Colombian and U.S. authorities have neither investigated nor punished those responsible for these crimes - despite volumes of evidence presented by the United Steel Workers of America and the International Labor Fund in its lawsuit against Coca-Cola on behalf of SINALTRAINAL and the estate of murdered SINALTRAINAL leader Luis Eduardo Garcia, Alvaro Gonzalez Lopez, Jose Domingo Flores, Jorge Humberto Leal and Juan Carlos Galvis in the United States District Court, Southern District of Florida, filed on July 20, 2001, and in numerous other charges and suits filed by the Union in many other Colombian and U.S. jurisdictions - and we can no longer believe that Justice for Adolfo de Jesus Munera or any of the hundreds of his murdered colleagues will come through the U.S. or Colombian justice system,
Therefore Be It Resolved
That Boston Labor’s A.N.S.W.E.R. endorse SINALTRAINAL in the convening of the International Public Hearing into the Crimes of the Coca-Cola corporation, and join the hearing’s third session to be held on December 5, 2002 in Bogota, Colombia, and
That Boston Labor’s A.N.S.W.E.R. will work to carry out the conclusions of the hearing by mobilizing actions and educational campaigns in our Unions, communities and the broad and growing U.S. anti-war movement, and to prosecute and strengthen the international struggle to bring the Coca-Cola corporation and its co-conspirators to justice for the murders and other crimes it has and continues to commit against our sisters and brothers in Colombia.
Partial list of signers* (*all organizations listed for id purposes only)
Lynn Mezza, Vice President IUECWA Local 201
Ed Childs, Chief Shop Steward, HERE Local 26
Nancy Younossi, building representative, Boston Teachers Union
Brian Majka, shop steward, AFSCME Local 646
Steven Gillis, Grievance Committee, Steelworkers Local 8751
Robert Traynham, shop steward, Steelworkers L. 8751
Rank & File United of USWA Local 8751
Howard Zinn, people’s historian
Rosario Morales, Puerto Rican writer
Rachel Nasca, member Harvard Union of Clerical & Technical Workers
Phebe Eckfeldt, member Harvard Union of Clerical & Technical Workers
Moonanum James, member National Association of Letter Carriers & co-leader United American Indians of New England
Marcus Jean, member Steelworkers Local 8751
Eric Bourgeois Ph.D.
Kyle Trevor Stone, Stonewall Warriors Boston
Kyle M. Hall, Harvard Divinity School
Pam Larratt Music Teacher Providence, RI
Mike Shaw, Rhode Island Pride at Work (AFL-CIO constituent)
Elle Petcavage, University of New Hampshire's Peace and Justice League
Bryan Pfeifer, Univ of Mass. Amherst GEO, UAW L. 2322
Dorothea Peacock, Women’s Fightback Network - Boston
Stevan Kirschbaum, member, USWA L. 8751
Prof. Richard Levins, Harvard University
For further information on the Bogotá tribunal,
please check out the following pages:
News Agency New Colombia (ANNCOL)
http://www.anncol.com/index-english.htm
International Action Center's Colombia pages
http://www.iacenter.org/colombia.htm
send replies to LaborsANSWER@iacboston.org
Labor's ANSWER - Boston
(Act Now to Stop War & End Racism)
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email: LaborsANSWER@iacboston.org
International ANSWER coalition
(Act Now to Stop War & End Racism)
http://www.internationalanswer.org
posted (revised): December 4, 2002
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