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In a meeting with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe this afternoon, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney expressed the strong opposition of the AFL-CIO to a bilateral free trade agreement between Colombia and the United States at this time. Colombia's atrocious human rights record sets it apart from the rest of the world. There is no labor language that could be inserted into the U.S.-Colombia FTA that could adequately address the extraordinary - and unpunished -- violence confronting trade unionists in that country.
President Uribe made a case that the Colombian government has invested significant resources and efforts to investigate these murders and prosecute the perpetrators. We certainly appreciate those efforts and the progress that has been made. However, it is our view that there have not been adequate concrete improvements in the overall situation in Colombia - given the magnitude of the crimes. In 2006, the International Labor Organization (ILO) reported, "the situation regarding impunity is still extremely serious, since very little progress has yet been made to improve it." Government reports as to the number of prosecutions and convictions for murder are released only sporadically and are frequently inconsistent with previously released information. A close analysis of the official information reveals:
1) there have been only 30 convictions in all of the recorded trade union murder cases ever filed;
2) of the over 400 murders during the Uribe Administration, there have been only 7 convictions;
3) of the 236 murdered from 2004-2006, there has been only 1 conviction.
These official numbers belie any claim that the Uribe Administration has been committed to addressing impunity in any meaningful way. In the end, no government protection program can succeed if the government's intelligence service is actually providing lists of trade unionists and details on their security directly to the paramilitaries, as has been alleged by a former government security official.
No labor chapter, no matter how well crafted, will be sufficient to reduce, much less end, the incidence of the most extreme and deadly violations of the right to free association and collective bargaining. And no trade agreement with Colombia should be considered until the country meets an established set of human rights benchmarks. These benchmarks would include: completely severing all ties with paramilitary organizations and international criminal networks, making significant advances in the investigation and prosecution of crimes against trade unionists and providing meaningful and adequate protection for unions and trade unionists. The government must also bring its labor laws into conformity with ILO recommendations and provide full support for the newly created ILO office in Colombia to monitor labor rights compliance and pursue the investigation of key cases of assassinations of trade unionists.
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CIVIL AND HUMAN RIGHTS
