ICFTU ONLINE...
228/981027/LD
Colombia: Death toll rises to six among trade unionists assassinated since the beginning of the civil servants strikeBrussels, October 27 1998 (ICFTU OnLine): Jairo Cruz, President of a local branch of the United Workers’ Centre (CUT) was killed yesterday (Monday October 26) by a group of unknown assailants near San Alberto, 500km north of Bogotá. He is the sixth trade unionist to have been murdered in Colombia since October 7, the day when 800,000 civil servants began a strike to demand pay rises and tax reforms.
Cruz was the leader of the CUT branch union at the PROACEITIS company in Bucaramanga. This palm oil extracting company, together with several others in the same region, was in the headlines for several months last year when some of its employees were detained by guerillas demanding a ransom in exchange for their release.
On October 21 last, the assassination in Bogotá of the CUT vice-President, Jorge Ortega, outraged world public opinion and led the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) to launch a world campaign to press the government of President Pastrana to take appropriate urgent measures to protect the life of trade unionists and prosecute the assassins.
According to a Colombian source, Jorge Ortega was on a list of trade unionists and human rights activists "sentenced to death" by a group of paramilitaries, discovered several months earlier. Shortly before his death he had begun receiving death threats. Over the weekend, two more victims fell foul of the assassins: Hortensia Alfaro Banderas, a nurse who was head of the health workers’ union in the César department in the north of the country, and a teacher from the education union in the Huila department, Macario Barrera Villota.
According to the ICFTU’s figures, 156 trade unionists died in Colombia in 1997 alone. The Confederation also notes that most of these murders were committed while the trade unionists were in the process of negotiations.
As the civil servants’ strike enters its fourth week, negotiations are continuing with the President’s conservative government to find a solution to the dispute.
International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU)
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please contact: Luc Demaret on: 00 322 224 0212 - press@icftu.org