Colombian unionist calls for solidarity

[Judi Lynn]

Colombian unionist calls for solidarity
Saturday, November 6, 2010
By Jim McIlroy & Kiraz Janicke

Touring Colombian unionist Parmenio Poveda Salazar, an official with the National Unitarian Federation of Agrarian Unions (Fensuagro), has called for increased international solidarity with unionists and human rights activists in Colombia.

Parmenio said: "Many leaders of Colombian unions have been assassinated, and others have been forced into exile" by the policies of former president Alvaro Uribe. These same policies are continuing under new president Manuel Santos with at least 22 unionists and social justice activists being killed in the first 75 days of Santos’ presidency. "Internal displacement has worsened in the past year, with some 4,700,000 persons currently displaced in Colombia.

"People have been forced to flee by the military and the right-wing paramilitaries, but meanwhile the big landholdings have grown as farmers are pushed off their land."

Despite the ongoing human rights violations the US continues to back successive Colombian governments because they are subordinate to US policies in Latin America he explained.

More:
http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/45987