Colombia background

War on Want and Justice for Colombia are using the summit to highlight the catastrophe now facing the trade union movement in Colombia. Last year 184 trade unionists were assassinated - more than in the rest of the world combined. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. Altogether, more than 4,000 people were killed for political reasons last year while 400,000 were displaced with most forced into stark poverty.

We believe the UK Government could exert far more pressure on the Colombian government, given their extensive ties with that country. In particular, we are deeply concerned that military and security assistance is still being given to Colombia. In Parliamentary Questions to the Defence Minister on 10 June, MPs were told that a small number of military personnel worked with and trained the Colombian armed forces but that “the nature of which is confidential between governments”. Further information has been withheld.

The Colombian military have one of the worst human rights records in the Western Hemisphere and well-documented links to paramilitary death squads that are responsible for 80% of human rights abuses perpetrated in Colombia each year.

According to Amnesty International, guerrilla forces are responsible for numerous and repeated violations of international humanitarian law. Security forces and their paramilitary allies account for some 80% of politically-motivated killings and over 90% of forced "disappearances".

Frances O’Grady, Deputy General Secretary of the TUC has spoken out on this issue: “It is well documented that paramilitary death squads work closely with the Colombian armed forces and that they are responsible for the vast majority of the assassinations and other human rights violations against our trade union colleagues in Colombia. The TUC is extremely concerned about the situation and calls on the British government to act more forcefully to protect Colombian trade unionists - including the freezing of military assistance.”

Due to the lack of transparency, it is impossible to assess which units of the Colombian army are recipients of UK assistance, and whether they share equipment, intelligence and other resources with the paramilitaries. As such, we are calling for an end to all UK military assistance to the Colombian security forces.

But military assistance is only one element of the pressure that the UK government could exert on Colombia. The British Government also recently refused to vote in favour of an International Labour Organisation Commission of Inquiry into the murders of over 3500 trade unionists since 1987 in Colombia. Despite the murder of several trade unionists each week, the call was rejected by an alliance of employers and governments on the International Labour Organisation governing body.

Dan Cunniah, Secretary of the ILO Workers’ Group believes an “ILO Commission of Inquiry would have helped bring out the truth, and made a major contribution to bringing an end to the anti-union reign of terror in Colombia.”

The UK government must use its wider relationship with the Colombian government to ensure that the state of terror in that country is brought to an end. In the words of former Foreign Office Minister Tony Lloyd MP “it is of crucial importance that the government attach strict and verifiable human rights conditions on aid to Colombia. Furthermore all military aid to the Colombian regime should be terminated immediately.”

The severity of the human rights situation in Colombia cannot be separated from the appalling poverty suffered by Colombians. Standing up against poverty, inequality and injustice – a first step in the war on want – marks you out as a target in Colombia and places your life in danger. We believe that the full-scale assault on the trade union movement is an attack on people’s basic human right to fight for a better and more equal society.

As such, the trade union catastrophe in Colombia will have a detrimental effect on the fight against poverty in Colombia – a country in which just over 1% of the population still own 58% of the land and approximately eight million Colombians have incomes below a nutritionally-defined subsistence level.

The UK Government evidently believes that a constructive engagement approach is the most effective way to improve the life of ordinary Colombians. But their contention that the situation faced by civil society groups in Colombia is improving is neither backed by the hard evidence of human rights organisations, or by the findings of a recent War on Want and Justice for Colombia delegation. We support calls made by Colombian civil society that all further aid to Colombia should be aimed at poverty alleviation, sustainable development and a significant improvement in human rights conditions rather than for military programmes.

In a press statement issued this month Gabriele Juen, Executive Officer at Amnesty International’s EU Office in Brussels has made clear that "Since peace talks broke down last year between the Colombian government and the main armed opposition group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the security policies of the administration of President Alvaro Uribe have only served to exacerbate the already severe human rights crisis in the country".

Back to press release