Steel union takes Colombia death squads to court

by Fred Gaboury

The United Steelworkers of America (USWA) and the International Labor 
Rights Fund (ILRF) have filed a federal lawsuit charging the US-owned 
Drummond Company with complicity in the assassinations of Valmore Lacareno, 
Victor Orcasita and Gustavo Solar, leaders of the union representing 
workers at Drummond's coal mining operations in Colombia. Lacareno and 
Orcasita were dragged off a company bus and shot by paramilitaries in March 
2001. Solar suffered the same fate in October.

Leo Girard, USWA president, said the union's decision to join the suit 
stems from the union's unyielding "commitment to the fundamental rights of 
workers in every nation." A USWA delegation was visiting Colombia at the 
time Lacareno and Orcasita were murdered.

"We have evidence that the paramilitaries who killed the three union 
leaders were in fact working for Drummond", said Terry Collingsworth, 
president of the ILRF.

The suit charges that Drummond "hired, contracted with or otherwise 
directed" paramilitary security forces that utilised extreme violence and 
"murdered, tortured, unlawfully detained or otherwise silenced trade union 
leaders" and, further, the murders occurred to prevent their participation 
in negotiations.

The complaint says Lacareno and Orcasita knew of death threats against them 
and asked Drummond officials if they could stay in the plant overnight for 
their safety.

The request was denied without explanation, the company saying only they 
"hoped the authorities take measures they consider appropriate regarding 
the situations raised by you all."

The refusal came despite warnings from Colombia's secret service agency 
(DAS) alerting Drummond that both men were at high risk of assassination 
and echoing their request to sleep at the mine.

The lawsuit says several paramilitary gunmen stopped a Drummond bus 
carrying miners back to their villages and ordered Lacareno and Orcasita 
off. "Several witnesses heard the paramilitaries say that they were there 
to settle a dispute that Lacareno and Orcasita had with Drummond", the 
lawsuit said.

The complaint says any effort by the plaintiffs to seek legal redress 
"would be futile" because those seeking to challenge official or 
paramilitary violence, including prosecutors and prominent human rights 
activists, are at great risk from retaliation.

"Indeed, not one perpetrator has been successfully prosecuted for any of 
the thousands of cases of trade union assassination which have taken place 
since 1986", the plaintiffs say.

In their complaint the plaintiffs charge that Drummond's actions violate 
laws, agreements, conventions, resolutions and treaties that include: the 
United Nations Charter and Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the 
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, International Labor 
Organization Conventions 87 and 98, which protect the fundamental rights to 
associate and organize, and Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions.

Court documents point to the fact that investigators from Human Rights 
Watch found "detailed, abundant, and compelling evidence of continuing 
close ties between the Colombian Army and paramilitary groups responsible 
for gross human rights violations."

US State Department's 2001 Country Reports on Human Rights 
Practices — Colombia, confirms this fact without reservation.

In addition, international organisations, including Amnesty International, 
the International Labour Organisation, and the United Nations Commission On 
Human Rights have all reported extensively on paramilitary violence against 
trade union leaders in Colombia.

The lawsuit says the extent of the Colombian conflict "is so pervasive" 
that the country's civil war must be governed by the rules of war so that 
the combatants, including the right-wing paramilitaries and the regular 
military, are governed by Article 3 of the Geneva Convention, which applies 
to "an armed conflict not of an international character".

Thus, the complaint says, "non-combatants are protected from human rights 
violations and other war crimes committed by any parties to the conflict, 
which includes the paramilitary forces that clearly are major participants 
in the conflict."

Since the CUT, Colombia's largest union federation, was founded in 1986, 
some 3800 trade unionists have been assassinated. The homeless and 
prostitutes are also targeted for murder by the paramilitaries. The murders 
are called "social cleansing" by the right wing.

The Colombian paramilitaries were created under "Law 48," which Authorised 
the Defence Ministry to create and provide weapons to civil patrols. 
Seventy-eight per cent of the murders of Colombian trade unionists Between 
October 1999 and March 2000 were attributable to the paramilitaries.

Although Drummond flatly refused to improve security arrangements for the 
union leaders, it made sure that the expatriate employees from the US were 
never exposed to danger by flying them out of the area to their highly 
secure residential facilities.

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This article is from http://www.pww.org/article/view/875People's 
Weekly World paper of Communist Party, USA