Children of Coca-Cola workers are targeted

The son of a Colombian trade unionist, who denounced Coca-Cola for

hiring death squads, narrowly escapes attack. The management of two

Coca-Cola plants in Cúcuta and Cartagena traps workers in the bottling

plants as a way of pressuring them to renounce their employment

contracts, says the food and beverages workers union, SINALTRAINAL.

15.03.2004 (By SINALTRAINAL/ANNCOL) On 8 March 2004 a Labour Court

Judge ruled against the decision by Coca-Cola bottling company

Embotelladoras de Santander S.A. to sack RAFAEL CARVAJAL PEÑARANDA, a

SINALTRAINAL leader and Coca-Cola worker in Cúcuta.

RAFAEL CARVAJAL has been the victim of a fierce persecution by

management. He has been unjustly suspended from his work contract

several times. He suffered an armed attempt on his life by a guard

inside the plant. When another SINALTRAINAL leader JORGE LEAL was

kidnapped by paramilitaries, they warned Rafael Carvajal that he would

be silenced if he continued denouncing Coca-Cola.

In December 2003 presumed paramilitaries arrived at Rafael’s home and

threatened that they would assassinate his family if he did not turn

down his complaints against the corporation – that same day the son of

national SINALTRAINAL President JAVIER CORREA was kidnapped in

Bucaramanga.

The same day that the Judge announced his decision in Cúcuta, the

Coca-Cola bottler in Barranquilla gave notice of its decision to sack

union leader JOAQUIN CONSUEGRA, and attended the courts seeking

official approval to implement the decision.

Next day, 9 March 2004, the administration of the plants in Cúcuta and

Cartagena trapped workers in the bottling plants as a way of

pressuring them to renounce their employment contracts in exchange for

a small economic payment. This took place under the blackmail of a

ruling by the Minister of Social Protection, which authorized firing

the workers in those bottling plants where the company has illegally

shut its production lines.

Coca-Cola has been using this form of aggression against workers since

1. A Colombian judge and the Constitutional Court confirmed a few

days ago that the company committed the crime of illegally

constraining workers, and the company is now forced to pay out the

salaries and re-hire the workers who were pressured and blackmailed to

quit their jobs at the bottling plant in Medellin.

These events are happening as SINALTRAINAL negotiates with the

bottling plants of Coca-Cola that are owned by Panamco Colombia S.A.

(since 23 February 2004). With these acts, the company is looking to

ferment terror to force the workers from their jobs if they do not

succeed in forcing them to resign.

On the contrary, we are demanding that the company respect the ruling

by the Judge on the lawsuit we filed and that it abides by the

Collective Bargaining contract we have negotiated, which obligates the

company to relocate workers to other posts and retrain them.

Then, at about 10 a.m. on 11 March 2004 JHON ALEXANDER GARCIA, the son

of LUIS EDUARDO GARCIA (a well-known unionist and Coca-Cola worker

from Bucaramanga), was tackled by an unknown man and woman carrying

black knapsacks. He was travelling to his home in Bucaramanga in an

urban transport bus, when the unknown persons sent him the following

text message: “DOG YOU ARE THE SON OF A SON OF A BITCH TRADE

UNIONIST”, and started to shove him around.

He [the male assailant] put his hand into the knapsack motioning to

bring out a gun. JHON’s immediate reaction was to jump out of the

moving bus, taking advantage of the open door, and he desperately ran

off to save his life.

The list of victims of persecution in Coca-Cola’s bottling plants in

Colombia is interminable and will keep on growing. This is the urgent

reason for the solidarity and the support of the world campaign

against Coca-Cola, until the multinational stops its violent actions,

respects the human rights of its workers and until we obtain truth,

justice and integral reparations.

Translated by Killercoke.org

Top killer walks free

No files will be charged against a Colombian army general who was in

charge of paramilitaries who attacked villages, executed local civic

leaders, and provoked mass displacement. The failure to prosecute

General Rito Alejo del Río shows continuing flaws in the Attorney

General’s office, says Human Rights Watch.

15.03.2004 (By Human Rights Watch) Last week, Attorney General Luis

Camilo Osorio announced that he would not file charges against General

Rito Alejo del Río. A cashiered army officer, Del Río had been under

investigation for alleged links to paramilitaries while he commanded

the 17th Brigade, located in northern Colombia, between 1995 and 1997.

“The first thing that Attorney General Luis Camilo Osorio did upon

assuming office in 2001 was fire the prosecutors who had gathered

enough evidence to arrest Del Río for these serious crimes,” said José

Miguel Vivanco, executive director of the Americas Division of Human

Rights Watch. “That purge of prosecutors was only the beginning of a

marked trend in the Attorney General’s office of hampering or

derailing cases that implicate top military and paramilitary leaders.”

Within seventy-two hours of taking office, Osorio had demanded the

resignations of two high-ranking, veteran officials who had handled

some of the institution’s most important and complex human rights

cases, including this one. A third official felt compelled to resign

in response to the attorney general’s actions. Subsequently, the

prosecutor who had ordered General Del Río’s July 2001 arrest was

forced to flee Colombia because of threats on her life.

Prosecutors had gathered evidence linking Del Río to support for

paramilitaries who had attacked villages, executed local civic

leaders, and provoked mass displacement and severe hardship for

thousands of residents in the Urabá region. According to one soldier

interviewed by government prosecutors, General Del Río had ordered his

troops to patrol with paramilitaries and take measures to disguise

paramilitary killings as casualties of combat between the army and

guerrillas.

The evidence was compelling enough to prompt then-President Andrés

Pastrana to cashier Del Río in 1998. The U.S. government also canceled

his visa to the United States in July 1999, on the grounds that there

was credible evidence that implicated him in “international

terrorism,” drug trafficking, and arms trafficking.

“The Del Río case is one of the most important in Colombia, since it

alleges widespread collusion between the Colombian army and

paramilitary groups,” said Vivanco.

Human Rights Watch said the paramilitary coalition known as the United

Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) is currently on the U.S. State

Department list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. Three of its

leaders have been indicted in the United States for drug trafficking.

The Attorney General has publicly questioned the testimonies of two

former security force officers who claimed to have intimate knowledge

of illegal activities by Del Río. In both cases, there is ample

evidence that corroborates the testimonies, but this evidence has been

discounted by Osorio.

“The Procuraduría should immediately name a special investigator to

examine the Attorney General’s actions, which we believe may be in

violation of Colombian law,” said Vivanco.

Vivanco noted that under Osorio’s leadership, the Attorney General’s

office has been rocked by corruption scandals, including reports of

infiltration by paramilitaries, guerrillas, and drug traffickers. Over

the past six weeks, three top officials – the national director, the

replacement national director, and the head of the Witness Protection

Program — have been forced to resign or have been transferred because

serious questions were raised about their integrity.

Under international law, Colombia has an obligation to investigate and

prosecute human rights abuses. Progress on human rights cases is also

critical in determining whether Colombia is meeting the conditions

that currently regulate U.S. military aid. Since 2000 the United

States has invested over million in the Attorney General’s office.

Please note that the reproduction and distribution of articles from

this website, also of parts, is free provided that the source (ANNCOL)

is mentioned.

FYI :

WW.III has been and gone! its WW.IV next and that hasn’t started yet (ref foal eagle). maybe there’s a site called heaven forbid back-to-korea.com.

PS. Interesting - this isn’t the first time coke has killed some protesters. Oh well, they DO make a nice drink!