CUSG and SITRABI Statement

 

The United Labor Confederation of Guatemala (CUSG) and the Union of Banana Workers of Izabal (SITRABI) are mourning yet another loss among their own and publicly denounce the crime before the national and international community.

 

1. Today, May 26, at about 7 a.m., our fellow worker Idar Joel Hernandez Godoy, finance secretary and member of SITRABI’s Central Governing Committee, was brutally murdered

 

2.   Hernandez Godoy was driving a car with license plate number 931 DDM, owned by the trade union of workers of Finca Campo Nuevo, a plantation of the Del Monte transnational corporation subsidiary Bandegua. He was heading to the SITRABI headquarters located in Morales Izabal, when in the small town of Cristina, in the municipality of Amates, Izabal, according to eyewitness accounts, he was overtaken by individuals on a motorcycle, who shot repeatedly at him, causing him to lose control of the vehicle and crash into a truck by the side of the road, nearly totaling the car.

 

3.   According to information from the National Police and officers of the Public Ministry who appeared on the scene, the body presented several gun wounds, one of them on his forehead.

 

4.   This is yet another act of violence committed against SITRABI leaders and, therefore, against Guatemala’s labor movement, and we publicly denounce this situation and firmly and strongly condemn it, as our labor movement and SITRABI in particular cannot have any more MARTYRS.

 

It should be noted that on April 10 of this year, at around 8:30 p.m., another fellow worker, Oscar Humberto Gonzáles Vázquez, a SITRABI rank-and-file leader, was shot at from the back and killed. The crime occurred in Colonia Nueva de Chiriquí, Morales Izabal, and at least 35 bullets were found in his body.

 

In view of these crimes, we demand:

 

•      From the Government of Guatemala, headed by President Álvaro Colom Caballeros, that it take any measures necessary to stop this wave of killings and attacks against trade union leaders, and put an end to the generalized violence that is sweeping across the country and which has intensified under the current administration and is crushing the Guatemalan people. Article 2 of the Guatemalan Constitution specifically provides that IT IS THE STATE’S DUTY TO GUARANTEE LIFE, LIBERTY, JUSTICE, SAFETY, PEACE AND INTEGRAL DEVELOPMENT FOR ALL.

 

•      From the Public Ministry’s attorney general, Claudia Paz y Paz, that she issue specific instructions to the relevant authorities to conduct any investigation that may be necessary to identify the direct and indirect perpetrators of this new crime and bring them to justice. We must end the impunity and corruption that protects the perpetrators of these bloody crimes, preventing the families of the victims from getting to the truth and casting a cloak of sorrow and mourning over Guatemalan families and the labor movement, leaving more and more children without their parents and with no protection from the government or other authorities;

 

•      From the Ministry of the Interior and the Public Ministry, that they coordinate their actions to strengthen security measures in order to protect the physical integrity of all SITRABI leaders, as we firmly believe that their lives are in danger.

 

•      From national and international labor organizations, we DEMAND their solidarity and support and ask them to denounce this latest killing to the government of Álvaro Colom.

 

WE DEMAND RESPECT FOR LIFE AND UNION FREEDOM IN GUATEMALA