The
bomb that exploded last weekend in
Apartadó -the heart of the banana region
of Urabá- left 14 wounded, four of them
members of the National Union of
Agroindustry Workers (SINTRAINAGRO).
With this episode the new outbreak of
violence in the region reached a peak.
And the targets are once again union
activists.
“Already several workers, including some
union leaders, have had to abandon their
plots because they’ve received threats
from armed groups operating illegally,”
Guillermo Rivera, president of
SINTRAINAGRO, member of the
Executive Committee of the United
Workers’ Federation (CUT) of
Colombia and member of the IUF’s
Latin American Executive Committee, told
Sirel.
Rivera
explains that “The bomb was placed in a
low-budget commercial center where
working families go on weekends to do
their shopping. The place is located
very near our Union headquarters, and it
was there that four of our fellow union
activists were seriously hurt, along
with ten other people.”
Asked what these groups could be seeking
to achieve with their actions, Rivera
said that “Their aim is to destabilize
the area, sow panic, take us back to a
violent situation that we had to suffer
for many years. What they want with
these terrorist attacks and the threats
against civilians and social activists
is to make people fear them again, they
want to demonstrate their power, and let
people know that they’re in the region
and that they can act at any time.”
As for the government’s reaction,
Rivera said that “Terrorism is very
difficult to control, and just one
individual can do a lot of damage.
Nonetheless, and since some of our
unionists have been threatened, we’ve
requested a meeting with Interior and
Justice Minister Fabio Valencia
Cossio, so we can inform him
directly of the situation and ask him to
implement tighter security measures to
protect the more vulnerable activists.
We still haven’t heard back from the
Minister.”
Lastly, it should be noted that
negotiations for the Collective
Bargaining Agreement began a week ago,
and although discussions between the
Union and management have only just
begun, the Union expects them to be
tough.
From Montevideo, Carlos Amorín
Rel-UITA
April 1, 2009
