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11 August, 2005ICEM News release No. 80/2001
Five trade union leaders have been arrested in Colombia - apparently for launching a strike against terror. All five are active in the Unión Sindical Obrera (USO), a union federation organising mainly in the oil sector.
An arrest warrant has reportedly also been issued for USO President Hernando Hernández.
The five detained USO leaders are Edgar Mojica, chairman of its Bogotá area; Ramón Rangel, of its human rights and peace committee; Jairo Calderón, former chairman of its Barranca area; Luis Viana and Alonso Martínez. The reasons for their arrest are unclear, but seem to be connected with a strike in Colombia's oil industry last Friday. The strike was a protest over the terror campaigns being waged against Colombian trade unionists.
The 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM) has called for the immediate release of the detained trade unionists. "We are deeply concerned about the detention of our colleagues and about the threat to their physical well-being," writes ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs in a fax to Colombia's President Andrés Pastrana. "The arbitrary detention of these trade union brothers is an attack on human rights and on the trade union freedoms enshrined in the Conventions of the UN's International Labour Organisation."
Colombia is the world's most dangerous country for trade unionists. Last year, says the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), no less than 153 of the 209 trade unionists assassinated worldwide were in Colombia.
Many other Colombian trade unionists and their families are subject to death threats and other harassment, and some have "disappeared".
Almost all the murders of trade unionists in Colombia have gone unexplained and unpunished.
An arrest warrant has reportedly also been issued for USO President Hernando Hernández.
The five detained USO leaders are Edgar Mojica, chairman of its Bogotá area; Ramón Rangel, of its human rights and peace committee; Jairo Calderón, former chairman of its Barranca area; Luis Viana and Alonso Martínez. The reasons for their arrest are unclear, but seem to be connected with a strike in Colombia's oil industry last Friday. The strike was a protest over the terror campaigns being waged against Colombian trade unionists.
The 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM) has called for the immediate release of the detained trade unionists. "We are deeply concerned about the detention of our colleagues and about the threat to their physical well-being," writes ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs in a fax to Colombia's President Andrés Pastrana. "The arbitrary detention of these trade union brothers is an attack on human rights and on the trade union freedoms enshrined in the Conventions of the UN's International Labour Organisation."
Colombia is the world's most dangerous country for trade unionists. Last year, says the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), no less than 153 of the 209 trade unionists assassinated worldwide were in Colombia.
Many other Colombian trade unionists and their families are subject to death threats and other harassment, and some have "disappeared".
Almost all the murders of trade unionists in Colombia have gone unexplained and unpunished.