21 October, 2009The Colombian trade union leader Albeiro Martinez has died from a heart attack at the age of 49. He lived his last five years in Chile in order to protect his life and that of his family after receiving death threats because of his trade union work in Colombia.
CHILE: On Tuesday 6 October, during a bus journey from Santiago to Antofagasta, our Colombian comrade Jesús Albeiro Martinez Catrillón suffered a heart attack that unfortunately cost him his life at the age of 49.
Albeiro had lived in Chile for the last five years after leaving Colombia with the help of the Catholic Church after receiving death threats because of his trade union work.
The IMF provided assistance to protect his life and that of his family, through an IF Metal and LO-CO humanitarian aid fund. Affiliated organisations in Chile also provided him with their support. Albeiro worked with CONSTRAMET on important projects, especially involving the training of trade union leaders. More recently, and thanks to the efforts of our affiliate SINAMI, he was working in a company that provides services to Codelco, at Sierra Gorda.
Albeiro had a distinguished trade union career in Colombia. He was president of the Fredonia Municipal Workers Union (Sindicato de Trabajadores Oficiales Administración del Municipio de Fredonia), in Antioquia and president of SINTRASEMA CENTRAL. He actively promoted the unity of the working class through UTRAN, FUTRAN and then the Antioquia section of CUT. In 1996, he was the leader of SINTRASEMA when it joined the IMF affiliate UTRAMMICOL, where he took on major responsibilities as leader of the union executive committee and where he served the union with distinction.
He was persecuted because of his trade union activities and spent one year (2003) in the United States as part of a programme to protect trade union leaders before emigrating to Santiago, Chile with the help of Catholic Action.
The IMF Latin American and Caribbean Regional Office regrets the loss of Albeiro Martinez, who fought for trade unionism and who, despite being forced to live a long way from his country, his family and his traditions, settled in Chile, where he continued working to promote the rights of workers, the right to freedom of association and the welfare of his family.
All of us in the IMF offer our condolences to his family and to the trade union movement in the region.