25 February, 2014After 75 days in detention, leaders of the oil workers’ union, the Union Sindical Obrera (USO), a Colombian affiliate of IndustriALL Global Union, were released on 18 and 19 February. This was a victory for the trade union movement.
Héctor Sánchez Gómez, Campo Elías Ortiz and José Delio Naranjo Gualteros were accused by the public prosecutor of a series of crimes, including “aggravated kidnapping, conspiracy to commit a crime, making threats, violation of the right to work, obstruction of the public highway, damage to natural resources and aggravated damage to private property”.
From the start, the USO said the detentions “were part of a politically motivated plan to stigmatize and persecute the union because it has campaigned against multinational companies like Pacific Rubiales in the department of Meta and denounced violations of the rights of workers and communities”.
The USO welcomes this victory, won by the union, in conjunction with the legal defence team, national and international trade unions, such as the AFL-CIO Solidarity Centre, IndustriALL, UNIFOR, PASO Internacional and the Canadian Brotherhood and Solidarity Network with Colombia, “which, in all kinds of ways and through various media, have criticized this difficult situation, denounced the detention of our colleagues and demanded their release”.
At the end of 2013, IndustriALL repudiated the detention of USO leaders and wrote to the Colombian government to demand their immediate release and an end to the persecution of the union.
“We will continue to fight for the release of our colleague and leader, Darío Cárdenas, vice-president of the union’s executive committee in Meta and we will continue to campaign against attempts to criminalise social struggles in Colombia”, said the USO.
IndustriALL believes the release of our three colleagues is a real victory for the USO, which has been persecuted and stopped from conducting trade union activity just because it has demanded labour rights and the freedom of association for oil industry workers.