LONDON — Solidarity with Colombian workers will step up a notch here in November, when workers' leader Alexander Lopez visits to tell of his union's fight against privatisation in Colombia's second largest city, Cali, and to urge opposition to the United States military's Plan Colombia.
Lopez is the president of the Cali Municipal Workers Union, Sintraemcali, which has spent the last six years fighting government plans to sell the city's water, electricity and phone services. The workers, who waged a nine-day strike in 1999, have wide support from the city's three million inhabitants, especially those from the poorer districts.
President Andres Pastrana's October announcement of the imminent privatisation of Cali's public services provoked an immediate response from Sintraemcali. A 35,000-strong union mass meeting voted to take strike action against the sale.
Repression has been fierce. The government has sought to criminalise social protest in the country and 55 union members are awaiting trial on charges of rebellion. Lopez himself has survived three assassination attempts and one of his bodyguards was killed outside the home of the union's general secretary. Assassinations in Colombia are often the work of paramilitaries with close links to the army and sections of the elite.
Violence against unionists is likely to get worse under the Plan Colombia, which provides for US$1.3 billion in US military aid to fund helicopter gunships and three infantry battalions, to be centred on the country's southern zone, the site of fierce clashes with leftist rebel movements.
Pastrana will visit Europe in November seeking finance. The British Labour government has stated that it will give 150 million pounds of "development aid" to fund aspects of Plan Colombia.
Sintraemcali and the Latin American Solidarity Collective against US Intervention in Colombia (LASO), which is organised Lopez's tour, are seeking international support for their campaign.
Contact LASO, by post at PO Box 8446 London N17 6NZ, Britain, or by email <lasocollective@hotmail.com>.
BY LYNDA HANSEN