Colombia: Global Unions condemn expulsion of international trade unionists

international | worker & community struggles and protests | other press Thursday November 04, 2004 13:37 by Boycotter

Brussels 2 November 2004 (ICFTU Online): The international trade union movement today expressed its outrage at the expulsion of four international union representatives from Colombia on 30 October and 1 November, on the order of the government of President Alvaro Uribe Velez. It is understood that the Uribe government has drawn up a list of trade union representatives banned from entering the country, and that this list includes persons who took part in an international solidarity mission* to Colombia in September, to press the Uribe government to bring an end to the killing of Colombian trade trade unionists and the other means of anti-union repression which are rife in the country. Colombia has had a notorious record of violence and discrimination against trade unionists over many years, with more than 50 trade unionists murdered already this year.