Stand by Colombia's Victims of Violence

By: Lisa Haugaard, Executive Director 6/8/12

Meeting with Colombian President Santos following the Summit of the Americas, President Obama declared that the Colombian government had met the terms of the Labor Action Plan, allowing the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement to take effect May 15th. The Latin America Working Group joined U.S. and Colombian unions and nongovernmental groups in condemning this action, which makes a mockery of the commitment Mr. Obama made to ensure that all the elements of the Labor Action Plan would be fulfilled.

A week after President Obama made this announcement, trade unionists belonging to the SINTRAEMCALI union received invitations to their own funeral, with two bullets, two roses and a prayer book. Thirty trade unionists were killed in 2011, and at least four were killed so far this year. While the Colombian government has improved protection programs for trade unionists, a positive impact of the plan, most of the killers of trade unionists remain free, and threats are rarely even investigated.

In other violations of the Labor Action Plan, it continues to be a common practice to fire workers who wish to affiliate with a union or who were engaged in organizing, and then to rehire workers willing to sign letters saying they are not affiliated with a trade union. The Colombian government issued regulations to ban "labor cooperatives" that undermine unions (they act as if workers are self-employed, so that the companies that hire them need not abide by labor law), but has failed to address other similar arrangements with different names. Many companies, including in sectors such as sugar, oil palm, coffee, health, mining, ports and transport, are forming associations with other names to skirt the cooperatives ban.

Leo Gerard, President of the Steelworkers Union, declared, "We cannot certify as compliant with the Labor Action Plan a blacklisted country that continues to countenance murder. That would violate everything good and moral that we stand for as a people." We agree with him. LAWG will continue to work with unions, NGOs and interested members of Congress to put pressure on both governments to ensure full implementation of the Labor Action Plan.

By Eric Oliver and Vanessa Kritzer

This April, LAWG worked with a large coalition of faith-based and human rights organizations to make the 7th  Annual Days of Prayer and Action for Colombia a huge success.  Every week in Colombia last year, more than 2,250 people were violently pushed off their lands and left homeless.  With this in mind, we focused our efforts on spreading one simple message: everybody deserves a place to call home. 

In order to raise awareness about the scale of Colombia’s displacement crisis, more than 100 communities took part in our grassroots project, “A Place to Call Home: Hand in Hand for Peace in Colombia.” From San Francisco to New York, Chicago to Miami, people gathered in community centers, churches, and college campuses to learn about Colombia and join in the effort to create 5,200 paper houses to symbolize the yearning for home of 5.2 million displaced Colombians. The results were inspiring and imaginative.  These homes were displayed publicly throughout April to raise awareness, and photos of the events were shared on our facebook page to show solidarity between groups in the U.S. and Colombia. In May, these houses will be delivered to the White House along with 15,000 postcards asking President Obama to make meaningful changes in U.S. policies towards Colombia.

But that’s not all! In addition to crafting, activists made their voices heard through organizing lobby days, holding prayer services, and signing an online petition asking Congress to stop funding the war and to increase aid for displaced people and refugees.  We planned our main weekend of action to coincide with the Summit of the Americas, in which leaders from across the Western Hemisphere gathered in Cartagena, Colombia. Through letters to the editor, radio interviews, and coordinating with Colombian partners planning a vigil in Cartagena, we focused press attention onto the displacement crisis and amplified our call to support victims of violence and those working for peace in Colombia.

We owe a big thanks to everyone who helped us with this wonderful project. By working together, we have gained amazing momentum in the movement for better U.S. policies towards Colombia. Now we can’t wait to start planning for next year!

Wow.  What an incredible display of solidarity we saw this year!

Thanks to your help, this year’s 7th Annual Days of Prayer and Action for Colombia was a huge success!  Here at LAWG we are super impressed with how many of you got involved.  Whether by creating paper homes, sending postcards to President Obama, or signing our Petition to Congress—you helped make sure our message was heard loud and clear: everybody deserves a place to call home.  Together, we raised our voices to call for an end to the world’s largest displacement crisis that’s left millions of Colombians homeless. 

On May 17, 2012, Lisa Haugaard, executive director of the Latin America Working Group Education Fund testified before the United States Congress Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission on the situation of human rights defenders in Colombia.

"The situation in 2012 continues to be grim," says Lisa Haugaard in the official testimony. "In the first three months of the year, 13 human rights defenders were assassinated, according to Somos Defensores, with 64 acts of aggression during that same period."

To view the testimony in English, click here.

To view the testimony in Spanish, click here.