Another Drummond Mine Worker Dies in Preventable Accident
News from Colombia | on: Sunday, 30 January 2011
On January 22nd Oscar Rodriguez Calderon, a 37 year-old mine worker at Drummond’s Pribbenow mine, died after falling from the cabin of the excavator he was operating 3 days earlier on January 19th. The accident caused severe head injuries, and sent him into a coma from which he did not read moreTeacher Shot and Killed in Cordoba Department
News from Colombia | on: Sunday, 30 January 2011
The Colombian teacher and trade unionist Manuel Esteban Tejada was assassinated on 10th January 2011 in the department of Córdoba. A member of ADEMACOR, the Teachers’ Association of Cordoba, he was killed when armed men shot him at his home. The CUT trade union confederation has condemned the read moreColombian Union Mobilises in Protest Against Sodexho
News from Colombia | on: Sunday, 30 January 2011
On the 19th of January the workers of the SINALTRAINAL food industry workers’ union and other organisations mounted protests in several cities, as part of the global campaign against Sodexho. They targeted Sodexho offices as well as those of its Colombian subsidiaries. The protests met with police repression, resulting in read moreOfficial Report Illustrates Uribe Carnage
News from Colombia | on: Thursday, 27 January 2011
A new report by the Colombian National Attorney-General’s Office contains figures illustrating the terrible toll on human lives taken by the government’s Democratic Security Policy. The Attorney-General’s office has outlined a picture of the extent of the human rights abuses committed by paramilitary groups that occurred between 2005 and 2010, read more 
Trade Unionists’ Daughter Kidnapped and Threatened
News from Colombia | on: Wednesday, 26 January 2011
On December 30th, the 17 year-old daughter of trade union leader Martha Cecilia Diaz Suarez was bundled into the back of a taxi at gunpoint and then threatened. Martha Diaz is the President of ASTDEMP - public sector workers’ union in the region of Santander. The union has been at read moreCUT Says Wages Crisis Not Fixed By Small Minimum Wage Increase
News from Colombia | on: Wednesday, 26 January 2011
Colombian trade unions and the Confederation of Pensioners have condemned the Government’s 4% increase in the national minimum wage as inadequate to resolve the economic situation of most people. They also state that the wage negotiating commission with whom they tried to negotiate a larger increase had neither the political read more 
Distinguished Trade Union Leader Dies
Justice For Colombia News | on: Wednesday, 26 January 2011
Justice for Colombia has received the extremely sad news that Raul Arroyave Arango, Director of International Relations of the CUT died of natural causes on the morning of 26th January. Raul was a well known, respected and much-loved trade union leader who has been a key figure in the Colombian read more 
Trade Union Leader Imprisoned
News from Colombia | on: Monday, 24 January 2011
The criminalisation of trade union activity continued this month with yet another high-profile activist detained and imprisoned. Aracely Cañaveral Velez, a well known trade union leader, was detained in Medellin on the 17th of January. She has been accused of several crimes, including “rebellion” – the catch-all charge regularly used read moreTwo Students Killed by Paramilitaries in Cordoba Department
News from Colombia | on: Wednesday, 19 January 2011
The bullet-riddled bodies of 23 year-old Margarita Gomez and 26 year-old Mateo Matamala were found on January 7th in San Bernardo del Viento, in Colombia’s northern Cordoba department. Ms Gomez and Mr Matamala were students at the prestigious university of Los Andes in Bogota and were in the area read moreFormer President of the Colombian Senate Accused of Using Illegally Obtained Intelligence
News from Colombia | on: Wednesday, 19 January 2011
The Supreme Court has opened a formal investigation into former president of the Senate, Uribe-supporting Nancy Patricia Gutierrez. She has been accused by a former DAS intelligence service agent of illegally receiving intelligence information which she then used in Congressional debates against former Senator Piedad Cordoba. Ms Gutierrez allegedly obtained read more 
Oil Workers’ Union Reports Paramilitary Threats in Santander
News from Colombia | on: Wednesday, 19 January 2011
USO, the Colombian Oil Workers’ union has reported that three of their leading activists received death threats whilst trying to organise workers. On Monday January 17th three USO representatives were talking to workers on the site of a geological study being carried out by a sub-contracted firm called ‘Geospectro’ for read more 
Leading CUT Member Victim of Assassination Attempt
News from Colombia | on: Wednesday, 19 January 2011
Henry Gordon, Legal Officer of the CUT Atlantic Region narrowly escaped an assassination attempt on the afternoon of Friday 14th January. He was travelling from Barranquilla, accompanied by his bodyguards, to the town of Soledad to meet with local health workers at the Maternity-Infant hospital in the town of Soledad read more 
Report Confirms Anti-union Climate
News from Colombia | on: Wednesday, 19 January 2011
The Colombian 'National Trade Union School', the ENS, has released the results of a study of the working conditions of public and private sector workers in Bogota and the department of Cundinamarca which surrounds the capital. This report provides a grim snapshot of the situation in the country as a read moreMunicipal Government in Medellin Cedes Control to Paramilitary Mafias
News from Colombia | on: Tuesday, 18 January 2011
Human Rights organisations in Medellin report that the municipal government’s policy of achieving security through political pacts with paramilitary and mafia gangs in the city has failed to control violence and has forced the city to its knees before the “para-mafia”. The municipal authorities had sought to come to an read more 
Colombian Oil Union Condemns Ecopetrol Sale
News from Colombia | on: Monday, 17 January 2011
The sale of 10% of Ecopetrol, the Colombian state-owned oil company, will leave a hole in the public purse that cannot be filled elsewhere, according to the Colombian Oil Workers'union, USO. The government has claimed that the sale will be used to finance road-building projects and to deal with the read more 
Well known opposition member assassinated
News from Colombia | on: Monday, 10 January 2011
Jose Lenin Mayusa – former local councillor and opposition activist was assassinated upon arriving to the shop he worked at in the municipality of La Union, Valle de Cauca Department in Western Colombia at 5.30pm on 31st December 2010. He was shot twice in the head and then a further read more 
Sexual Violence in Colombia
News from Colombia | on: Thursday, 6 January 2011
A new report funded by the Dutch government and Oxfam has underlined the prevalence of sexual violence in areas affected by the civil war in Colombia, where the conflict is not marked by isolated events, but is in fact “a daily reality”. Shockingly, the report calculates that an average of read moreOfficial Visit Confirms that Political Prisoners Continue to Suffer Dire Human Rights Conditions
News from Colombia | on: Thursday, 6 January 2011
On December 23rd, representatives of the Colombian Senate Human Rights Committee, and several respected human rights and lawyers’ organisations visited the women in Patio 6 of the Buen Pastor Women’s Prison in Bogota. The visitors heard testimony from the incarcerated women about the conditions they endure. Several issues surrounding legal read more
