Colombia deal halted – for now – as Canadians rally against it
Human rights situation in Colombia "is truly alarming today" – daughter of murdered trade unionist.
OTTAWA, May 27, 2009, HarperIndex.ca, with YouTube video: Trade union activists have won at least a temporary victory in their campaign to halt a proposed corporate trade deal with Colombia, where murder and persecution of union activists is routine. The activists, fearing that the deal opens them to competition with workers who face lethal repression, were elated to hear today that the government has taken Bill C23 off the order paper for debate, and it may be postponed until next fall, presumably due, in part, to public pressure against it.
A spirited campaign by trade unionists and civil society groups appears to have made the Conservatives and opposition Liberals, who currently support the legislation, think twice about their support for it.
"I think the government postponed debate because of the pressure, coming from civil society, coming from labour unions, coming from organizations that are involved in Colombia," said Canadian Union of Postal Workers President Denis Lemelin, interviewed by Straight Goods News on Parliament Hill. With strong concern over human rights in Colombia, he said, "People realized we had to do something."
Denis Lemelin of CUPW is interviewed by Ish Theilheimer:
NDP trade critic Peter Julian agrees. "Canadians have pushed back both the Liberals and Conservatives telling them this is absolutely inappropriate given the high murder rate, the forced displacements, the disappearances, the links between the Colombia administration of President Uribe and paramilitary thugs and as well drug lords," he told Straight Goods News. "The more pressure we put on, the more they understand that politically this is very damaging to them."
Julian warns, however, that the Conservatives could re-introduce the legislation without warning at any time. "All it means is they've taken a step back. But they could bring it forward this Friday."
Julian said, "I know the way the Conservatives will work, with Liberal support, is essentially they'll be waiting for any opening they see." Today, Stockwell Day raised the issue again in the House.
USW-Canada brought Yessika Hoyos Morales to Ottawa from Colombia, where she is a human rights lawyer whose father is one of the 2,694 labour unionists murdered there in the past two decades.
Karl Pruner, President of the Toronto Chapter of the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA) interviewed Morales for Straight Goods News on Wednesday, May 26, before the news of the bill's postponement was received.
Interview with Yessika Hoyos Morales, part 1:
Karl Pruner: Here with me is Yessika Hoyos, a human rights lawyer from Colombia whose father, a union activist, was assassinated some eight years ago. The regime in Colombia is implicated in the deaths of thousands of unionists and other citizens and critics of the Canada-Colombia free trade deal argue that this deal should not go ahead until this situation in Colombia has been improved. Could you give us some idea of what it's like in Colombia now and people in Colombia feel about this free trade deal?
Yessika Morales (through interpreter Maria Victoria Giraldo): The situation in Colombia is that Colombians do not want this agreement. The unionists as well as the peasants and the human rights movements do not wish to have this agreement. Why? Because the human rights situation in Colombia continues to be very, very serious. There are many violations of human rights, we have over 4 million Colombians who have been internally displaced, and we have many leaders who are still being killed. Among which we have human rights defenders, the peasants, the unionists, and until the situation improves in terms of human rights Colombians do not wish this agreement to be approved.
Interview with Yessika Hoyos Morales, part 2:
Pruner: Now that's a good point, many people who are in favour of this bill, notably the government, are arguing that the human rights situation in Colombia is improving. Is that not true?
Hoyos: No, it is not true, it is a lie. It is a lie that the government is telling the international community so to be able to achieve its own objectives. Actually the situation has worsened in terms of human rights violations. Up to today, 17 unionists have been killed this year. That shows that the situation has not improved, it has worsened.
Pruner: Opponents of the bill have noted that the government is saying there is a guarantee of labour rights in this bill, but that in the way the bill is written there is an imbalance between the rights given to investors, for example foreign companies and their power and power given to people, to unions and workers under the free trade agreement. Can you comment on that imbalance?
Hoyos: Yes, there is a very big imbalance in terms mainly of the dispute resolution mechanisms. There are dispute resolution mechanisms that have been foreseen for firms, for large firms that can submit their claims even against the state while workers don't have any dispute resolution mechanisms foreseen for them in the agreement. So, there are many guarantees for the large companies and no guarantees whatsoever for the workers.
Pruner: Now this creates a special problem particularly in Colombia where I understand there are 4 million people who have been displaced internally, which, I believe, makes Colombia the second worst area for displaced persons after Sudan, so it seems to me that if you give corporations powers to sue the state but you don't give workers and trade unions the opportunity to similar powers than this internal displacement will only be exacerbated. Is that true?
Hoyos: Yes, it's true. Colombia the second country in terms of internally displaced population and the country with the largest amount of unionists being killed. I think that the FTA would increase displacement because Colombia is an underdeveloped country, so what the companies come to our country to do is to take our primary resources and this affects the Afro-Colombian and the indigenous people's populations. We have already had the cases of large multinationals, such as Chiquita Brands, which have paid the paramilitary to kill peasants and other inhabitants in the area where they are working, and they see themselves, their families see themselves forced to move to other places and become displaced.
Pruner: Can you comment on the Uribe regime and its ties to the paramilitary organizations and the chilling effect of recent government actions on democracy and on efforts to organize unions etc?
Hoyos: Yes, our democracy is actually being weakened. We no longer have the social rule of law that we had before. Our president is trying to run for president for the third time and this would mean that this would become a dictatorship. We have worked very hard so as to bring this process to a halt, but it has been very difficult. We, the unionists, as well as many other defenders are prosecuted and stigmatized. The President himself has come out publicly and has said that we the unionists are terrorists [as is] anyone who tries to defend human rights. So all of these rights that make a part of this political constitution of our own charter of rights no longer are being respected. Thirty percent of our parliamentarians are being investigated, they have been accused of belonging to the paramilitary or controlling the paramilitary, and we also have the director of the National Security Department, Jorge Novera, who has also been accused of having strong links with the paramilitary.
Pruner: I note that George Bush, the former President of the United States was very keen on this free trade agreement, and that the current president, President Obama and his administration are taking much more of a go-slow approach and would like to see more improvements in human rights before entering into an agreement. Do you think there is a message for Canada in that new approach by the Obama administration?
Hoyos: Yes, of course, I think that that's a very strong message which we should actually take into consideration very seriously I would warn anyone trying to deal with Colombia to be very careful when dealing with Colombia because at the very heart of these negotiations are the lives of Colombians which are at stake. And the message that I would like to bring to all Canadians is that they should look deeper into this agreement and the consequences that it may have before they go ahead and approve it because I think the human rights situation in Colombia is truly alarming today.
OTTAWA, May 27, 2009, HarperIndex.ca, with YouTube video: Trade union activists have won at least a temporary victory in their campaign to halt a proposed corporate trade deal with Colombia, where murder and persecution of union activists is routine. The activists, fearing that the deal opens them to competition with workers who face lethal repression, were elated to hear today that the government has taken 
