The Alliance for Global Justice is distressed to hear of serious recent assaults against participants in Colombia’s Union Network for Peace, SINDEPAZ. In two separate but related attacks, a member of the Memoria Viva (Living Memory) union of security guards (which is composed of signers to the 2016 peace accord) that left left Bleider Andrés Garcés Biscunda, seriously injured,and also wounded Paola Andrea Chantre Pilcué. His brother, Alexander Garcés Biscunda, was killed..

Meanwhile, the right wing Colombian Ombudsman, Carlos Carmago, has been illegally intercepting private communications of the SINDHEP Human Rights Defenders union, and has expelled SINDHEP from the negotiation table. (More information below.) Both SINDHEP and Memoria Viva are founding members of SINDEPAZ.

Please take a moment to send the following emails in solidarity with Memoria Viva and SINDHEP

Send an email to Colombia’s Ombudsman and the Ministry of Labor to demand that negotiations be reopened with SINDHEP and that the illegal spying on the union be stopped immediately

Send in support of Memoria Viva’s demands and its advocacy for concrete steps to insure peace and end the killings of union members and social movement leaders

FOR MORE INFORMATION

COLOMBIAN HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS UNION, SINDHEP, EXPELLED FROM THE BARGAINING TABLE 

 By Tanya Nuñez and James Patrick Jordan 

In a new act of anti-union abuse by Carlos Camargo, Colombia’s right wing Ombudsman, the Human Rights Defenders Union, SINDHEP, was recently expelled from the collective bargaining table on reasons that have no legal basis. This arbitrary and illegal act comes days after SINDHEP made a public denouncement of the Ombudsman, Carlos Camargo, warning about the risks of corruption, clientelism, and wiretapping of workers taking place under his administration.

On May 24th, 2023, the administration of the Ombudsman’s Office, who themselves act as negotiators within the collective bargaining table, illegitimately assumed the powers of a judge, determining the legality of the union’s attendance by claiming SINDHEP had failed to meet the requirements to be allowed to participate in the table.

SINDHEP rejected the proclamations made and denounced the anti-union attack carried out by the Ombudsman’s Office, saying that it was in fact the administration who was violating the law under both the Ministry of Labor and the International Labor Organization, having no right to determine the legality of SINDHEP’s participation in the bargaining process.

Read more…

CLICK HERE to watch a webinar with REDSIPAZ on the theme of Labor and Peace in Colombia