ARTICLE: Evo Morales Says Rich Nations Must Pay

Bolivia's first indigenous president, Evo Morales, has stated that rich nations must pay in some way for the destruction and poverty they have caused on other countries through imperialism and the monopolizing of their natural resources. Morales has made history by becoming the first indigenous president in Bolivia which has an indigenous majority! Morales is also part of the socialist bloc in the Americas along with Venezuela, Ecuador, Cuba and Nicaragua.

LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) — The world's richest nations must be made to pay for the damage their profligate use of natural resources has caused in Bolivia and other developing countries, President Evo Morales said Friday.

"It's not possible that some in the industrialized world live very well economically while affecting, even destroying others," he told The Associated Press in an interview.

The first indigenous president of this country — whose rapidly melting glaciers scientists count among the most profound signs of global warming — said he and other Latin American leaders were exploring possible legal means for demanding compensation for the developed world's "ecological debt."

"If there is understanding, that would be great. But if not, there will have to be international legal responsibility," said the scrappy coca union leader, who turned 48 a week ago.

In a wide-ranging 70-minute interview in the living room of the presidential residence, Morales said his version of socialism requires state control of all basic services, including telecommunications.

He also reiterated his call for the United States, which he accuses of trying to undermine his government, to pull all of its soldiers out of this Andean nation.

Morales told the AP he was willing to help Colombia reach peace with its main rebel movement, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, which he said was no longer justified in spilling blood after more than four decades of conflict.

On Bolivia's divisive domestic front, Morales said he ordered troops to withdraw from the main airport in the country's eastern lowlands last month to avoid bloodshed during a standoff over landing revenues. He said he received intelligence that the crowd that took over the airport included armed separatists looking to provoke a fatal confrontation.

Morales, an Aymara Indian whose father was a community leader, also said proudly that this majority indigenous nation will next week become the first to ratify the Sept. 13 declaration by the United Nations endorsing the rights of the world's native peoples.

The United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand were the only countries to vote against the declaration.

After winning the presidency in December 2005 with 54 percent of the vote, Morales has increased Bolivia's annual natural gas revenues from $300 million to $2 billion a year by exerting greater state control of the industry.

He has nationalized a tin smelter, most of Bolivia's largest tin mine and the country's railroads, and government officials have suggested they intend to move to nationalize electric utilities.

His government this year completed the re-nationalization of water companies, a demand sparked by widespread popular protests. It is currently negotiating the re-nationalization of the country's main telecommunications company, Entel, which is owned by Telecom Italia SpA.

"It's communication. You want to communicate, right?" Morales said. "It's a basic service. It's a human right."

"Just because you talk on the phone doesn't mean a few people are getting rich," said Morales, seated on a couch wearing fur-lined slippers he said were given to him by fans in a former Soviet republic whose name escaped him.

Morales has allied himself closely with Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's leftist president, and Fidel Castro, Cuba's aging leader.

Asked if his vision of socialism follows the Chavez mold, Morales said the communal structure of Bolivia's indigenous societies and their "way of living in harmony with Mother Earth" set South America's poorest country on a different road.

"This is not the socialism of a leftist. It's the socialism of humanity."

His politics have not endeared him to the United States, which was his nemesis in the late 1980s and 1990s when he led coca-leaf growers in protests against Washington-directed forced eradication campaigns.

Expanding on public remarks last month in which he expressed his desire that all U.S. military personnel leave Bolivia, Morales said he wants all armed foreign troops out.
He said the only Venezuelan soldiers in the country are unarmed pilots who fly him around in loaned helicopters.

"As far as I know, the only armed soldiers I've seen are those from the United States," he said.

The U.S. Embassy would not say how many troops or military contractors it has in the country, but they are believed to not exceed a few dozen.

Blinking from a nap and blowing his nose when the afternoon interview began, Morales was asked how much sleep he gets nightly given his penchant for brutally long work days.

"Less than four hours," he said, though he said he always catnaps during helicopter flights.

"I'd like to get more rest, but you just can't."

Courtesy of:Saúl

EDINBURG: “Chavez, Morales, and Castro...Oh, My!” -- NOV 8

STUDENTS FOR PEACE PRESENTS

“Chavez, Morales, and Castro...Oh, My!”
A Panel Discussion on U.S. Policy in Latin America


Featuring:
Dr. Jessica Lavariega-Monforti &
Dr. Gary Mounce
(UTPA Political Science Dept.)

Thurs., November 8, 2007
SBS 101 (Auditorium)
12-1pm (Activity Period)


studentsforpeace@aol.com

Courtesy of:
joe nobody
pollutiondistillation@yahoo.com

ARTICLE: Banana Workers Union Leader Assassinated in Guatemala

Thanks to: David

Banana Workers Union Leader Assassinated in Guatemala
by Kimberly Kern / October 31st, 2007

On September 23rd Marco Tulio Portela Ramirez was brutally gunned down outside his home as he prepared to go to work at the Bandegua banana plantation, a subsidiary of Del Monte Fresh Produce.

Do you eat Del Monte bananas? Do you notice where your bananas come from? Are you willing to take a moment of your time to help the workers whose labor sends over a million tons of bananas to the Unites States each year?

The production of bananas in Guatemala takes place in large monoculture plantations where labor conditions are very poor. Workers receive low wages which often don’t cover the basic needs of their families and endure long 12-hour work days and exposure to dangerous chemicals. Yet employees lack the freedom to organize independent trade unions and negotiate agreements with their employers in order to improve these working conditions. Those who have tried to organize have come under attack from both transnational banana companies and independent banana producers. Illegal firings, plantation closures, temporary contracts, civil law suits, trumped up criminal charges, and violence targeting union leaders have all become commonplace. So far in 2007, four unionists have been assassinated and no charges have been made against the guilty parties.

According to the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), the Guatemalan Constitution recognizes workers’ freedom of association and states that all workers retain the right to form and join trade unions. Workers have the right to organize and bargain collectively under the condition that 25% of the total workers are in agreement and possess the right to strike provided that 50% support the strike.

The Constitution also provides for a judicial system to rule specifically on violations of the Labor Code. Unfortunately, the labor courts in Guatemala are overrun with backlogged cases that can drag on for years. Even when they issue rulings, the courts have insufficient power to ensure that their decisions are respected. Consequently, employers tend to dismiss the Labor Code and are rarely held accountable for illegal firings, negligent work conditions and violence against union organizers.

Del Monte, the third largest producer of bananas, is owned and controlled by the Chilean-based IAT Group (their capital is held in the United Arab Emirates) and maintains its headquarters in Miami, Florida. As of 2005, Del Monte controlled about 15% of the world banana trade. Along with the other major banana producers like Chiquita and Dole, they wield a great deal of power in Latin America and can sell bananas to the northern markets at an extremely cut-rate price. According to a French research institute CIRAD, “only 12% of the final retail price stays in the producing countries. An even smaller proportion goes to small farmers (5-7%) or to plantation workers (1-3%)”. The rest is profit in the pockets of the CEO’s and investors.

Bandegua, the Guatemalan subsidiary of Del Monte, is one of many companies with a long history of targeting trade unionists. In 1999, Bandegua dismissed 900 workers who were involved in the Banana Workers Union of Itzabal (SITRABI), the oldest and one of the most powerful unions in Guatemala. On October 13th of that year, a heavily armed attack was led against the union organizers who were planning a massive protest in response to the dismissals. Consequently, seven members of SITRABI fled to the US to defend their lives and pursued a case against Bandegua. As a response, the US government placed Guatemala’s trade benefits on probation until Guatemalan courts convicted the criminals. Unfortunately, due to the sustained violence in Guatemala, the seven organizers continue to live in the US.

On March 7th, 2000, The International Union of Food and Agriculture Workers (UIF) signed an agreement with Del Monte Fresh Produce, which set up local negotiations between Bandegua and SITRABI and committed the company to respecting minimum labor standards. The new agreement ensured that all 900 workers who were illegally fired be allowed to return to their jobs and explicitly stated that all workers had the right to join SITRABI.

Although all parties signed the agreement, acts of violence and intimidation continue. In November of 2006, Cesar Humberto Guerra, the Labor and Conflicts Secretary of SITRABI, was followed by three armed men while driving through the Chicasaw banana plantations in a vehicle owned by SITRABI. The men fired their guns in the air and threw a stone at the windshield of the car.

In July, 2007, military officers forcibly entered a SITRABI union meeting demanding to know the identity of the union’s leaders, the size of its membership and the nature of its occupation. In response, SITRABI filed complaints with the Public Ministry and the Ministry of Defense in Guatemala, who promised there would be an “internal investigation.” According to a statement by the Solidarity Center, “Military officers had been disciplined by the Ministry of Defense in response to SITRABI complaints about the unlawful entry.”

Five days later, on the morning of September 23, Marco Tulio Portela Ramirez was brutally gunned down in front of his house by armed masked men carrying high caliber weapons as he prepared to go to work at the Bandegua banana plantation. Marco was the Secretary of Culture and Sport at SITRABI and his brother Noé Ramirez is the General Secretary. According to STITCH, a nationwide group of women organizing for social justice, SITRABI strongly believes that this killing is directly related to their fight to end the intimidation and harassment of the union.

In his statement on September 30th, Noé Ramirez declared, “At the wake and burial of my brother’s mortal remains, I saw how hundreds of workers who were there with us cried at the loss of a fellow unionist, but also how we all committed ourselves to continue forward with our struggle, refusing to be silenced, because we are not alone: we are supported by allies all over the world….I would like to ask you all to keep pressuring the government and the rest of the Guatemalan authorities so that they will immediately investigate and solve Marco Tulio’s murder, and punish both the material and intellectual perpetrators of this crime and their accomplices.”

In response to this assassination, Solidarity Center Executive Director Ellie Larson said, “The systematic attacks on SITRABI constitute backsliding on worker rights enforcement in Guatemala. No worker should lose his life for exercising a fundamental right to participate in a union. Together we must break down the wall of impunity and rebuild respect for worker and human rights.”

Please take a moment of your time to contact the Guatemalan Ambassador in the United States and urge the Guatemalan government to investigate this case and bring those responsible to justice. You can mail this sample letter from STITCH or write one of your own to ambassador@guatemala-embassy.org.

Ambassador Jose Guillermo Castillo,

2220 R Street, NW
Washington , DC 20008

Tel:(202) 745 4952

Fax:(202) 745 1908
ambassador@guatemala-embassy.org

Dear Ambassador Guillermo Castillo,

I am writing to ask your government to take strong and decisive action to stop the violence against unionists in Guatemala. The recent assassination of SITRABI Executive Committee Member, Marco Tulio Portela Ramirez on Sunday, September 23 is a stark reminder of the incredible danger workers face when trying to exercise their right to organize for better wages and more humane conditions in their work places. I urge your government to thoroughly investigate and prosecute the murderers of Mr. Ramirez and other trade unionist in Guatemala, including Mr. Pedro Zamora of the port workers union.

As you may recall, the SITRABI union leadership was violently intimidated in 1999 and forced to leave their country. Their case became an important test case on impunity for the U.S. government.

The government of Guatemala must also publicly condemn the violence against Guatemalan trade unions.

In addition, it is vital that the Guatemalan government take responsibility for the safety of the remaining leaders of SITRABI and ensure that they are protected from all violence and intimidation. The Guatemalan government must protect those that organize for basic their human rights. I will be monitoring the news as well as following updates from labor rights organizations to ensure that this case is taken seriously and that labor unions are protected throughout Guatemala.

Sincerely,

Your name

Kimberly Kern (Austin, TX) is working as human rights accompanier for the Network in Solidarity for the People of Guatemala (NISGUA). She can be reached at kimika@riseup.net.