Stop the Killing of Colombian Unionists and Social Leaders!

Colombia is still the world's most dangerous country to be a union organizer. One social movement leader is murdered every day. The last social leaders killed in 2020 and the first in 2021, were union leaders and allies. Please send an email to Colombian authorities demanding an end to the killings of unions leaders and popular organization leaders.

FOLLOWING IS AN ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF THE EMAIL THAT WILL BE SENT TO COLOMBIAN AUTHORITIES:

I am writing to you about the deep crisis of human and labor rights in Colombia. The epidemic of violence against social leaders and union leaders is a cause of concern for every worker in every country, a threat to world peace. It is with alarm that we have received the news that the first two victims of assassinations of social leaders in 2021 were two members of the Colombian Federation of Education Workers (FECODE) assassinated on New Years Day. Similarly, the year 2020 ended with the murder of an attendee of a celebration of members of the Miranda, Cauca affiliate of the National Federation of Unitary Agricultural Trade Unions (FENSUAGRO), and since then the local union leaders have received serious threats to their lives. Historically and currently, FECODE and FENSUAGRO are the unions with the highest number of victims of political violence in Colombia, but they are not the only ones. Colombia is known as the most dangerous country in the world to be a trade unionist. Since the November 2016 signing of the peace agreement, more than a thousand social leaders have been assassinated, including many trade unionists. Because of this, since November 2019, the unions in Colombia called for a series of national strikes with massive participation from each sector of the popular movements. Their central demands have included that the killings of activists and trade unionists stop and that the State fulfill its obligations to protect the popular and workers' movements. Thus, as an internationalist and trade unionist, I am writing to add my voice to the call for peace and for security for all of my trade union sisters and brothers. I especially call for the real and timely protection of the local and national leaders of FECODE and FENSUAGRO, the most repressed unions in Colombia.