Obama meets Colombian president

As President Obama hosts visiting Colombian president Alvaro Uribe, trade unionist back in Colombia continue to face mortal danger. John Otis reports from Cucuta that Uribe will have to show progress on stemming anti-union violence if he wants to see action on a free-trade pact with the United States. Listen

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LISA MULLINS: President Obama said today that it would set a terrible president if the coo in Honduras is not reversed. Mister Obama spoke after a meeting this afternoon, with a leader of another troubled Latin American Nation, Columbia. President Alvaro Uribe wants to reinforce his country’s close ties with the US. George W. Bush considered Colombia to be America’s strongest ally in South America. Barack Obama has been less enthusiastic. He’s cited concerns about Colombia’s human rights record. That record, especially the murders of trade unionists is holding up ratification of a free trade agreement. John Otis prepared this report in the Colombian city of Cucuta.

JOHN OTIS: Aristides Hernandez is reading his own death sentence, for his work as President of the local health workers union here. Hernandez received a leaflet from a paramilitary group called Aguilas Negras, or the Black Eagles. It states that Hernandez has been declared a military objective and gives him three options: leave the union, leave town, or face death.

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JOHN OTIS: “It’s very intimidating” Hernandez says.  He adds that although he hasn’t been physically attacked, he’s received multiple death threats. 10 members of Hernandez’s health workers union have been killed in the past decade, including a pharmacist who was gunned down two weeks ago. Rafael Sepulveda was sitting on his front porch with his wife when an assassin pumped six bullets into him. He became the 21st Colombian union activist to die this year. Often, the suspected culprits are right wing death squads who view labor leaders as allies of the country’s Marxist guerrillas.

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JOHN OTIS: In outback towns like Cucuta, located along the lawless border with Venezuela, labor leaders feel especially exposed. Hernandez drives to meetings in a 25-year-old Jeep. The locks on the doors don’t work, and the engine lacks the power to speed away from would-be attackers.  Hernandez travels with a bodyguard.

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JOHN OTIS: The “The best thing is to stay alert and be ready to react”, says the bodyguard, who carries only a pistol. Even if there’s no physical violence, threats are often enough to force labor negotiators to lower contract demands, or to prevent unions from forming in the first place. And because paramilitaries sometimes work in tandem with government officials, it’s hard for unions to know, who’s friend or foe. Another union official, German Gonzalez, recalls getting into an argument with the mayor of Cucuta in 2005.  He says the mayor threatened to have him killed by paramilitaries.

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JOHN OTIS: Nothing happened to Gonzalez, but two weeks later gunmen murdered his brother. In pushing for the US/Colombia Free Trade Agreement, President Uribe claims that he’s addressing the problem. The annual death toll of union members has often topped 200, but last year, the number dropped to 49. The Uribe government has also made a greater effort to prosecute the killers, and it argues that the trade agreement would create new opportunities in a country where many of the jobless end up joining drug gangs, guerrillas or paramilitaries. On the campaign trail, Barack Obama came out against the trade pact, but President Obama has said he’ll reconsider if Colombia continues to  pursue the killers of labor leaders.

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JOHN OTIS: But in Cucuta, activists like Miriam Tamara of the teachers union, say they’ve seen no improvements here. She also travels with a bodyguard but since her car broke down, she walks to meetings, making her an easy target.

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JOHN OTIS: “All you can do,” she says, “is to stay calm and put yourself in the hands of God, because that’s the only protection we’ve got.”  For The World, I’m John Otis, Cucuta, Colombia.

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