Month of August, 2007

What is most remarkable about the political situation in Colombia is not just the high level of state-sponsored violence against the popular organizations and their leaders, but the high level of courage and resistance from a people who refuse to be crushed or intimidated, even by masked assassins who come in the night.

The Bush Administration is starting a new trial against Colombian revolutionary Ricardo Palmera on August 20th. The Colombia Action Network calls for its supporters to join the National Committee to Free Ricardo Palmera's picket at the D.C. Federal Court Building to demand Palmera's immediate release. Palmera's supporters plan to picket the courts prior to jury selection.

Reprinted from Workers.org

By Minnie Bruce Pratt
Birmingham, Ala.
Published Aug 2, 2007 1:01 AM

In a blow against transnational exploitation of workers and for North-South worker solidarity, Drummond, an Alabama-based coal company, was put on trial in federal court here, charged with the murder of labor union organizers at its mines in Colombia.

In 2001 Valmore Lacarno Rodríguez and Víctor Hugo Orcasita Amaya were murdered by a group of men, some wearing military uniforms. Lacarno and Orcasita were president and vice-president of the union representing 3,000 miners, SINTRAMIENERGETICA. Shortly thereafter Gustavo Soler was murdered when he became union president.