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Mit einem Regierungserlass hat die Mannschaft des Präsidenten Uribe am 12.Juni die staatliche Telefongesellschaft Telecom überraschend privatisiert, überraschend allerdings war nur der Zeitpunkt und die Form - politisch wurde diese Privatisierung in den letzten Monaten immer stärker vor allem von den USA gefordert: als Bedingung für Kolumbiens Aufnahme in die panamerikanische Freihandelszone FTAA.
Hintergrund dieses Drucks waren die für amerikanische Telefongesellschaften (hier: Nortel) unbefriedigenden Ergebnisse bisheriger Abkommen mit der staatlichen Telefongesellschaft. Jetzt wollen sie das Telefongeschäft endgültig selbst übernehmen.
Die Gewerkschaften wurden von diesen Schritten ebenso überrascht wie die Belegschaft. Die Zentrale der Telecom in Bogota wird von den Beschäftigten dauerbelagert, trotz massiven Aufgebots uniformierter Kräfte. Alle drei kolumbianischen Gewerkschaftsverbände - die gerade gemeinsam in Genf an der ILO-Tagung teilnehmen - nutzten diese internationale Bühne für zwei Gegenmassnahmen: zum einen verkündeten sie einen Generalstreik ab 19.Juni, zum anderen forderten sie erneut eine ILO-Delegation zur Überprüfung der Lage der Gewerkschaften in Kolumbien bzw zur Einhaltung der entsprechenden, von der Regierung unterzeichneten, ILO-Konventionen.
Der Generalstreik wurde ausgerufen, weil der "Privatisierungsputsch" bei der Telecom als Indiz dafür gesehen wird, dass Uribe sein gesamtes, umfangreiches Privatisierungsprogramm nun beschleunigt durchziehen will. Waren es im konkreten Fall der Telefongesellschaft die USA die den entscheidenden Druck ausübten, so steht hinter dem gesamten Programm einmal mehr die Erpressung des Internationalen Währungsfonds, das staatliche Defizit um die Hälfte zu reduzieren.
Die enge Kooperation zwischen der regulären Armee und den paramilitärischen Mordbanden ist inzwischen weltweit bekannt - und am heftigsten wirken diese Terrorkräfte auf dem Land, speziell in der abgelegenen aber ölreichen Provinz Arauca, in der die US-Ölgesellschaft Occidental und der spanische Erdölkonzern Repsol umfangreiche Geschäfte tätigen.
Ein Bericht über einen neuen Terrorakt in der in jener Gegend gelegenen Stadt Tame rundet den Bericht ab.
Colombia's three union centres, the CUT, the CGTD and the CTC, have called an emergency general strike against privatisations for next Thursday, 19th June. The stoppage was announced from Geneva, where the presidents of the union federations are attending the annual conference of the International Labour Organisation. The Colombian unions are demanding that the ILO votes this week to send an international Commission of Enquiry to Colombia.
The trigger for this action was the announcement last Thursday night by Telecommunications Minister Marta Pinto de Dehart that the government is liquidating state telecommunications corporation TELECOM. An immediate consequence will be the sacking of up to ten thousand workers. And the company replacing TELECOM will be ready to sell off its assets, including to the foreign multinationals that have been trying to take over the sector.
Decisive pressure came from Washington. As Miguel Caro CUT's Director for the public sector points out: "the US has insisted as a condition for including Colombia in the Free Trade Area of the Americas negotiations that one-sided 'shared risk' contracts signed with US companies be implemented".
The misnamed 'shared-risk' contracts were of course nothing of the sort, merely a mechanism for foreign multinationals to rip off the state sector. Back in 1993 TELECOM signed contracts with six multinationals to provide 2 million telephone lines. They put 1.8 million lines in place, but only 1.15 million were sold. While the investment came from state funds, the 'shared risk' meant that the multinationals were guaranteed an income irrespective of the number of lines sold. NORTEL and the other companies demanded a US $2 billion contract settlement. The previous Colombian government offered $600 million, but this was not enough for NORTEL who lobbied the US Congress to block any general trade and investment agreements until its demands are met. Uribe has accepted, hence the liquidation and sell off which, according to Miguel Caro "shows once again the submission of the Colombian government to the dictates of US imperialist power".
Other unions across the whole state sector, from Bogotá's telephone corporation ETB, to the agrarian reform institute INCORA, to the universities and further education institution SENA, to several health and social security agencies, are facing privatisation. Uribe has pledged to push this programme through to meet IMF demands to halve the fiscal deficit. In practice this means eradicating the limited social gains of Colombia's 1991 Constitution. The unions who are fighting to maintain their public services are doing so for the benefit of all Colombians.
To realise what is now at stake, the plight of the unions has to be located as part of the broader scenario of dispossession and repression of the Colombian people. Alexander Lopez, the former president of public services union SINTRAEMCALI who was elected as a Social and Political Front representative to Congress last year, warns that, "The result of this policy is the elimination of the public function of the State, leading to misery, general degradation and conflict".
Life in countryside areas is an unimaginable nightmare. Civilian populations are being marauded by the army often disguised as, or working in close co-operation with, paramilitary forces. The paramilitaries roam freely in North Tolima and Choco, leaving behind a trail of village massacres and disappearances. On 5th June Tirso Velez, a left wing poet and former mayor of Tibu was assassinated.
But it is in the remote oil rich north-eastern department of Arauca that the human rights violations are the most acute right now, as reported to Amnesty International UK's annual conference by Samuel Morales, CUT's organiser in the region who also works with social and human rights organisations. For the last two months three hundred Guahíbo indigenous people from Tame have occupied the Central Catholic Church in Saravena. They fled their homes as a result of attacks committed by the Nava Pardo Battalion of the 18th Brigade of the National Army. On 31st December soldiers wearing AUC armbands came to Betoyes village. They killed a man and took off his two year old daughter. They raped four females aged 11, 12, 15 and 16 years old. Omaira Fernández was pregnant. Then, as human rights workers report, 'the people had to look on horrified as the supposed "paramilitaries" opened up her womb, took out the foetus, sliced it up, put the pieces in a plastic bag and threw them into the river along with the mother'.
Tame is situated between three zones being taken over by US corporation Occidental, the Spanish multinational Repsol, and BP whose expanding Casanare operation is moving northwards towards Tame.
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