Colombian Community Members, Human Rights Activists,
and Environmentalists Protest Rep Crowley, Colombian Ambassador Support for Colombia
Free Trade Agreement
at Community Forum
Colombian immingrants Julian Monroy and Carlos Salamanca express their opposition to the trade agreement to Representative Joseph Crowley.
On
Monday, June 20th, activists from Global Justice for Animals and the
Environment, Mingas New York, and other groups opposed the US-Colombia
Free Trade Agreement staged a demonstration at a Colombian community forum with
Congressman Joseph Crowley and Colombian Ambassador Gabriel Silva at the Centro
Civico Colombiano in Elmhust, Queens. Trade
agreement opponents also attended the event to voice their objection to the
trade agreement, but were denied the opportunity to ask questions or express
their views.
At
the event, Crowley expressed that he has not yet decided how he intends to vote
on the trade agreement, but opponents of the agreement expressed skepticism
regarding these comments. According to
GJAE’s Adam Weissman, “Representative Crowley is a
longtime apologist for the Colombian government’s complicity in human rights atrocities
and a staunch supporter of free trade agreements that place corporate profits
above the public interest.” While
Crowley voted against the US-Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement
in 2005, he was one of only two NYC Democratic Congressmembers
to vote for a free trade agreement with Oman in 2006, an absolute monarchy
where labor unions are illegal. In 2007,
he ignored the warning of human rights and environmental groups and voted for
the US-Peru Free Trade Agreement, which served as a pretext for the Peruvian government
to open indigenous lands to exploitation by environmentally devastating extractive
industries and violently repress indigenous resistance to the land grab in the
infamous Bagua Massacre of June 2009.
As
head of the conservative, pro-corporate New Democrats Coalition, Representative
Crowley has been among the most ardent voices in the Democratic Party calling for
the passage of the US-Colombia Free Trade Agreement. Activists believe that Crowley is acting in
the interest of corporations like Citigroup, Bank of America, and JP Morgan
Chase, his fourth, ninth, and twelfth largest campaign contributor in the last
election, while ignoring the view of human rights organizations, indigenous
rights organizations, AIDS activists, labor
rights advocates, environmentalists, animal rights advocates, and his
own Colombian-American constituents who believe the passage of the agreement
will have disastrous consequences for their native country. Citigroup, Bank of America, and JP Morgan
Chase are members of the Latin American Trade Coalition, an alliance of
corporations that have joined forces to lobby Congress in support of the free
trade agreement.
Congressional
Democrats appear poised to strike a deal with Republicans to pass the agreement
if Republicans agree to renew Trade Adjustment Assistance, a federal program
intended to offer retraining for new careers to workers who lose their
employment to job outsourcing or import competition. But trade agreement foes argue that
retraining to prepare workers for the possibility of future jobs is no
substitute for employment, especially given the replacement jobs are likely to
be lower paying and non-union
Opponents of the agreement also point to the failure of the much-touted Labor
Action Plan (LAP), a series of reforms intended to address ongoing and
long-standing human rights atrocities against workers and labor organizers in
Colombia, the country with the highest rate of assassinations of union
organizers on the planet. According to
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumpka “The action plan
does not go nearly far enough in laying out concrete benchmarks for progress in
the areas of violence and impunity, nor does it address many of the ways in
which Colombian labor law falls short of international standards.” He said the action plan would leave the U.S.
with “no leverage whatsoever” to enforce its terms once Congress ratified the
trade deal and “we
remain strongly opposed to the Colombia trade agreement.” 51 union organizers were killed in Colombia
in 2010. Even after the plan was
announced in April, anti-labor violence has continued. On May 13, Colombian labor rights lawyer Hernán Darío, a supporter of
striking sugar workers was shot five times in downtown Cali.
Critics also argue that the plan fails to
address the wide range of humanitarian issues in Colombia beyond labor rights
violations, including the internal displacement of 5.2 million people – the highest rate of
internal displacement on the planet -- including indigenous and Afro-Colombian
communities pushed off their lands by terrorist paramilitary groups with close
ties at the highest levels of Colombian government, who use the land for export
crops like African palm. Laws put in
place in anticipation of the FTA to attract investment dismantle the legal
rights related to territory, mineral and forest resources of these communities.
Once the FTA is in place, under its investment rules, multinational
corporations benefiting from these legal reforms will be able to sue the
Colombian government for compensation for future lost profits if the laws are
revoked
Global Justice for Animals and the
Environment is a project of Wetlands Activism Collective focused on resisting
trade agreements that endanger animals, the environment, and the human rights of
communities engaged in environmental defense struggles. Visit GJAE’s website at
http://gjae.org.
Mingas
is a group of individuals from across the United States, Canada and Colombia
who are concerned with promoting sovereignty, strengthening democracy and
improving labor conditions in Colombia. Visit the Mingas
website at http://www.mingas.info
