Latin American Solidarity Network (LASNET)

Interview with Carlos Olaya,
Executive member of the Food Union of Columbia (Sinaltrainal).

Download Interview Here

LASNET:
We want to commence a campaign in support of the union and indigenous struggles in Colombia. If you could explain to us the current situation and what is happening with the unions in Colombia.

Carlos:
The first point to make is the intervention of the US through the Plan Colombia., a military plan which is also includes all of South America since its origins. Plan Colombia is nothing more than a plan for domination and a way of protecting the interests and rule of the multinationals. It also is a method or tool of undermining all progressive governments in the region. Together, the US and Colombian governments are aggressively targeting the social movements of this country. Through these actions they have left 30,000 disappearances and 300,000 deaths, especially civilians who are non-combatants and assassinated union leaders and the abolition of fundamental human rights of the Colombian population. Also the displacement of indigenous and Afro-Colombian peoples from their lands.
Together with my prior comments the multinationals have benefited from the stolen natural wealth of the country. It’s a systematic violation of the people’s rights especially the workers and indigenous peoples.
All of this is linked with the governments and multinational’s use of paramilitary forces. We can categorise this government as a fascist government. It has permitted these forces to act with impunity and has let them enrich themselves at the cost of the suffering and impoverishment of the general population.

LASNET:
What is the response of the social movements to these attacks?

Carlos:
Of the social movements the Peasant movements were virtually eliminated because of the assassinations, disappearances and forced displacements of peoples. Other movements in the cities are fighting on the street like the popular/poor movements along with the indigenous struggles. These social movements have created a 5 point plan that is supported by the Union movement. Also the Union movement has a similar 5 point proposal that can be summarised as follows:
The resumption of peace between the warring parties.
The wellbeing of the country.
Integration with the other South American countries.
That the current government not be allowed to change the law so that it can serve another term.
Restoration of democracy to the country.
The student movement has been decimated not to mention the women’s or Christian movements. These movements have been repressed for so long that they have no influence on national politics. The current government’s policy is to basically ignore these groups entirely as if they didn’t exist.

LASNET:
What message can you send to the Unions here in Australia who has shown Solidarity to Colombia in the past?

Carlos:
International Solidarity is crucial because it’s important that people from outside the country know the reality of whats happening in Colombia and so that they can denounce the dictatorial regime that exists in Colombia which is totally anti-democratic. That the people denounce the politics of the multinationals and the US that is against the workers in Colombia. Constant assassinations of workers, just last year 50 workers alone were killed. We struggle to conserve worker’s rights, which is why International Solidarity is key to this struggle. The right of association in Colombia is allowed but the government violates this right which is in the constitution. We hope that Australian Unions and Unions from other countries support the campaign that is being launched today.

LASNET:
We have an invitation for your union to come to Australia next July. What are your ideas and what do you propose to speak about?

Carlos:
We appreciate the invitation. We want to come to Australia to create links of Solidarity between Australian and Colombian workers, a mutual exchange and show of solidarity not only from Australia to Colombia but the reverse as well. All of this exchange provides a favourable framework for International Solidarity between workers. Internationalisation of the workers struggle is crucial so as to face the current economic crisis and to preserve future jobs and worker’s rights. We must reach an accord between workers on a united front.

LASNET:
There is interest in Australia in regards to the new wave of left governments in Latin America. In Australia there are people that believe that this is a move towards Socialism. Can you comment on this?

Carlos:
We think that it is true that there is a democratic anti-imperialist current developing in Latin America. As in Ecuador, Bolivia and Venezuela. From here we see possibilities to develop popular movements within these countries. There is a space to create more advanced and progressive movements that benefit the people, but these currents are not Socialist in nature. There is also another block of countries that are Social Democrats. The Social Democrat governments also try and fix social problems but they do not go to the crux of the problem which is Capitalism. We have also tried to make links with unions from Chile, Argentina and Brasil and we have approached them critically in regards to their respective governments.

LASNET:
What can you comment about in regards tot the economic crisis, what is your view from over there?

Carlos:
The so-called financial and energy crisis in the Colombian case is starting to express itself already strongly, apart from the external impact we have a serious internal crisis from beginning of the 90s, the workers of this county have been submitted to a barbarous level of exploitation, to the use of the national profit in the enrichment of a minority in addition to which Colombia is a country in a war, a war that costs the country in the vicinity of 11.000 million dollars a year, an enormous social conflict, we have 30 million poor, about 18 million destitute peoples and all of this whilst the country was a fairly well off condition economically. Now we enter this crisis with this entire situation and an international framework in which Colombia is isolated. This can be seen in our relations with the Ecuador with which we were supporting high levels of exportation and that this has diminished by more than 40 % just as the external investment and the arrival of capitals both of the drug trafficking and of the big North American consortiums. In our case a crisis that is being concealed by the government that has designed a strategy where the people are being told here that there is no crisis. While the economy of the country collapses the neoliberal route and political system implemented by the current government is obviously not working, we are in an extremely serious situation. The solutions that we see is that a transformation should happen principally across generations of a very wide political project, a fortitude in the social movement that allows that the population to be unified. We believe that the international solidarity will be fundamental in this process. We must struggle for the reduction or elimination of what we might call the capitalist method of accumulation and defeat in its entirety of extreme subrogation of the workers and the population in general along with the plundering of the nations. We believe that it is a good opportunity so that the workers put themselves at the head of the nations.

LASNET:
Any last message to the Latinos along with Australians who in LASNET are proposing this campaign of solidarity with Colombia and to those present at this forum?

Carlos:
First of all we are grateful to LASNET and to the Colombia Cries out for Justice Campaign (Colombia Demand Justice Campaign) and to the Australian partners whom we hope to greet very soon, and that in our doubled efforts we could help each other in mutual solidarity. Finally we hope that you can associate the Colombian conflict with the bigger picture of the global conflict of the peoples in struggle against the capitalism and the imperialism such as those in Iraq, a conflict that is of great proportions an open war, in which the North Americans direct groups and troops of combat. We call the Australian workers to inform themselves of this reality, here there is not a declared war exactly against the democratic republic but a proxy war where the multinationals fight against the population of Colombia that steal our resources from them, they annihilate the population and we suffer the loss of our sovereignty, for the people we hope to be still connected and coordinated ... we from here will put our small grain of sand to this struggle.