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With threats and killings of trade unionists in Colombia again on the increase, UNI global union is urging US-based banking giant Citibank to join in a project to promote labour rights in the country.Bank leader Leonidas Gomez - who was murdered in March - worked for Citibank in Bogota and led negotiations for his union UNEB with the bank for collective agreements over eight years. In a country where 41 trade unionists have been killed so far this year, where unions are regularly demonised and union rights systematically undermined, the industrial relations story from Citibank is a positive one. “We want to show there is another way,” said UNI General Secretary Philip Jennings. “We want something good to come from the sad loss of Leonidas.”

The project would involve UNI and UNEB as well as Citibank and build on the work of the United Nations’ Global Compact and the tripartite work of the International Labour Organisation in Colombia.

“We deeply regret the death of Leonidas, it was a shock,” Citibank HR Vice President Miguel Suarez told the UNI mission. “This is something Citibank condemns, he is a loss.” He paid tribute to the positive contribution of Leonidas in negotiations between UNEB and Citibank.

“We believe unions play an important role, helping us to see things that are important to workers.” He promised to forward the joint project suggestion up the Citibank corporate hierarchy.



UNI mission leaving Citibank in Bogota



The second day of the UNI mission to Colombia had started with a breakfast meeting with the parents and sister of Leonidas Gomez.



“We have no information about what happened to him - they just tell us he was eliminated. My soul is in pain but I still have hope that things are not left where they are now,” said Leonidas’s mother, a dignified 77 -year old lady who talked of her son with many tears - and smiles of remembrance - and expressed her gratitude for the solidarity she has received since his murder in early March. “There is no way to describe the pain.” “We will not stop until the guilty people are found - the state has a duty to provide you with an answer,” Philip Jennings told her. “Leonidas was much loved and greatly respected, he was part of the future of this country. This was an unspeakable act of terror.”



UNI's Philip Jennings with the family of Leonidas Gomez



At the prosecutors office there was no sign of progress in the six and a half month investigation into Leonidas’s killing. Of the 1255 cases identified as having involved the murder of trade unionists only 106 have so far been dealt with and there remains a high level of impunity for those who kill trade unionists (and the people behind the killers). “I am not impressed - Leonidas’s family deserves better than this,” Philip Jennings told the prosecutors. “The family, friends and union colleagues don’t have confidence that this case is being prosecuted seriously.” The prosecutors told the UNI mission that there has been an increase in the number of trade unionists murdered, along with a general surge in all homicides. They also confirmed that some of the prosecutions had been prompted by the confessions of paramilitaries who had surrendered under the de-mobilisation programme. They affirmed the right of Leonidas’s family to inspect the prosecutor’s dossier.



Leonidas had been put on a death list and at about the time he was murdered another UNEB leader Rafael Boada was lucky to escape injury - or worse - when two men on a motorbike fired two bullets into his car. Rafael too had received death threats. A second member of Citibank’s staff was also threatened and she was moved to another country and remains on paid leave.

Paramilitaries and criminal gangs are thought to be the agents of many of the killings, though it’s feared that the naming of some potential victims may come from the intelligence services which also maintain a hidden army of informers to spy on the people. “You even have to be silent when you ride in a taxi in the city,” one union activist told the UNI mission in Bogota. There have also been proven past links between some multinationals and paramilitaries.

Philip Jennings did thank the prosecutors unit - set up specially to investigate the killing of trade unionists - and acknowledged the difficulties of their work. He urged them to show courage and determination in removing what he called “this cancer of terror” from Colombia. He also offered UNI’s involvement in Colombia in efforts to eliminate intolerance towards trade unions and their members.