(WorkdayMinnesota.org posted the following story on its website on October 7.)
MINNEAPOLIS — Colombian trade unionist Luis Adolfo Cardona will be in the Twin Cities Oct. 14 to speak out against the brutal repression of union organizers at a Coca-Cola plant that has resulted in the death of six workers.
At 2 p.m., he will speak at the May Day Bookstore, 301 Cedar Avenue (Cedar and Washington ? below Midwest Mountaineering), near the West Bank campus of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.
At 7 p.m., Adolfo Cardona will address a gathering at the Spirit of the Lakes Church (Lake Street and 13th Avenue).
Adolfo Cardona was a union organizer and employee at the Carepa Coca-Cola bottling plant in Colombia and is now sponsored in the United States by the AFL-CIO Solidarity Program. This event is organized by the Anti War Committee, with the support of the Colombia Action Network.
In Colombia, three trade unionists are killed every week. Organizers say that the U.S. government, using Plan Colombia and the new “Andean Initiative”, is arming, training, and directing the “dirty war” in Colombia with over $2.1 billion of U.S. taxpayer money. International human rights groups, including Amnesty International and Americas Watch, have reported that U.S. military aid is directed to paramilitary forces by the Colombian government.
“I escaped the clutches of the death squad who shot dead Isidro Gil, my friend and our union negotiator,” Adolfo Cardona said. “The paramilitary death squad proceeded to burn down the union?s headquarters. The next day, the Coca-Cola management had all the workers resign from the union.
“I came to Chicago under the protection of the AFL-CIO and their Solidarity Program. Now I am applying for political asylum so corporate-sponsored death squads in Colombia do not murder my family and me. My union in Colombia, SINALTRAINAL, still receives death threats against me even though everyone knows I am in the United States.”
The Anti War Committee and the Colombia Action Network have called for a national boycott of all Coca-Cola products to pressure Coke to take responsibility for the blood on their hands. Meredith Aby, an organizer with the Anti War Committee explains, “It is important to hit Coke where it hurts ? the pocket book. If we don?t affect their profit margins, we will never get them to change their policies. The boycott is also an effective way to expose to the horrible human rights situation in Colombia.”