The Profits of Extermination

dublin | worker & community struggles and protests | feature

Saturday March 11, 2006 00:26

by Colombia Solidarity

David Norris, Harry Browne & Augustine O Donoghue

Harry Browne (journalist and anti-war activist) and Senator David Norris (Joycean scholar, anti war and gay rights compaigner) launched the "The Profits of Extermination. How U.S. Corporate Power is destroying Colombia" in Trinity College on Thursday night. The Author is Francisco Ramirez Cuellar, President of Sintraminercol (The Miners Union of Colombia). Introduction and translation by Aviva Chomsky. Several attempts have been made to assasinate the author since the book was published. The book outlines how corporate greed has resulted in human rights abuses in Colombia. The event was Organised by Colombia Solidarity Network and Trinity One World Society in collaboration with Latin America Solidarity Centre. For copies of the book at sale at the discount price of ten euro please email colombia (at) lasc.ie .

Message from the author of the book: Francisco Ramírez Cuellar, President SINTRAMINERCOL, General Secretary FUNTRAENERGETICA

To the Brothers and Sisters of the Social Organisations in Ireland.

On behalf of the workers in the mining sector of Colombia I wish to extend our warmest greetings to this book launch. First of all we wish to thank the Colombia Solidarity Network delegation that visited our country last June and July. Such visits allow us to show you first hand the grave situation facing the trade union movement and the communities and for you to see first hand the challenges we face and hopefully encourage you to continue in your internationalist solidarity.

It gives us great pleasure to know that you are launching our book The Profits of Extermination as this allows us to continue with our investigations and to mobilise the community and trade union organisations, the victims of the attacks by the Colombian government, the multinationals and the international financial institutions.

Unfortunately since we published the book the situation in the mining and energy producing regions of Colombia has not improved. Currently 87 of every 100 people forcibly expelled from their land come from such regions. The total number for displaced people in Colombia is in excess of 3 million in a country of barely 44 million. 80% of all human rights violations and 71% of the murders of trade unionists take place in mining and energy regions.

Neither have the attacks on our union ceased. The government , at the behest of the mining multinationals has ordered the closure of the state mining company Minercol which we work for. This company regulates the mining industry, regulation will pass into the hands of local authorities that are notoriously corrupt and the mining companies themselves. Our union will aslo cease to exist. It is our union that has fought tooth and nail against the hand over of our natural resources to the lowest bidder and our union which has fought to expose the murder and massacres that take place in mining areas. The aim is to remove a voice which places obstacles in the path of the mulinationals.

Ireland is a small country but we still need your solidarity. 88% of Irelands’ imports from Colombia consist of coal. The total amount is 38.5 million euros a year, a small but not insignificant amount. Colombian coal comes largely from open cast pits in the north of the country. Whole towns have been cleared away to allow the mine to expand. The Colombia Solidarity Network delegation had the opportunity to meet with an indigenous woman twelve of whose family members were butchered in the most cruel and inhumane fashion. The massacre is linked to coal interests, coal that eventually arrives in Ireland and the rest of the European Union. Coal is our largest export to the European Union. Our struggle in not unlinked to yours. Not just because the coal arrives in Europe or that the coal companies are European as well as US, but because we have common cause against an enemy who will go as as far as they can, where ever they can. If we lose you also lose as the threshold of acceptable behaviour is lowered. If we win, so do you. There is no half way house between murder and the victim. The choice is stark you must take the side of the victims, even if it means opposing “European” interests. The profits of these companies are as the title of the book says the profits of extermination. There can be no obsfuscation of the issues.

We would invite you to come to Colombia to get to know the situation here; to see for yourselves the real causes of violence in this country. Far from the myths of Pablo Escobar type figures, you will see a country pushed to the limit in the name of multinational greed. We need your solidarity.

Yours

Francisco Ramírez Cuellar
President SINTRAMINERCOL
General Secretary FUNTRAENERGETICA