At about 4pm on 27th September 2007, ANDRES DAMIAN FLOREZ RODRIGUEZ (son of JOSE DOMINGO FLOREZ, a worker at a Coca-Cola bottling plant and a leader of the trade union SINALTRAINAL) was returning from college to his home at No 204-102, 38th Avenue in the Andes barrio of Floridablanca in Santander when he was accosted by three individuals from a black van, they were carrying arms, communications radios and were wearing balaclavas. The three men took Andres in the van by force, threw him on the vehicle floor and started hitting him.

On November 12, 2002, the military and police rounded up more than 2,000 people in Saravena and took them to the sports arena in the first mass arrest in the state of Arauca.  On September 27 of this year, more than 2,000 people again filled the arena – this time to denounce the human rights abuses committed by the military and police during the past five years.  The Human Rights Commission of the Colombian Senate held a public hearing in the arena that day which lasted for more than six hours.

3 September 2007

In Colombia, according Alvaro Uribe, the paramilitary groups have demobilised but the reality is that they are even more active from either inside or outside jail.

Our union, Unión Sindical Obrera, (the Oilworkers Union of Colombia) has been the object of written and telephoned death threats against leaders. These are attributed to “Águilas Negras” [the Black Eagles].

Each time the government and state oil corporation Ecopetrol’s management implement privatisation programmes (or give away our resources), the threats increase against the union – as now when the workers reject the decision to sell shares that started on 27 August.

13 September 2007

ESPAÑOL / ENGLISH

In his ‘free testimony’ given to an Attorney under the Justice and Peace law, Pérez accused oilworkers union USO, regional human rights organisation Credhos, the Corporación Desarrollo y Paz del Magdalena Medio [Magdalena Medio Development and Peace Corporation], the OFP Popular Women’s Organisation and ACVC, the Campesino Association of the Cimitarra River Valley of "criminal activities in the service of armed marxism”