LABOUR: Int’l Union Central to Denounce Violations before UN

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Mar 17 2000 (IPS) - The world’s largest labour union will demand before the United Nations Commission on Human Rights that a social dimension be included in reconstruction programmes for war- torn countries such as Kosovo and East Timor.

So far, the social component has been cruelly omitted, laments the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) in a document released this week, which summarises the stance it is taking before the world’s highest forum on humanitarian issues.

The UN Commission on Human Rights Commission will begin its annual period of sessions in Geneva March 20, which will run until April 28.

The ICFTU also plans to voice before the commission – made up of 53 member-states – its concern about human rights violations committed in 14 specific countries.

The federation announced it will outline various cases, including government interference at a meeting of unions in Djibouti, extra- judicial executions in Colombia and the torture of unionists imprisoned in China.

The ICFTU’s accusations also extend to Burma, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malta, Belarus, Serbia, Equatorial Guinea, Morocco, Swaziland, Zimbabwe and Guatemala.

In the cases of Kosovo and East Timor, the union central warned that the ommission of a social focus will weaken the reconstruction efforts the international community has underway.

The two territories – which withdrew from Yugoslavia and Indonesia, respectively – are now under the control of the UN, which has sent military forces and humanitarian and economic assistance teams.

The ICFTU denounced that these UN operations are being carried out without consulting the local social forces, and include the military occupation of factories and offices and negligence toward promoting economic recovery.

When the time comes to recruit local personnel, the international forces – whether military or civilian – must respect basic labour regulations, charged the global union.

During the UN commission’s sessions, the ICFTU representatives will present cases of countries in which labour rights violations “have reached the point that they now require official intervention by the United Nations commission.”

According to the federation, “significant deterioration” occurred in China’s human rights situation during the course of 1999. A total of 30 unionists were handed long prison sentences, in most cases due to their participation in union organising activities.

Some of the Chinese labour leaders have been tortured in prison and denied medical attention, maintained the Brussels-based ICFTU.

The federation said that repression has continued in Burma, where an estimated 800,000 people are subjected to forced labour.

Several Burmese union leaders remain in prison and, in one case, the wife of one of the unionists was arrested alongside her husband and given a 20-year prison sentence.

The ICFTU, traditionally controlled by European unionists with social-democratic leanings, maintained that crimes against humanity are being committed in Colombia, basing this serious charge on evidence that 2,500 unionists were assassinated in the country over the last 12 years.

According to international law, this type of selective repression against a specific group can be considered a crime against humanity, affirmed the ICFTU. From January to July 1999, at least 30 unionists were killed in Colombia.

On Dec 13, 1999, César Herrera Torreglosa, secretary general of the Agricultural Workers Union, was shot dead as he entered the organisation’s regional office in Ciénaga, capital of Magdalena province.

The union Herrera led represented workers in negotiations with AGUARA, an organisation of banana plantation employers, which includes the transnational fruit companies Del Monte and Chiquita, the ICFTU pointed out.

The global union central reported that the International Labour Organisation (ILO) is studying the Colombian case in proceedings that may conclude by establishing an investigative commission, the most aggressive measure in the agency’s legal arsenal.

In the case of Morocco, union activity endangers workers’ lives, as is evidenced by the arrests, beatings, tortures and prolonged jail sentences suffered by labour leaders.

Despite numerous ICFTU gestures, Moroccan Union of Labour activists continue to be victims of the complicity between employers and public authorities, maintains the federation.

In Djibouti, the ICFTU has lodged complaints about “blatant government interference” in labour union affairs.

The federation also expressed its serious doubts about the Equatorial Guinea government’s democratic qualifications, while in Zimbabwe, it charges that labour rights have seen a sharp deterioration over the last two years.

Of the African nations, Swaziland received the ICFTU’s harshest criticism because union leaders have been repeatedly harassed and intimidated, and because the nation’s parliament ordered the deportation of the two highest labour leaders, charging that they were not citizens of Swaziland.