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Oct 31
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Special guest speaker:
PARMENIO POVEDA SALAZAR, representative of FENSUAGRO (the National Unitarian Federation of Agrarian Unions), affiliated to the United Workers’ Central (CUT) of Colombia and the World Trade Union Congress.
Plus reportback from Peace & Justice for Colombia (Sydney) coordinator, Elizabeth Rivera, on her recent trip to Colombia where she met with political prisoner Liliany Obando.
Thursday 4 November, 6.30 pm
Resistance Centre
23 Abercrombie St, Chippendale
Organised by Peace and Justice for Colombia (Sydney)
& Latin America Social Forum
For more info email: lasfsydney@gmail.com
Telephones: 0402 608 265 or 0425 324 621
FENSUAGRO is the largest peasant and farm workers’ union federation in Colombia. It organises plantation workers, small landowners, landless peasants, internally displaced people and small coca growers.
For organising Colombia’s workers and peasants and for voicing their demands, FENSUAGRO has been targeted by the Colombian state. Members have been imprisoned, murdered, threatened by paramilitaries, and its leaders displaced in the national territory. More than 1,500 FENSUAGRO members have been assassinated in its 32 years of existence.
FENSUAGRO campaigns around several demands on the Colombian government, including an inclusive agricultural policy, base on a new economic and development model for the rural centres; for a democratic, comprehensive and radical land reform capable of destroying the landowner project; for an organic and sustainable agriculture; an end to political persecution of political and social movements; a negotiated political settlement to the social, economic and armed conflict and to the end to US intervention in the Colombian conflict.
Come and hear from visiting Colombian trade unionist, Parmenio Poveda from the Colombian National Unitarian Federation of Agriculture Unions- FENSUAGRO who is currently touring Australia speak about the situation of unionists in Colombia and their fight for peace and justice.
On Liliany Obando
On August 8th 2010 Liliany Obando will have been imprisoned by the Colombian Government for two years. Liliany has been brought to court several times, but in most cases the authorities have applied successfully to postpone the hearing, while they seek further “evidence”.
On Wednesday 4th August Ronald Coy Ortiz, the police captain, who oversaw the initial investigation against Liliany, admitted in court that he tampered the information contained in computers allegedly belonging to Commandant Raúl Reyes, before he turned it over to the international police agency, INTERPOL. With this confession the evidence against Liliany has been discredited and she cannot be charged based on the illegally obtained and tempered evidence.
Liliany Obando is well known to Australians. She has visited Australia twice as part of her work for the Federation of United National Agricultural workers unions (FENSUAGRO), and while here she met many politicians, unions and social organisations. Liliany spoke of the continuing oppression of workers and their organisations in her country, and the need for international solidarity.
Peace and Justice for Colombia is asking all supporters to write letters of protest to the Colombian authorities, demanding her release and the end to this gross miscarriage of justice. Two years without a proper trial is unacceptable in any country that claims to be democratic. The obvious conclusion is that there is no real evidence, and that the Colombian authorities continue their repressive actions to silence any critics of the regime. Over 80% of the unionists killed worldwide in 2009 were killed in Colombia.
