Assistant general secretary of the General Federation of Trade Unions HENRY FOWLER reports on day 1 from the GFTU’s residential Summer School at Quorn Grange Hotel
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THROUGHOUT Colombia’s half-century civil war, wealthy social sectors, especially landowners, have sponsored the formation of private armed groups to act as a counter-measure against the labour movement to protect their interests.
These paramilitaries have generally employed violence and terror as a conscious weapon against civilians. The objective has been to make workers too afraid to join trade unions and to stand up for their economic and political rights.
This belief that violence against the labour movement has a strategic utility led to the use of barbarous tactics. Pregnant woman’s foetuses were ripped out with machetes, to prevent the child from growing up as a socialist. Cannibalism and mass-rape have been employed to devastate communities, depopulate land and open the way for capitalist investment.
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