friends told they’ll end the year in a mass grave

On Wednesday night, we stayed with our friend Luis Eduardo Garcia who is a member of the Colombian food-workers’ union, Sinaltrainal, and a worker in the Coca-Cola factory.  At 5 o’clock on Thursday morning Guayabo went with Luis Eduardo and another member of Sinaltrainal, Jose Domingo Florez, to give out leaflets workers starting their shift, reminding them that that day, 6 December, was the eleventh anniversary of the murder union leader Isidro Gil, who was killed inside a Coke bottling plant during negotiations with the company.

On Thursday night, when Domingo got home, he found an envelope in his garage containing a death threat against himself, Luis Eduardo and the union president Javier Correa.  Further threats were received on Friday and Monday – and they make chilling reading:

SON OF A BITCH GUERRILLAS, WE HAVE YOU UNDER CONTROL – THE SHIT THAT YOUR ALLY GUSTAVO PETRO [A CENTRE-LEFT POLITICIAN] PUBLISHES IS THE SAME THAT YOU PREACH – TIME IS RUNNING OUT – YOU DON’T THINK YOU’RE A MILITARY OBJECTIVE YOU BUNCH OF FUCKING COMMUNISTS – YOUR TIME TO LEAVE SANTANDER IS UP – NOW YOU’RE GOING TO A MASS GRAVE ALONG WITH YOUR FAMILIES – KEEP YOUR IDEOLOGY IT’S NO GOOD FOR THIS COUNTRY – EVERYTHING YOU DO IS BEING WATCHED – GUERRILLA JOSE DOMINGO FLORES – JAVIER CORREA – LUIS EDUARDO ALIAS CHILE – NOW YOU’RE GOING TO DIE – YOUR FAMILIES ARE IN DANGER – ALL OF YOU WILL BE DISMEMEBERED AND BURIED – THE BLACK EAGLES EXIST – DON’T THINK WE DON’T MEAN IT WE YOU SHITHEADS – WE WILL DO IT WITH NO MERCY

- BLACK EAGLES FRONT

Sinaltrainal launched a boycott of Coca-Cola in 2003 following the murder of eight unionized Coca-Cola workers – all during negotiations with the company.  Threats against Coke workers continue and have becoming all the more frequent in the city of Bucaramanga where Luis Eduardo and Domingo are based.

This is the fifth threat this year against members of Sinaltrainal in Bucaramanga, who have been told that in December they will be killed and buried in a mass grave.  On 10 February, Luis Eduardo and Jose Domingo and Sinaltrainal’s president Javier Correa received a threat, which was repeated a few weeks later.  Then, on 26 July, Luis Eduardo and Javier received a further threat, which was repeated on 2 November.

It is unlikely to be a coincidence that Thursday’s threat followed the distribution of leaflets commemoration Isidro’s murder.

6 December was also the 79th anniversary of the massacre of more than 1000 banana workers employed by the United Fruit Company – immortalized in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s nobel prize-winning novel One Hundred Years of Solitude.  United Fruit later became Chiquita Brands but the murders of workers didn’t stop and the company has admitted payments to right-wing paramilitary death squads.  Later that same day, Luis Eduardo and Jose Domingo went on to take part in an act of commemoration for the murdered United Fruit Company and Chiquita Brands workers, where they presented a photo gallery of all the unionized Coca-Cola and Nestle workers who had been murdered.