KILLED.... or at least it would seem as if it has helped fearless leaders down there to lump any and all opposition into the Waronterrah.
Whom does shrub love??? Organized labor.... not. Ask the longshoremen.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0619-06.htmColombia Leads World in Trade Union Killings
by Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Jun 18 - Colombia once again proved to be the most dangerous country in the world for trade union activists in 2001, according to the latest 'Annual Survey of Violation of Trade Union Rights' released Tuesday by the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU).
The South American country accounted for 90 percent of the 223 murders and disappearances of labor unionists worldwide, hitting a record 201 for the year, or just about 90 percent of the global total, the report said.
Asia proved to be the region where union organizers were most likely to be detained or imprisoned in 2001. While 200 trade unionists were imprisoned in South Korea alone, sentences were harshest in China, where organizers were often singled out for torture and the arbitrary extensions of sentences.
The Survey counted a total of 4,000 arrests and 10,000 firings of union activists worldwide during the year.
http://web.amnesty.org/report2005/2am-index-eng>>Regional overview 2004
Respect for human rights remained an illusion for many as governments across the Americas failed to comply with their commitments to uphold fundamental human rights. Widespread torture, unlawful killings by police and arbitrary detention persisted. The US-led “war on terror” continued to undermine human rights in the name of security, despite growing international outrage at evidence of US war crimes, including torture, against detainees.
Democratic institutions and the rule of law were at risk throughout much of Latin America. Political instability – fuelled by corruption, organized crime, economic disparities and social unrest – resulted in several attempts to bring down governments. Most were by constitutional means but some, as in Haiti, by-passed the democratic process.<<
>>National security and the ‘war on terror’
The blatant disregard for international human rights and humanitarian law in the “war on terror” continued to make a mockery of President George Bush’s claims that the USA was the global champion of human rights. Images of detainees in US custody tortured in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq shocked the world. War crimes in Iraq, and mounting evidence of the torture and ill-treatment of detainees in US custody in other countries, sent an unequivocal message to the world that human rights may be sacrificed ostensibly in the name of security.
President Bush’s refusal to apply the Geneva Conventions to those captured during the international armed conflict in Afghanistan and transferred to the US naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, was challenged by a judicial decision in November. The ruling resulted in the suspension of trials by military commission in Guantánamo, and the government immediately lodged an appeal. The US administration’s treatment of detainees in the “war on terror” continued to display a marked ambivalence to the opinion of expert bodies such as the International Committee of the Red Cross and even of its own highest judicial body. Six months after the Supreme Court ruled that the federal courts had jurisdiction over the Guantánamo detainees, none had appeared in court. Detainees reportedly considered of high intelligence value remained in secret detention in undisclosed locations. In some cases their situation amounted to “disappearance”.<<
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