The North Shore Colombia Solidarity Committee Blog

Reply-To: Avi Chomsky

The Drummond case is heating up, on several fronts.
------------
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
RUSSELL HUBBARD
News staff writer

A lawyer representing Drummond Co. miners killed in Colombia was fined $500 Tuesday for defying the orders of U.S. District Judge Karon Bowdre.

Fined was Daniel Kovalik, who represents the relatives of slain Colombian labor leaders in a suit filed under an 18th century federal law that allows people to sue American corporations in U.S. courts for their conduct overseas. Birmingham-based Drummond operates a coal mine in Colombia that produces more coal by itself in a year than all the coal mines in Alabama combined.

Kovalik was fined for filing a sworn statement as a public document with the court that contained allegations against Drummond by a Colombian federal law enforcement agent in jail in his country on corruption charges. In the affidavit, Rafael Garcia said he witnessed a Drummond official in Colombia give money to the head of an armed group with a history of hostility to organized labor. In 2001, two union activists at the Drummond mine were killed.

But the affidavit, details of which were reported on by the Miami Herald before it was sealed by the court, violates rules of evidence and defies orders issued by Bowdre, who has told lawyers on both sides the case will not be tried in the media.

Filed under seal:

A great number of the documents in the case have been filed under seal. Judges sometimes allow documents to be kept secret to protect people and organizations that might be endangered by the filings. The filing of the Garcia affidavit as a public document had the effect of "public dissemination" of his allegations, Bowdre said.

"Mr. Kovalik is zealous in his cause and didn't give good thought to his actions, or he is very crafty in circumventing court orders," Bowdre said from the bench. "I don't know which."

Drummond lawyers pointed out during the hearing that the Garcia affidavit was obtained long after the period during which details about a case are collected and shared- a process called discovery - had lapsed.

"This is not admissible evidence," Drummond lawyer Paul Enzinna told Bowdre during an open court hearing Tuesday at the Hugo Black Courthouse. "It is hearsay and it was obtained long after the close of discovery."

Bowdre agreed and fined Kovalik, acknowledging that she reduced the penalty to $500 from its original amount after the lawyer told her the mitigating circumstances in a 10-minute closed-door session. Kovalik left the courthouse without comment.

Visited jail:

In early May, Kovalik visited Garc?in jail near Bogota. The former agent of the Colombian version of the FBI said he saw Augusto Jimenez, Drummond's top executive in Colombia, give $200,000 in cash to the leader of an armed group with right-wing sympathies, the Miami Herald reported last week. In 2001, two Drummond labor leaders were pulled from a bus full of company employees, and shot.

Drummond has maintained it had nothing to do with any of it. Tuesday, the company said the Garcia affidavit is not a true depiction of events.

"The allegations are false," said Drummond lawyer William Davis III, of the Birmingham firm Starnes & Atchison.

Garcia has made a string of statements recently linking Colombian law enforcement agencies to armed right-wing groups that have been active in Colombia's 45-year civil war, the Herald reported last week.

The trial about the killings of Drummond union leaders is set to begin later this year. The Colombian labor union representing Drummond workers and families of the slain men - V?or Hugo Orcasita and Valmore Locarno Rodriguez - filed their civil suit against Drummond in 2002, alleging the company hired the assassins.

E-mail: rhubbard@bhamnews.com
----------------------------------------
North Shore Colombia Solidarity Committee

Posted by nscolombia at 11:55 PM EDT

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FILM NIGHT AT THE FIRST CHURCH PRESENTS



From the Borderline to the Colorline, a Report on Anti-Immigrant Racism in the
United States

UPROOTED:

REFUGEES OF THE GLOBAL ECONOMY



Look behind the national debate on immigration to the global changes that have
contributed to the rise in immigration in the late twentieth century.



GUEST SPEAKERS:

GABRIEL CAMACHO Coordinator of New England American Friends Service Committee
“Project Voice”; Centro Presente

CYNTHIA TSCHAMPL Sr. Legislative Organizer, Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee
Advocacy Coalition



WEDNESDAY MAY 24, 7:00 PM

FIRST CHURCH IN SALEM (316 Essex St.)



Admission is free. For more information call 978-744-1551 or visit http://www.firstchurchinsalem.org/.

----------------------------------------

North Shore Colombia Solidarity
Committee

Posted by nscolombia at 11:51 PM EDT

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Reply-To:
Avi Chomsky
To: North Shore Colombia Solidarity Committee
Date: May 19, 2006 9:07 AM

You may remember when we had Francisco Ruiz, a union leader from the Drummond mine, here a few years ago.

Avi

U.S company accused of having union leaders killed in Colombia

BY GERARDO REYES

El Nuevo Herald

A former Colombian intelligence officer has claimed that he saw the head of the Colombian branch of a U.S. coal company hand over a suitcase full of cash to pay for the assassinations of two labor leaders, according to a document filed in a U.S. court.

The sworn statement by Rafael Garc¿a was made to U.S. lawyers for U.S. labor rights groups who filed a civil suit in 2002 alleging the killers were ''acting as employees or agents'' of the Alabama-based Drummond. The trial in Birmingham is scheduled to begin in October.

Drummond has steadfastly denied any involvement in the 2001 murders of Valmore Locarno and V¿ctor Orcasita, president and vice president of one of the labor unions representing workers at its coal operations in northcentral Colombia. A Drummond attorney Thusday declined any comment.

Garc¿a, a former official of Colombia's equivalent of the FBI, is jailed in Bogot¿ on charges of corruption. He has made a recent string of allegations of DAS links to illegal paramilitary groups and electoral fraud that have unleashed a mayor scandal there.

His allegations about Drummond came in a sworn statement he gave earlier this month during a jailhouse visit by U.S. lawyer Dan Kovalik, who represents the relatives of the slain labor leaders in their suit against Drummond, supported by U.S. labor groups.

The suit was filed under the U.S. Alien Tort Claims Act, an 18th Century law passed to fight piracy abroad but lately used by individuals to file suit over a broad range of allegations, from torture by the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan to Central American human rights abusers and the Cuban firing-squad execution of a boat hijacker.

In his statement to Kovalik, Garc¿a said he was present at a meeting during which Augusto Jim¿nez, Colombian president of Drummond's Colombian branch Drummond Limitada, produced a briefcase with $200,000 in cash that was to be paid to a paramilitary leader, Rodrigo Tovar Pupo.

''That money was to be delivered to ... Tovar Pupo to assassinate specific labor leaders at Drummond,'' he said in the statement, obtained by El Nuevo Herald. Garc¿a identified the victims as V¿ctor Hugo Orcasita and ``a gentleman by the name of Locarno.''

Garc¿a did not claim to know the actual killers of the two leaders of the labor union at Drummond, Sintramienerg¿tica. The right-wing paramilitaries have regularly killed leftist guerrillas and suspected supporters, among them scores of labor union and human rights activists.

Colombian prosecutors Thursday said the investigation into the Sintramienerg¿tica leaders was still in its preliminary stages, with no arrests or official suspects.

Garc¿a has previously told Herald and Colombian journalists that the DAS at one point drafted a list of union leaders and others, alleged collaborators with leftist guerrillas, that was to be killed by the paramiliaries.

Drummond Limitada exploits a large coal mine in the northern Colombia province of C¿sar that employs about 3,000 workers.

----------------------------------------
North Shore Colombia Solidarity Committee

Posted by nscolombia at 7:12 PM EDT

Updated: 21 May 2006 7:44 PM EDT

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FILM NIGHT AT THE
FIRST CHURCH PRESENTS

UPROOTED:

REFUGEES OF THE GLOBAL ECONOMY



Look behind the national debate on immigration to the global changes that have
contributed to the rise in immigration in the late twentieth century.



GUEST SPEAKERS:

GABRIEL CAMACHO Coordinator of New England American Friends Service Committee
“Project Voice”; Centro Presente

CYNTHIA TSCHAMPL Sr. Legislative Organizer, Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee
Advocacy Coalition



WEDNESDAY MAY 24, 7:00 PM

FIRST CHURCH IN SALEM (316 Essex St.)



Admission is free. For more information call 978-744-1551 or visit
http://www.firstchurchinsalem.org/.
----------------------------------------

North Shore Colombia Solidarity Committee: http://home.comcast.net/~nscolombia/

Posted by nscolombia at 12:22 AM EDT

Updated: 12 May 2006 12:41 AM EDT

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Reply-To: Avi Chomsky
To: North Shore Colombia Solidarity Committee
Date: May 2, 2006 10:12 AM

Only a few people from Salem State made it to this rally--I've never felt the town-gown divide quite so strongly as yesterday, when the dramatic events downtown were utterly invisible from the campus. While other colleges actually sponsored events and activities related to immigrant rights yesterday, Salem State would not even allow a message about the activities to go out on the ssc-community e-list.

Avi
---------

Stores close, students miss school for national rally
By Tom Dalton
Staff writer

SALEM — It was unusually quiet yesterday on Lafayette Street as many Latino-owned businesses closed their doors in support of the national "Day Without Immigrants."

The lights were out even at Reymira's Market, normally one of the busiest stores on the street. There was a homemade sign on the door in blue lettering: "May 1 we are going to be closed due to our support of the immigrants' causes."

Steven Nova, the store's owner, spent most of the day in Salem's Riley Plaza with his wife and children, holding signs and waving at passing motorists to show solidarity with immigrants across the country who stayed home from work, refused to shop or skipped school to demonstrate the contributions that immigrants — legal and illegal — make to the United States.

"We know we are going to have a lot of loss," said Nova's wife, Reyna Ramirez, "but we don't think about money. We just think about the community."

By 1 p.m., around 100 people were standing in Riley Plaza, a small fraction of the hundreds of thousands of immigrants who demonstrated across the country. The Salem rally was organized hastily on Friday and advertised over the weekend on Spanish radio stations.

Many of the sign holders said they were not supporting illegal immigration but do believe strongly that the laws should be changed to make it easier for those who are already living, working and attending school in this country to become U.S. citizens.

Yesterday's rallies and demonstrations were held as the U.S. Congress debates what to do with the estimated 11.5 million illegal immigrants living in this country.

"Those who are here, let them stay," Antonio Santiago, 77, a U.S. citizen from the Dominican Republic, said with the help of a translator.

"We don't find jobs in our country, we are hungry, we got kids," said Raquel Garcia, 56, who works at the Wal-Mart in Danvers. The mother of six children, she said she came here illegally from Mexico 30 years ago and became a legal resident under a general amnesty in the late 1980s. She said she worked for years in the laundry room of a Route 1 hotel before becoming a manager at Wal-Mart.

"They try to tell us we are criminals," she said. "We aren't criminals. We come for work."

There was one counter-demonstrator in Riley Plaza. Bob McClory, 63, of Beverly held a sign on which he had written, "Illegal immigrants take Americans jobs and drive down wages. Go home and wait your turn. Do it right."

McClory, a firefighter, said he is "not a bigot," but a person who supports laws and fairness.

"I was in the civil rights movement in the 1960s down South," said McClory, dressed in a dungaree jacket and wearing a hat that with the word "Choppers" on it. "I'm a member of the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union). I just believe in controlled immigration."

Not every Latino-owned business in the city closed yesterday. Los Amigos, another popular market on Lafayette Street, was open and doing a brisk business.

"The owner is on vacation," said Angel Guerrero, an employee. "If I was the owner, I would close down the store."

School absences up

Many schoolchildren stayed home yesterday. Salem public schools reported 842 absences, which was about 18 percent of the student body and higher than usual, according to a school official.

'My husband says the bus stop was empty," said Altagracia Gomez, president of The Point Neighborhood Association.

'There were a lot of kids who wore white today to support the cause," said Raquel Pena, a senior at Salem High School.

Domingo Dominguez, a community leader who closed his business, said two of his children stayed home and two went to school.

"We didn't want to push," he said of the children who went to school. "They had projects they didn't want to miss."

In Peabody, high school Principal Patrick Larkin said the school "definitely had a significant number of students out," but he did not have actual figures. While administrators expected some absences, they were surprised by the magnitude, he said.

He said one student came to him last week to let him know that she would not be at school yesterday because she wanted to show solidarity with family members who are illegal immigrants.

Several people at the Salem rally said they demonstrated because they are worried about what could happen to legal immigrants like themselves if they help an undocumented friend or family member.

"That is a big problem," said Yoleny Ynoa of Salem. "If I have my brother in my house ... we both will be sent" back.

Ynoa, one of the organizers of the rally, said about 30 employees at his Peabody company missed work yesterday.

"We got a good boss," he said. "He lets us not work today."

While not condoning illegal immigration, several people said the U.S. government should recognize that illegal immigrants are here, and most are contributing members of society. Something should be done, they said, to help them become legal citizens.

"We support all kind of immigrants who come here with a dream," said Ramirez, wife of the Salem market owner. "The dream came true for us. ...We just want some kind of law to give these people the dream come true."

----------------------------------------
North Shore Colombia Solidarity Committee

Posted by nscolombia at 11:55 AM EDT

Updated: 4 May 2006 11:56 AM EDT

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Reply-To: Avi Chomsky

To: North Shore Colombia Solidarity Committee

Date: May 3, 2006 6:44 PM

Here’s a copy of the resolution passed by the Salem City Council at its last meeting, reiterating the city’s support for the displaced villagers of Tabaco. Thanks to Lucy Corchado for sponsoring the resolution, and to the entire council for the warm reception it gave to José Julio. Feel free to post/redistribute.



Avi



Salem City Council

Resolution on the Cerrejón Mine in Colombia





The following resolution was passed by the Salem City Council, Massachusetts, USA, on April 26, 2006, and forwarded to the Colombian government and the mining companies accused of human rights violations in the Guajira:



WHEREAS, Salem Harbor Station, located in the City of Salem, MA, consumes coal produced in the Cerrejón Zona Norte mine in La Guajira, Colombia;



WHEREAS, since the development of the mine in 1982 the indigenous Wayuu people of La Guajira have been displaced from their lands and had their traditional means of livelihood destroyed by loss of land and industrial contamination;



WHEREAS, in August 2001 the Afro-Colombian village of Tabaco was bulldozed by Exxon Mibil, then half owner of the mine, which included the destruction of many homes, the town’s church and school to make room for expansion of the mine;



WHEREAS, residents of Tabaco appealed to the Colombian Supreme Court for the relocation and reconstruction of their towns;



WHEREAS, the Colombian Supreme Court ruled in May, 2002, in favor of the villagers and their request for relocation and reconstruction of their town, and ordered the Mayor of Hatonuevo to oversee the reconstruction;



WHEREAS, two Colombians, Wayuu leader Remedios Fajardo and Tabaco’s lawyer Armando Pérez Araúgo, visited Salem in May, 2002 and in April, 2006 Mr. José Julio Pérez visited Salem to ask for Salem’s support in expressing solidarity with and demanding justice and relocation for the people who live in the mining zone;



WHEREAS; officials of Dominion issued a statement as follows: “Dominion is sympathetic to the problems this village faces. We expect all of our suppliers—domestic and foreign—to adhere to all rules and regulations governing their operations. Dominion would like to see a just resolution to these issues.” (Daniel A. Weekly, Director, Northeast Government Affairs, Dominion Resources, Tuesday, April 18, 2006)



NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, by the City Council of the City of Salem, that the City Council supports the Colombia Supreme Court’s decision and requests that said decision be carried out promptly and effectively, so that the inhabitants of Tabaco can rebuild their community and lead productive, shared lives;



BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the City Council urges that any further mine expansion be conditioned on peaceful and just negotiations that guarantee residents in the mining area basic human rights: right to live, right to subsistence by one’s own labor, and the right to human dignity;



BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that as a community hosting a coal powered generating facility, we condemn violations of human rights by all actors involved in Colombia’s conflict, including guerrilla groups, military, paramilitary, police, multinational corporations and foreign agents, including U.S. defense contractors; we express our solidarity with all Colombians working for nonviolent, just, political solutions to the conflict in Colombia, and we encourage the establishment of an ongoing relationship with organizations in the Guajira working peacefully for the human and democratic rights of the Wayuu indigenous people (Yanama) and the villagers of Tabaco (Comité Pro-Reubicación de Tabaco).



BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the City Council supports the site visit of La Guajira, Colombia and the Village of Tabaco by the Witness for Peace Delegation.
----------------------------------------

North Shore Colombia Solidarity Committee

Posted by nscolombia at 11:36 AM EDT

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From: Jason Silva
To: Avi Chomsky
Sent: Friday, April 28, 2006 2:20 PM

Hi Avi,

Attached is the proclamation that the Mayor presented to Jose Julio Perez. Please feel free to use the proclamation as you'd like. Thanks!

Best Regards,
Jason Silva
Chief Administrative Aide
Office of Mayor Kimberley Driscoll
93 Washington Street
Salem, MA 01970

--------------

CITY OF SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS


Kimberley Driscoll

Mayor



Proclamation



WHEREAS: Jose Julio Perez, President of the Community Council of Tabaco, has come before the Mayor and the Salem City Council in support of his fellow villagers; and


WHEREAS: Mr. Perez has been working as an activist on behalf of his fellow villagers whom have been displaced from their homes due to the expansion of the neighboring coal mining plant; and


WHEREAS: Mr. Perez is not only speaking in support of his family and friends in the Northern Columbian village of Tabaco, but also for the rights of employees everywhere; and


WHEREAS: Mr. Perez is seeking support from local Salem officials to administer pressure on Cerrejon Norte, the world’s largest open pit coal mine, to find homes for his fellow displaced villagers, treat their workers humanely, submit to stricter environmental regulations, promote public health and respect human rights; and


WHEREAS: in his campaign to raise awareness of these issues, he also hopes to raise funds in order to hire area scientists to conduct health and environmental impact studies of the mine; and


NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED THAT I, MAYOR KIMBERLEY DRISCOLL, DO HEREBY HONOR, RECOGNIZE AND SUPPORT

JOSE JULIO PEREZ


for his exceptional example of leadership and activism on behalf of his fellow villagers in their fight for public health, the environment, employee rights and social awareness, and, on behalf of the City of Salem, express sincere gratitude and deep appreciation to him for sharing his valuable time, knowledge, and extensive efforts for the well-being of all people and purposes for which he continues to advocate for.



________________________

Kimberley Driscoll

Mayor

Posted by nscolombia at 9:22 PM EDT

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Reply-To: Avi Chomsky achomsky@salemstate.edu
To: North Shore Colombia Solidarity Committee

Date: Apr 28, 2006 2:38 PM

RILEY PLAZA-------SALEM------12-6 PM------MONDAY, MAY 1


Just to let you know that some Salem residents will be gathering at Riley
Plaza, across from the Salem Post Office, in solidarity with the "A Day
Without Immigrants" movement on Monday, May 1 from 12-6pm. If you aren't
planning on driving into Boston, we'd love to have your support and
presence!

You can also show your support for immigrants rights by wearing a white
shirt and/or a white armband on Monday.

Avi



----------------------------------------
North Shore Colombia Solidarity Committee:
http://home.comcast.net/~nscolombia/

Posted by nscolombia at 8:26 PM EDT

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Reply-To: Avi Chomsky achomsky@salemstate.edu
To: North Shore Colombia Solidarity Committee Date: Apr 27, 2006 7:47 PM

Jobs with Justice is one of the many organizations supporting the national effort to make May 1 a day in support of immigrants' rights.

Avi

Greetings,

Un Dia Sin Inmigrantes
A Day Without Immigrants
May 1, 2006
Quedarse en casa
Stay At Home
Todo el Dia
All Day
No ir a trabajar
Don’t Go to Work
Si tienes que trabajar usar un liston blanco en el brazo o una playera
If you have to go to work, wear a white arm band or a white shirt
No ir de compras – Don’t go shopping
No Comprar gas o licor – Don’t buy gas or liquor
No Usar Transporte Publico – Don’t use public transportation



Los Estudiantes
The Students

Usar un liston blanco en el brazo o una playera blanca
Wear a white arm band or a white shirt.


Invita: Coalición de Organizaciones de Massachussets por una Reforma Migratoria Justa y Humanitaria
Sponsored by: Coalition of Massachussets Organizations for Just and Humanitarian Immigration Reform


UNIDOS LO PODEMOS LOGRAR!
Together, we can do it!


The following actions are being led by community organizations across Massachusetts and New England
More information on immigrant rights and flyers for some events can be found at www.massjwj.net and

www.miracoalition.org :
Amherst, MA: 12:00 PM, Monday May 1st Rally on the Amherst Town Common (Eduardo Suárez, 413-687-0399)
Boston, MA. SEIU 615 will hold a rally at 1PM at P.O. Square for the Miami U. Hunger Strike and then Rally the state house at 3PM for UNICCO workers
Cambridge, MA: Support and organize a City Council hearing at Centro Presente (617-497-7247)
Cambridge, MA: 1:00 PM, Harvard University walkout and teach-in (contact the Harvard May Day Coalition)
Chelsea. MA: 2:00 PM – 6:00 PM, Circle training for the community, 101 Park Street, Chelsea (Marina, 617-889-5210 x255)
Chelsea, MA: 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM, March from Central Square East Boston to Chelsea City Hall (Chelsea, 617-889-6080 or East Boston, 617-686-5018)
Framingham, MA: 6:30 PM, Immigrant Workers Mass (English and Spanish), Saint Stephen's Catholic Church, 251 Concord Street
Framingham, MA: 8:00 PM (Sunday, April 30, 2006), Community's expression of their will and vigil (Portuguese and English), a 24 hour event, Saint Tarcisius Catholic Church, 562 Waverly Street (Bill Black, Metropolitan Interfaith Congregations Acting for Hope, 978- 443-6027)
Lowell, MA: 2:00 PM – 5:00 PM (Sunday, April 30, 2006), Bread & Roses: A Cultural Event to celebrate workers and support immigrant rights, Boardinghouse Park, (978-452-7523)
Manchester, NH: 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM, Rally at Manchester City Hall Plaza, (Leticia Ortiz, 603-219-6542)
Providence, RI: 3:30 PM, March from Central High Scholl to State Capitol (Rachel Miller, Jobs with Justice, 401-454-4766)
Somerville, MA: 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM, Rally and vigil in front of Foss Park Put together by local immgrant rights coalition (617-623-7370 ext. 118)
Worcester, MA: 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM, Rally for Immigrant Rights, City Hall


We need volunteers! Can you be on call to go on a delegation May 2nd in cases where workers were fired? Please email jennifer@massjwj.net with your contact info! Thanks!



Massachusetts Jobs with Justice Statement of Support



As a coalition of eighty labor, community, and religious organizations we support the goals of the May 1st Day of Action for immigrant justice. Even as we speak, leaders in Congress are creating a climate that condones the denigration of human rights of a community of people whose contributions to our social, civic and economic life make our society strong.


Yes, our immigration system is broken and needs to be fixed. In fixing this system that has gone wrong we must keep in mind the principles on which this country was founded. We are a nation of immigrants. For hundreds of years, people seeking refuge from poverty, starvation, persecution and war migrated in hopes of a better life. The same is true today. Even as we enjoy material comforts here in the U.S. we are connected to the billions of people who live under dire conditions around the world. It is just these conditions that force so many people to make the difficult decision to leave their families and homes.


The tradition of May Day started in the US in 1886 during the struggle for the 8-hour day, a struggle lead by immigrants. On May 1st, 2006 immigrants and their allies across the nation will make the courageous decision to join a national boycott. Hundreds of thousands of people will decide not to go work, not to go to school, to close their business for the day and to participate in actions throughout the day.


This is not a decision the immigrant community has come to lightly, this is a response to brutal attempts in Congress and in local government to suspend and further erode the basic human rights of immigrants. We are proud to stand with every worker and student who chooses to participate in the boycott at whatever level they are able to and we will continue to stand with every community member on May 2nd and beyond.


We will continue the call for comprehensive immigration reform that creates a plan for legalization for the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, that creates a path to citizenship, that allows for the reunification of families across borders, that promotes labor rights, that promotes pathways to education and to success and that creates ways for immigrants to become educated citizens of the United States.




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Visit the web address below to tell your friends about this.
Tell-a-friend!




If you received this message from a friend, you can sign up for
Massachusetts Jobs With Justice

Posted by nscolombia at 8:13 PM EDT

Updated: 29 April 2006 8:20 PM EDT

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Reply-To: Avi Chomsky achomsky@salemstate.edu
To: North Shore Colombia Solidarity Committee
Date: Apr 26, 2006 7:48 PM

As many of you know, Anglo-American is one of the three companies that make
up the consortium that owns the Cerrejon Zona Norte coal mine. Yesterday,
Richard Solly, of our partner organization Mines and Communities in London,
attended the Anglo American shareholders' meeting to raise the issue of the
communities affected by the mine in Colombia. Here is his summary:


> Dear Avi and all,
>
> I attach a report of the questions I asked and the answers I received at
> yesterday's Anglo American AGM. Other issues were also covered and there
> will soon be a fuller report on the Mines and Communities website
> (http://www.minesandcommunities.org).
>
> Having asked three questions (more than any other shareholder) I felt I
> should not attempt a fourth by mentioning the petition signed by people
> attending events during Jose Julio's North American tour. But after the
> meeting I spoke with various Board members and gave the petition to
> company
> CEO Tony Trahar. They purported to be unaware of Jose Julio's visit to
> North
> America. Whether or not they were unaware, they are now aware that
> pressure
> is being brought to bear on their North American customers. I told them I
> could not understand why they do not just accept what the Relocation
> Committee demands because the municipality of Hatonuevo says it lacks
> money
> (and probably does) and that if they just bought the land that the
> Committee
> wants and settles with them we could concentrate on other things for a
> change.
>
> I was interviewed on Indymedia and Bloomberg News (http://www.bloomberg.com)
> before
> the meeting. So although I still want to increase the effectiveness of our
> interventions at these meetings, especially by bringing community
> representatives over here, I think we made progress over last year.
>
>
> Thanks.
>
> Richard Solly.
>



----------------------------------------
North Shore Colombia Solidarity Committee:
http://home.comcast.net/~nscolombia/

Posted by nscolombia at 7:59 PM EDT

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Witness for Peace New England

Delegation to Colombia

August 1-11, 2006

THE PEOPLE BEHIND THE COAL



Colombia is the largest recipient of U.S. military aid in the hemisphere, and also the country with the highest levels of official and paramilitary violence, including forced displacement, killings of journalists, trade unionists, and human rights activists.



Foreign corporations are some of the major beneficiaries of this situation, and multinational corporations control Colombia’s two largest exports, oil and coal, much of which comes back to U.S. markets. Most of the coal goes to supply power plants in Massachusetts and the southeastern U.S., including the Salem Harbor and Brayton Point power stations in Massachusetts.



Colombia’s coal comes from two of the largest open-pit coal mines in the world: El Cerrejón, begun by Exxon in the 1980s and now owned by a consortium of European-based companies, and La Loma, owned by the Alabama-based Drummond Company. Both of these mines export large quantities of coal to the United States, and both have been accused of serious human rights violations.



This delegation will follow the trail of the coal that supplies power to New England, meeting with human rights activists, trade unionists, members of Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities, and others affected by coal production in Colombia. We will explore how we as consumers can work in solidarity with communities and organizations in Colombia to hold corporations accountable for human rights.



Cost: The price of the 11-day delegation is $1350 USD. The delegation fee covers all set-up, preparation, meals, lodging, interpreters, transportation within Colombia. The fee also covers extensive reading and activist tools both before and after the delegation.
Fund-Raising: You can ask us for fund-raising materials or advice. Occasionally scholarship money becomes available.
Deadline: ASAP: Application with a non-refundable deposit of $150.

Contact: Avi Chomsky; 978-542-6389); Ellen Gabin; 978-546-7230(home); 978-281-1548(work)).



Witness for Peace (WFP) is a politically independent, grassroots organization of people committed to nonviolence and led by faith and conscience. Our mission is to support peace, justice, and sustainable economies in the Americas by changing US policies and corporate practices that contribute to poverty and oppression in Latin America and the Caribbean. For more info on the WFP Colombia program: www.witnessforpeace.org.

----------------------------------------
North Shore Colombia Solidarity Committee: http://home.comcast.net/~nscolombia/

Posted by nscolombia at 10:04 PM EDT

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Reply-To: Avi Chomsky
To: North Shore Colombia Solidarity Committee
Date: Apr 19, 2006 5:19 PM

So Jose Julio is on his way back to Colombia, and I wanted to take a minute to thank everyone who made the tour possible, and contributed to organizing it, recording it, filming it, and to point out some of the highlights.

Thanks to Garry Leech in Canada, Pat Bonner in Los Angeles, Steve Striffler in Arkansas, and Chloe Schwabe in Washington for organizing those parts of the tour.

In Salem, thanks to Lynn Nadeau for hosting Jose Julio; Lynn, Bill Thomas, Linda Weltner, Donna Neff, and especially Patrick McDermott, for driving; Alan Hanscom, Nilda Ortiz, Liam Leahy, Malena Mayorga, Michael Collins, and Hector Lopez for interviewing/translating/recording; and many people for organizing different events (Caroline Nye and Jeff Barz-Snell at the First Church, John Hayes and Hope Benne at Salem State, Tanalis Padilla at Dartmouth, David Carey at Univ. of Southern Maine, Meghan Morris and Elanor Starmer at Tufts, Juan Tello at Brown, Ellen Gabin at The Bookstore).

The response from the City of Salem was quite overwhelming. We got wonderful coverage in the News, the Gazette, and the North Shore Sunday. The Mayor, Kim Driscoll, welcomed Jose Julio to the city with an outstanding statement of support; the City Council met with him twice and is working on redrafting the Resolution passed in 2002; Rep. John Keenan was also extremely interested and supportive. Power plant representatives also agreed to meet with us, and made a statement that significantly strengthened the one from 2002, saying that Dominion was "sympathetic to the problems this village [Tabaco] faces" and calling for "a just resolution to these issues" and for their coal suppliers to "adhere to all rules and regulations governing their operations."

So what is next:

--The delegation (Aug. 1-11) and conference (Aug. 9--anniversary of the destruction of Tabaco) in Colombia this summer. We need people to come on the delegation, to publicize it, and to help with fundraising for scholarships.

--The video Alan edited will soon be on SATV--watch for it.

--Jose Julio may return in June to participate in a conference organized by AFRODES with the Congressional Black Caucus.

--Brainstorming about ways to use the momentum generated by the trip, the news coverage, the hundreds of signatures on the petition we circulated, the statements by the Mayor, City Council, and power plant, to most effectively pressure El Cerrejon to achieve the relocation that Tabaco residents have been fighting for.

Please let me know if you have ideas and/or can help!

Avi
----------------------------------------
North Shore Colombia Solidarity Committee: http://home.comcast.net/~nscolombia/

Posted by nscolombia at 10:00 PM EDT

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Reply-To: Avi Chomsky

To: North Shore Colombia Solidarity Committee
Date: Apr 19, 2006 4:28 PM
The image below is the cover of this week's issue of The Nation. Salem State is mentioned in the article!

Avi




This article can be found on the web at
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060501/blanding



The Case Against Coke
by MICHAEL BLANDING

[from the May 1, 2006 issue]

The ballroom at the Hotel du Pont in Wilmington, Delaware, is the picture of opulence. Paintings of Greek gods and goddesses peer down from the walls, lit by two crystal chandeliers the size of Mini Coopers. It's here in April that the Coca-Cola Company will hold its stockholders' meeting, an annual exercise designed to boost the confidence of investors. If the meeting is anything like last year's, however, it may do the opposite.

As stockholders filed into the room in April 2005, news hadn't been good for Coke, which has steadily lost market share to rivals. Investors were eager for reassurance from CEO Neville Isdell, a patrician Irishman who had recently assumed the top job. Few in the room, however, were prepared for what happened next. As Isdell stood at the podium, two long lines formed at the microphones. When he opened the floor, the first to speak was Ray Rogers, a veteran union organizer and head of the Campaign to Stop Killer Coke. "I want to know what [Coke is] going to do to regain the trust and credibility in order to stop the growing movement worldwide...banning Coke products," boomed the 62-year-old.

That was just the beginning of a ninety-minute slugfest that the Financial Times later said "felt more like a student protest rally" than a stockholders' meeting. One after another, students, labor activists and environmentalists blasted Coke's international human rights record. Many focused on Colombia, where Coke has been accused of conspiring with paramilitary death squads to torture and kill union activists. Others highlighted India, where Coke has allegedly polluted and depleted water supplies. Still others called the company to task for causing obesity through aggressive marketing to children.

In the past two years the Coke campaign has grown into the largest anticorporate movement since the campaign against Nike for sweatshop abuses. Around the world, dozens of unions and more than twenty universities have banned Coke from their facilities, while activists have dogged the company from World Cup events in London to the Winter Olympics in Torino. More than just the re-emergence of the corporate boycott, however, the fight against Coke is a leap forward in international cooperation. Coke, with its red-and-white swoosh recognizable everywhere from Beijing to Baghdad, is perhaps the quintessential symbol of the US-dominated global economy. The fight to hold it accountable has, in turn, broadly connected issues across continents to become a truly globalized grassroots movement.

Coke shrugs off the protests as coming from a "small segment of the student population," says Ed Potter, the company's director of global labor relations. "What I see are largely well-meaning attempts to put a spotlight on some reprehensible things--but which are unrelated to our workplaces." Nevertheless, Coke has fought back with ads on TV and in student newspapers, part of a mammoth advertising budget that has increased 30 percent in the past two years, to a staggering $2.4 billion. However, as evidence against the company mounts ahead of this year's annual stockholders' meeting, so does the pressure for Coke to address its growing international image of exploitation and brutality.

On the morning of December 5, 1996, union leader Isidro Segundo Gil was standing at the gate of the Coca-Cola bottling plant in Carepa, Colombia, when two paramilitaries drove up on a motorcycle and shot him dead. A week later, unionists say, paramilitaries lined up all the workers inside the plant and forced them to sign a letter resigning from the beverage union SINALTRAINAL, spelling the end of the union at the plant.

Violence against union members is a fact of life in Colombia, where nearly 4,000 have been killed by paramilitaries in the past two decades. But Gil's murder was different, say his union brothers; two months earlier, they observed the plant manager meeting with a paramilitary commander in the company cafeteria. And just a week before he was killed Gil had been negotiating with the company over a new contract. Workers see these events as an example of the collusion of bottling executives with the paramilitaries. "From the beginning, Coca-Cola took a stand to not only eliminate the union but to destroy its workers," said SINALTRAINAL president Javier Correa in a recent speaking appearance in the United States.

Nor was Gil's murder a unique occurrence, says Correa. In all, eight union members and a friendly plant manager were killed between 1989 and 2002. Even today, union leaders routinely receive death threats and attempts on their lives. In 2003 paramilitaries kidnapped and tortured the 15-year-old son of one union leader and killed the brother-in-law of SINALTRAINAL's vice president. This past January, says Correa, managers at the Coca-Cola plant in Bogot¿ attempted to get workers to sign a statement saying Coke did not violate human rights; a week later the leader of the union received a death threat against himself and his family.

"Coke has a long history of being a virulently antiunion company," says Lesley Gill, an anthropology professor at American University who has twice been to Colombia to document the violence. "It has been calculated and targeted, and it usually takes place during periods of contract negotiations." A 2004 investigation directed by New York City Councilman Hiram Monserrate documented 179 "major human rights violations" against Coke workers, along with numerous allegations that "paramilitary violence against workers was done with the knowledge of and likely under the direction of company managers." The violence has taken a toll on the union. In the past decade, SINALTRAINAL's Coke membership has fallen from about 1,400 to less than 400.

Coca-Cola representatives deny involvement of the company or its bottling partners, contending that the murders are a byproduct of the country's civil war. In response, the company touts the security measures it offers union leaders, including loans for home security systems and reassignment for those in danger. Furthermore, Coke points out that it has been exonerated in several cases in Colombian courts. However, charging those courts as ineffective--only five paramilitaries have been found guilty of murder, despite 4,000 killings--SINALTRAINAL reached out in 2001 to the International Labor Rights Fund, a Washington-based solidarity organization. Using a US law called the Alien Tort Claims Act, the ILRF and the United Steelworkers filed suit against Coke and its bottlers in Miami later that year. In 2003 a judge ruled that Coca-Cola couldn't be held responsible for the actions of its bottlers and dropped it from the case, even while allowing the case against the bottlers to go forward. ILRF lawyer Terry Collingsworth finds that decision preposterous, noting that Coke has ownership shares in its Colombian bottlers and highly detailed bottling agreements. "I'm 100 percent sure that if Coca-Cola in Atlanta ordered them to change their uniform color from red to blue, they would do it," says Collingsworth. "They could stop these activities in a minute."

While the ILRF has appealed the decision, procedural rules require it to wait until the case against the bottlers is over before the case against Coke can be taken up again--a process that could take years. "We needed to figure out a way that Coke sees delay as bad," says Collingsworth. In 2003 SINALTRAINAL put out a call for an international boycott of Coke products. At the same time, the ILRF contacted Ray Rogers, head of Corporate Campaign, Inc., an organization that consults with unions to win contracts through unorthodox methods. Over the past three decades, Rogers has forced concessions from a dozen companies--including American Airlines, Campbell's Soup and New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority--not through strikes or negotiations but through an aggressive strategy of publicly embarrassing anyone associated with his targets.

Rogers immediately saw Coke's weakness: its brand. "They are right at the top of the worst companies in the world, and yet they've created an image like they are American pie," he says. "When people think of Coca-Cola, they should think about great hardship and despair for people and communities around the world." From the beginning, Rogers appropriated Coke's trademark red script to make the Killer Coke logo, and tweaked its advertising campaign with slogans like "The Drink That Represses" and "Murder--It's the Real Thing." He made a dramatic first appearance at a Coke annual meeting two years ago, when police wrestled Rogers away from the mike and forcibly dragged him out of the hall.

Early on, Rogers rejected SINALTRAINAL's call for a consumer boycott of Coke products, fearing it would be ineffective and might alienate unions working with Coke. He focused on "cutting out markets" by going after larger institutional ties. He convinced several unions, including the American Postal Workers, several large locals of the Service Employees International, and UNISON, the largest union in Britain, to ban Coke from their facilities and functions, and he induced pension-fund managers, including the City of New York, to pass resolutions threatening to withdraw hundreds of millions in Coke stock investments unless Coke investigated the Colombia abuses. He persuaded not only the SEIU but the largest US union of Coke's own employees, the Teamsters, to pass a resolution in support of the Campaign to Stop Killer Coke and to speak out at last year's annual meeting (the Teamsters stopped short of banning Coke from their own facilities). "It's horrendous what we're hearing," says David Laughton, secretary-treasurer of the union's beverage division. "The company's lack of action is having a ripple effect all over the country in school and college, and that means reductions in jobs for us. It's time for them to wake up and admit their errors."

The campaign's greatest success has come at colleges and universities. Rogers set up a website with a step-by-step guide for students looking to convince their institutions to cut multimillion-dollar Coke contracts, and he's traveled to schools to hold rallies and advise students. One by one, more than a dozen schools in the United States, as well as a handful more in Ireland, Italy and Canada, have decided to cut lucrative beverage contracts or otherwise ban Coke from campuses. The effort accelerated after it was joined by United Students Against Sweatshops--one of the main groups behind the Nike boycott of the 1990s--which helped organize its own chapters. Anti-Coke campaigns are now active at some 130 campuses worldwide. "This campaign against Coke has politicized a new generation of students," says Camilo Romero, a national organizer with USAS. "It's something that students feel personally connected to, because it's something they can hold in their hand," says Aviva Chomsky, a professor at Salem State College in Massachusetts, which severed ties two years ago. "It's too easy to say, 'There are so many bad things in the world, I'm just going to concentrate on my own life.' It's the concreteness of this that's appealing."

While student campaigns have mostly focused on the abuses in Colombia, some have included demands from other countries as well. Few companies have the kind of global reach of Coca-Cola, which has set up a network of bottling partners around the world that allows it to maximize profits by keeping distribution costs down and exploiting lax environmental and labor laws abroad. The first rumblings came from India, where villagers near several Coke bottling plants reported that their wells were dropping, sometimes more than fifty feet; meanwhile, the water they were able to get was tainted by foul-smelling chemicals. Starting in 2002 villagers near Plachimada, in the southern state of Kerala, began a permanent vigil outside the local plant. They finally won an indefinite closure in March 2004, although the case remains an issue in the Kerala High Court.

Villagers started another vigil, at Mehdiganj in central India, this past March. Escalating protests there and at a third plant, in the desert state of Rajasthan, have ended in police attacks on villagers employing Gandhian tactics of nonviolence, which Amit Srivastava of the India Resource Center (IRC) lays at Coke's feet. "We know the company has the power to stop the police from resorting to violence," he says, "but it has let this go on without saying a word."

The IRC has been joined in its mission by Corporate Accountability International (CAI), which has attacked Coke on its aggressive push to sell bottled water. "If water becomes a branded product, it's clearly going to undermine the demand and support for publicly managed water systems," says CAI executive director Kathryn Mulvey. "The people who lose out are those who don't have the means to pay top dollar for their water." As a veteran anticorporate campaigner, Mulvey sees the Coke campaign as a new model. "People are taking these abuses that are happening all over the world and bringing them to Coke's headquarters," she says. "Transnational corporations are really surpassing the nation-state as the dominant economic and political institutions. Social change movements need to find ways to come together across borders and strategize."

The broad attack against the company has been a strength for the campaign, allowing diverse groups to share information and recruit greater numbers at protests, as well as making a more difficult target for counterattacks. "The company can't control it," says Rogers. "They realize they can't get rid of one person or group and hope the thing will die." At the same time, the sheer number of charges against Coke raises the question of how and when the campaign can declare victory. On that score, the different groups are clear about their specific goals. The Campaign to Stop Killer Coke, for example, has adopted seven demands by SINALTRAINAL, which include a human rights policy for bottling companies and compensation for families of slain workers. The campaign in India calls for closure of certain plants, cleanup of others and compensation for affected villagers.

Many student campaigns have made their top demand an independent investigation into the Colombia abuses. At last year's annual meeting, Coke tried to mollify critics by releasing the results of a company-funded study, which was rejected by students as woefully biased. Still facing the prospect of boycotts at several universities--among them Rutgers, NYU and Michigan--Coke put together a commission of students, school administrators and labor leaders to come up with a protocol for an independent inquiry. "I was honestly hopeful, perhaps na¿vely," says USAS's Romero. "It seemed like they were putting this new investment into making things work." From the beginning, however, the company insisted it had a right to be on the commission; even after Coke was booted by the students, it kept putting strictures on the investigation, such as a moratorium on investigating past abuses. The final straw was Coke's insistence that anything uncovered be inadmissible in the court case in Miami, which Collingsworth says is against legal ethics. "We cannot prejudice our clients by agreeing to bury evidence that would support their claims," he wrote in an angry letter to Coke's Ed Potter.

At around the same time, new evidence of Coke's antilabor tactics emerged in Indonesia, where, according to USAS, workers were intimidated when they attempted to unionize; and in Turkey, where more than 100 union members were fired and then clubbed and tear-gassed by police during a protest. This past November the ILRF filed another lawsuit against Coca-Cola, based on the claims of the Turkish workers. By that point, students had had enough; all but one left the commission.

With the failure of the investigation commission, administrators at some schools ran out of excuses to keep the Coke contracts. Both NYU and Michigan suspended contracts in December. NYU's status as the country's largest private university earned the campaign national and international press. "We knew if we were to ban Coca-Cola, our statement would resound around the world," says Crystal Yakacki, a recent NYU graduate who helped lead the campaign while she was a student.

As this year's annual meeting nears, Coke has gone on the offensive, announcing a plan to draft a new set of workplace standards. At the same time, the company has asked the UN's International Labor Organization to perform a workplace evaluation of the Colombia bottling plants. Rogers and Collingsworth have already cried foul, pointing out that Potter has been the US employer representative to the ILO for the past fifteen years. "Either they know something we don't know," says Collingsworth, "or they believe the ILO moves so slowly and bureaucratically that they can delay." In response, Potter claims the organization is so large that no one person can influence it. Regardless, the gambit is having some effect: In April Michigan, citing "the reputation and track record of ILO," rescinded its ban.

At the Hotel du Pont on April 19, organizers hope to stage a repeat of last year's grilling, with an even larger contingent of activists in attendance. Schools debating Coke contracts this spring include Michigan State, UCLA, the University of Illinois, DePaul and several campuses of the City University of New York. In Britain, the campaign lost a close vote in April to convince the National Union of Students--which represents 750 campuses--to cut a multimillion-pound contract. Many British universities, however, are continuing individual boycotts, as are campuses in Italy, Ireland, Germany and Canada. "This is a moment in history that is very rare, where students have the power to change one of the largest corporations in the world," says Romero. After recent campus victories, momentum seems to be on the side of the campaign. "Coke has a contracting market; we have an expanding market," says Rogers. "I want Coke to come to the realization that there is a lot more for them to lose by continuing to do what they do. They have to be made to do the right thing for the wrong reason."

Until they do, say activists, the violence against Coke's workers will continue. "It's very difficult for me to convince my family that they have to live with the worries, and that they will one day maybe have to receive bad news," says SINALTRAINAL's Correa. "My kids say that walking with Dad is like walking with a time bomb. But I can't leave this struggle seeing these violations happening all around me. The reality of the situation is that it's better being with a union than without one."



----------------------------------------
North Shore Colombia Solidarity Committee: http://home.comcast.net/~nscolombia/

Posted by nscolombia at 12:04 AM EDT

Updated: 21 April 2006 9:21 PM EDT

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News – From Last Friday, April 14, 2006
Power plant calls for 'just resolution' in Colombia dispute
By Tom Dalton
Staff writer

SALEM — The owner of Salem Harbor Station yesterday called for a "just resolution" in the dispute between displaced farmers in Colombia and the owners of a mine where the local power plant buys some of its coal.

"We sympathize with the plight of (Jose Julio Perez) and his village," said Dan Genest, a spokesman for Dominion, the Virginia owner of the Salem plant. "Dominion expects all of its suppliers ... to comply with all of the rules, laws and regulations governing their operations. Dominion urges a just resolution to the issues."

Perez, president of the community council in Tabaco, a village in Colombia that was forced to move because of the mine's expansion, met for about an hour yesterday with Salem Harbor Station General Manager Mike Fitzgerald and other plant representatives.

Perez has accused the mine and the local government in Colombia of human rights abuses, violence, and ignoring environmental and health problems.

Genest did not say if Dominion plans to contact officials in Colombia. "We're going to have a meeting next week to discuss it internally," he said.

----------------------------------------
North Shore Colombia Solidarity Committee: http://home.comcast.net/~nscolombia//>----------------------------------------
North Shore Colombia Solidarity Committee

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Posted by nscolombia at 11:54 PM EDT

Updated: 19 April 2006 12:13 AM EDT

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Reply-To: Avi Chomsky
To: North Shore Colombia Solidarity Committee
Date: Apr 12, 2006 11:10 PM

I'll give you all a full rundown on the Salem events when I have a moment to catch my breath. In the meantime, there are three more public events you might be interested in:

Friday, April 14, 7:00, at The Bookstore in Gloucester
Tuesday, April 18, The Fletcher School, Cabot 206, Tufts University
Tuesday, April 18, 7:00, at Brown University, Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer St.


And, this update from David Carey at University of Southern Maine, where Jose Julio gave two talks today:


The talks with Jose Julio went exceeding well and we had a great time hanging out. He
got to hold Ava for a while this morning and she was cooing quite a bit at him. I think
Patrick sold out of most of the goods he had, so it is good they are headed back to
reload. Patrick also performed heroically driving off road for a bit to get us around an
accident and to the class just about on time. I will let him share the details. At any rate,
thanks for setting that up with me. USM students and faculty and a few Portland
community members are the better for it and through his inspirational talk, Jose Julio
now has quite a few more advocates for the Tabaco and other communities's causes
here.

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Posted by nscolombia at 12:06 PM EDT

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By Tom Dalton
Staff writer
The Salem News, Wednesady April 12, 2006

SALEM — A Colombian farmer whose home was bulldozed five years ago has come to Salem to fight for a new home for his family and fellow villagers displaced by a mine that supplies coal to Salem Harbor Station.
Jose Julio Perez, president of the community council of Tabaco, the uprooted village near the Cerrejon Zona Norte mine in northern Colombia, will address the Salem City Council tonight.

Yesterday, he sat down for almost an hour with Mayor Kim Driscoll, who signed a resolution supporting the villagers' fight back when she was a city councilor. Tomorrow, he meets with state Rep. John Keenan, D-Salem, and, in a private session, with officials from the power plant.

This is the fourth visit to Salem over the past few years by union activists and community leaders from Colombia hoping to form bonds with communities in the United States and Canada that use coal from the plant. They hope to draw attention to their plight and put pressure on the Colombian government and the multinational corporation that owns the mine. In particular, they point to a 2002 decision by the Supreme Court of Colombia supporting their right to be relocated, which they say the local government has ignored.

"We lived in a very peaceful atmosphere of brotherhood," said Perez, speaking through a translator, Salem State College history professor Avi Chomsky. "Since the mines arrived, violence has also arrived in our community."

Perez, 52, does not want Salem Harbor Station to stop buying coal from Colombia. He does not even want Cerrejon Norte, the world's largest open pit coal mine, to shut down. He wants the power plant and others to bring pressure on the mine to respect human rights, protect the environment and public health, treat its workers humanely and help the displaced villagers find a new home and preserve their culture and community.

Dominion, the power plant owner, declined to comment until after tomorrow's meeting.

"We're looking forward to meeting with Mr. Perez and hearing what he has to say," said Karl Neddenien, a company spokesman in Virginia. "Until then, it is not possible to anticipate what might result from the meeting."

Salem Harbor Station has received only one coal shipment from this mine in the past three years, according to Neddenien. It averages about two coal ships a month, he said. He was not able to provide information on the amount of coal in total the Salem plant and Dominion get from Colombia.

Dominion buys a lot of coal from the South American country, which is the major foreign supplier of coal to the United States, according to Chomsky.

In his first trip outside Colombia, Perez has made several stops in the U.S. and also visited Canada. In Salem, he spoke Sunday night at The First Church and also made an appearance at an Earth Day event at Salem State.

In addition to raising awareness, he also hopes to raise funds to hire a scientist to do a study on the health and environmental impacts of the mine and to set up a regional center to monitor the mine's activity and aid the displaced villagers.

Chomsky, coordinator of Salem State's Latin American Studies program, is organizing a delegation that will go to Colombia in August to "follow the trail of coal that supplies power to New England ..." The Witness for Peace New England group will meet with union members and human rights activists battling the mine.

All of these efforts, Chomsky hopes, will make a difference.

"It seems in some ways that the court of public opinion is more important than the legal system in Colombia," she said. "If the company knows there is international attention on what is going on ... that's their vulnerability."

SALEM — A Colombian farmer whose home was bulldozed five years ago has come to Salem to fight for a new home for his family and fellow villagers displaced by a mine that supplies coal to Salem Harbor Station.

Jose Julio Perez, president of the community council of Tabaco, the uprooted village near the Cerrejon Zona Norte mine in northern Colombia, will address the Salem City Council tonight.

Yesterday, he sat down for almost an hour with Mayor Kim Driscoll, who signed a resolution supporting the villagers' fight back when she was a city councilor. Tomorrow, he meets with state Rep. John Keenan, D-Salem, and, in a private session, with officials from the power plant.

This is the fourth visit to Salem over the past few years by union activists and community leaders from Colombia hoping to form bonds with communities in the United States and Canada that use coal from the plant. They hope to draw attention to their plight and put pressure on the Colombian government and the multinational corporation that owns the mine. In particular, they point to a 2002 decision by the Supreme Court of Colombia supporting their right to be relocated, which they say the local government has ignored.

"We lived in a very peaceful atmosphere of brotherhood," said Perez, speaking through a translator, Salem State College history professor Avi Chomsky. "Since the mines arrived, violence has also arrived in our community."

Perez, 52, does not want Salem Harbor Station to stop buying coal from Colombia. He does not even want Cerrejon Norte, the world's largest open pit coal mine, to shut down. He wants the power plant and others to bring pressure on the mine to respect human rights, protect the environment and public health, treat its workers humanely and help the displaced villagers find a new home and preserve their culture and community.

Dominion, the power plant owner, declined to comment until after tomorrow's meeting.

"We're looking forward to meeting with Mr. Perez and hearing what he has to say," said Karl Neddenien, a company spokesman in Virginia. "Until then, it is not possible to anticipate what might result from the meeting."

Salem Harbor Station has received only one coal shipment from this mine in the past three years, according to Neddenien. It averages about two coal ships a month, he said. He was not able to provide information on the amount of coal in total the Salem plant and Dominion get from Colombia.

Dominion buys a lot of coal from the South American country, which is the major foreign supplier of coal to the United States, according to Chomsky.

In his first trip outside Colombia, Perez has made several stops in the U.S. and also visited Canada. In Salem, he spoke Sunday night at The First Church and also made an appearance at an Earth Day event at Salem State.

In addition to raising awareness, he also hopes to raise funds to hire a scientist to do a study on the health and environmental impacts of the mine and to set up a regional center to monitor the mine's activity and aid the displaced villagers.

Chomsky, coordinator of Salem State's Latin American Studies program, is organizing a delegation that will go to Colombia in August to "follow the trail of coal that supplies power to New England ..." The Witness for Peace New England group will meet with union members and human rights activists battling the mine.

All of these efforts, Chomsky hopes, will make a difference.

"It seems in some ways that the court of public opinion is more important than the legal system in Colombia," she said. "If the company knows there is international attention on what is going on ... that's their vulnerability."



----------------------------------------
North Shore Colombia Solidarity Committee: http://home.comcast.net/~nscolombia/

Posted by nscolombia at 8:41 PM EDT

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Reply-To: Avi Chomsky
To: North Shore Colombia Solidarity Committee
Date: Apr 7, 2006 10:24 AM

Another update, from Chloe Schwabe in Washington:

Things have picked up steam in the last day or so. Jose Julio was kind of tired and suffering from neck pains when he arrived, and still gets them when he tries to read. We got him some vitamin B, which he requested and seems to be helping him.

We had a really good meeting with Jeff Vogt yesterday at WOLA (he was previously working on the Tabaco case at ILRF). He thought it could still be possible to sue in the US. He thought a case against Exxon might be weak since they have already sold the company and might say that it is not their responsibility anymore. We could sue the subsidiaries of the other companies, but it would mean mutliple cases since they are all in different states. He thought the best might be to sue the other corporations in their home countries. He thought the OECD was a good way to go, although it is a mild castigation.

He suggested that we talk with ILRF and sent us down there. His aide also helped us make three visits in congress for today and I made one via a friend of mine.

Last night he had a good presentation at All Souls Church. I reached out to some different groups and we had a different crowd than we usually have at CHRC events. Everyone was really touched and we raised some money. THe Colombian Human RIghts Committee is going to take up the issue at its next meeting to see if we will continue working with Tabaco more seriously.

Working backwards, Wednesday he met with Marino Cordoba of AFRODES. Marino invited him to come back in June for a conference of Afro-Colombians. A few days would be spent with them altogether as a group strategizing how they will work with congress (in particular the Black Caucus) to come up with real solutions to displacement in Colombia. Then they will have meetings with Congress, the World Bank and other institutions as well as a few public panels. I am wating for a proposal from Marino, but I wanted to throw that out there to everyone.

Then we went to Leslie Gill's class and showed the movie to her class. There were lots of questions. She had some law students in that class it seemed. There was one woman really familiar with the terminology he used that supported Lesley and I with the translation. It in the end was a small group, but still worth it. In the end they were able to give a full honorarium to pay for the cost of the ticket back to Boston.
Today, we ae going to try and talk with Oxfam and encourage them to do a prorgam in Colombia under their mines and community program. Then we are going to meet with BIC (Bank information center- they follow and monitor ifi's). Then we are going to meet with Derek from the ILRF. I want to thank them for the ticket, update them on what we are doing and see where we are with the case or maybe if they have other ideas of who we might talk to (such as the CJA mentioned in a different email. They have won some powerful cases related to El Salvador. I do distantly know someone who works there. He is the son of a friend of my family).

Then we have a brown bag at WOLA with many of the NGOs in town working on human rights issues in Colombia. After that, we have 3 or 4 visits in Congress (one woman said we should stop by and she would talk with us if there is time).

If there is time, I might try to go to Global Rights and talk with them about if they think we do have a case in front of the InterAmerican Court on Human RIghts, which Jose Julio says the community has been working on with the Comision de Abogados. Jeff was going to see someone from this group this weekend in New York and was going to put in a word to them to see how this process is going too. I guess they have been talking about this for three years with them.

We also went to look at the cherry blossoms at the tidal basin and to rock creek park with a detour to the zoo- which ultimately we both found depresssing.

Bueno, that is the update for right now.

I will fill you in on how the visits in Congress go. I think we are going to talk about the Free trade agreement and what possibility there would be for the members to write a letter to the government to enforce the supreme court ruling.

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North Shore Colombia Solidarity Committee: http://home.comcast.net/~nscolombia/

Posted by nscolombia at 2:53 PM EDT

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Reply-To: Avi Chomsky
To: North Shore Colombia Solidarity Committee
See below for Pat Bonner's very moving report on Jose Julio's visit to Los
Angeles.

We also have an incredibly busy week-and-a-half scheduled for him in New
England, including talks at Brown, Tufts, Roxbury Community College, Univ.
of Southern Maine, and Dartmouth, as well as of course Salem State; meetings
with the Salem City Council, the Mayor, Rep. John Keenan, and the power
plant; and public events at the First Church in Salem and The Bookstore in
Gloucester.

Avi


> Hi Avi and all,
>
> Here's a rundown of how things went in Los Angeles.
> The Friday, March 31, morning meeting with Interfaith Communities United
> for Justice and Peace (ICUJP) was attended by about 50 people. It was not
> their typical meeting, since it consisted entirely of two presentations.
> The other presentation was by Palestinians about some health projects in
> Palestine. Our presentation was second. People responded well. Two of
> the addresses on the petition are in Palestine. I didn't get a chance to
> talk with the Palestinians, but I'm sure they could identify with the
> video of bulldozers knocking down houses.
>
> Some of the people attending wanted to do more than sign the petition and
> asked if I had contact information for the three companies so that they
> could contact them directly. Fortunately, I had expected this and had
> copies available of the three companies. Later Jose Julio suggested I
> add the contact info for President Uribe and the Attorney General to that
> list. So I did, but I didn't have any more requests for the information..
>
> The rest of Friday was visits with friends: Lunch at a Colombian
> restaurant owned by some friends. Dinner at a Mexican Restaurant with
> core members of our two local sponsoring groups.
>
> Saturday afternoon's event at the Southern California Library was not well
> attended, but we made contact there with three African American members of
> the community who I hope we will continue to be in touch with. Saturday
> evening's event at Tia Chucha's Cafe Cultural had about twenty people.
>
> Sunday, April 2, we did not have any events scheduled. In the morning,
> two people took Jose Julio to see Arlington West, a display of crosses on
> the beach next to Santa Monica Pier. The display is a project of Veterans
> for Peace, each cross representing a U.S. soldier killed in Iraq. This
> display is getting a lot of attention in the peace movement.
>
> Sunday afternoon, Jose Julio and I made a visit to the garden of South
> Central Farmers. This claims to be the largest community garden in the
> country. The farmers are Mexican and Central American immigrants.
> Recently the city of Los Angeles sold the property to an investor who
> wants to build a warehouse there. The farmers and supporters are in a
> struggle to preserve the farm. Originally, I was arranging for Jose Julio
> to do a presentation there, at a community event sponsored by the garden.
> But then an eviction notice was posted on the fence and the community
> dropped all other projects to deal with that. They are still there as
> negotiations proceed. So when Jose Julio and I went there late Sunday, we
> just talked to individuals who happened to be there, including a couple of
> the leaders. One of the leaders of the support group is from Nigeria and
> he was delighted to meet an African from Colombia. They indicated that I
> can probably do a follow-up event at some point, showing the video.
>
> Monday morning, the local Pacifica station, KPFK, did a telephone
> interview for their 5:30 a.m. bilingual program. It will air tomorrow
> morning. A short part of it was aired on the KPFK Evening News on Monday.
>
> Monday afternoon, Jose Julio went to Claremont and spoke to Cindy
> Forster's classes. I wasn't there, but was told that it went well.
> Jose Julio had a couple VHS tapes of footage that he wanted to put on DVD.
> My project Sunday was to get that done. But one of the tapes turned out
> to be the wrong one that he gave me by mistake. So I kept the correct
> one, which I will get copied next weekend. (The friend who does this for
> me is only available for this on weekends.)
> Avi, I hope to get the VHS and DVD in the mail to you in time for you to
> give it to Jose Julio before he leaves. What mailing address should I
> send them to? Also, I need to send you the signed petitions.
>
> What I did with the petition was make a lot of copies. Then at events I
> suggested that people take two, one to sign and return to us immediately,
> and one to keep for their own information. I did this because I didn't
> have another good information piece and the petition fairly well
> summarizes the situation. One high-school student asked if she could make
> copies for other people to sign. I said yes and gave her my address to
> return them to.
>
> A few people expressed an interest in the delegation.
> The person Jose Julio stayed with while here is Ulrich Oslender. Ulrich
> is currently teaching Geography at UCLA but is based at the University of
> Glasgow, Scotland. Ulrich spent time in Colombia studying the situation
> of displaced Afro-Colombians. I think it's the subject of his
> dissertation for his PhD. Anyway, he's a friend of Marino Cordoba and Luz
> Marina Becerra. Luz Marina stayed with him when she was here. That's how
> we met him. Ulrich and I were both surprised that Jose Julio was not
> familiar with AFRODES. I guess that's an indication of how isolated
> Guajira is. Ulrich phoned Marino in Washington, DC to tell him about Jose
> Julio's visit. Hopefully they will link up. Chloe, I'm sorry I forgot to
> mention this in our phone conversation.
> Best wishes,
> Pat
>
>
>



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North Shore Colombia Solidarity Committee: http://home.comcast.net/~nscolombia/

Posted by nscolombia at 10:06 PM EDT

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Reply-To: Avi Chomsky
To: North Shore Colombia Solidarity Committee
Date: Mar 30, 2006 11:07 AM

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Hi All,

Jose Julio gave two talks yesterday, both of which were very successful. The first was to a group of about 100 students, faculty, and others on the University of Arkansas Campus. This was probably one of the larger audiences at the University on any subject to do with Latin America. The second was to a smaller group of local peace activists. He was great. The format of brief introduction/context, followed by video, followed by Jose Julio talking and answering questions seemed to work well for all involved. Both audiences were very moved by the talk.

Jose Julio is holding up well. He got some rest, we hiked a bit in the Arkansas outback, and he got to see the area. We've also called his home in Colombia every day which he really seems to like.

We have a few little things to do here to day and then he is off to the airport and Los Angeles.

Best, Steve

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North Shore Colombia Solidarity Committee: http://home.comcast.net/~nscolombia/

Posted by nscolombia at 5:02 PM EST

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