[MLB-WIRELESS] OT Colombian workers sieze comms, water utilty

[Clae]

Off topic, but maybe of interest

>From: Rak Razam <shazaman at netspace.net.au>
>Delivered-To: mailing list BarrelfullofMonkeys at yahoogroups.com
>Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 19:49:17 +1000
>Subject: [BarrelfullofMonkeys] the Columbian anti-privatisation 
>revolution is ON>!
>Reply-To: BarrelfullofMonkeys at yahoogroups.com
>
>THE WAR IS ON!
>THE PEASANTS, THEY are REVOLTING (AGAIN)!
>WORLD WAR THREE IS A PARTY!
>
>XXX RAK
>
>
>
>SchNEWS
>
>Published in Brighton by Justice? - Brighton's Direct Action collective
>
>ISSUE 339, January 25th, 2002
>
>TOWER STRUGGLE
>
>Colombia's second city Cali is today on a city wide stoppage in support
>of
>800 workers from the Sintraemcali Union. For the past 31 days they have
>been occupying a 17-storey communications tower, the home of the state
>owned Emcali, who supply water, electricity and telephones to the city.
>
>With the support of the Cali community, the workers - who have been
>there
>since Christmas Day - are demanding that the company isn't privatised,
>that
>there are no price increases and the corrupt company officials who have
>siphoned off money for years are prosecuted.
>
>Apart from the riot police around the tower, the square surrounding it
>is
>in the hands of the people and has been "transformed into a beehive of
>collective action."
>
>A huge make shift kitchen feeds the hundreds of occupying workers with
>breakfast, lunch and dinner. Across the road is a stage where people
>make
>speeches, play music and try to keep people's spirits up. On some days
>there have been 20,000 supporters outside, and every few days there is a
>
>big meeting of several thousands. All around the square, the walls are
>adorned with banners with slogans such as 'Better to die for something
>than
>live for nothing'. Squatting such a sophisticated communications tower
>also
>has its advantages - with workers beaming video link-ups around the
>world.
>
>Colombia is not a place for the fainthearted. It has been in a civil war
>
>for the past 40 years, and in the past ten alone over one and a half
>thousand trade union activists have been assassinated. Since 1994
>workers
>from the Sintraemcali Union have successfully fought off sixteen
>attempts
>to privatise Emcali - and the heavy price they have paid has been
>murders,
>assassination attempts and the forced exile of many workers. The leader
>of
>Sintraemcali is just 33 but has already survived three assassination
>attempts, and workers occupying what has now been dubbed Robin Hood
>Towers,
>cover their faces knowing that even if they are victorious right wing
>paramilitaries could exact revenge at any time.
>
>Over recent years the paramilitaries have managed to grow in parallel
>with
>the US initiated Plan Colombia, a two billion dollar largely military
>aid
>package supposedly aimed at the eradication of cocaine production (see
>SchNEWS 273). However the paramilitaries have been untouched by this
>military war on drugs, despite admitting that they fund themselves
>largely
>from drug production in the areas under their control.
>
>As Mario Novelli from the Colombian Solidarity Campaign, who is
>currently
>in Cali as a Human Rights Observer points out "Could it be that the US
>is
>fighting not against drugs, but against resistance to the imposition of
>an
>economic model based on privatisation, budget cuts, and rising
>inequality?
>If it is, then the stakes at this negotiation table here are high, for
>if
>the Cali community and Sintraemcali stop the privatisation of public
>services, and prevent price increases for the poor, then they are not
>just
>preventing government plans, but the plans of the IMF and the World
>Bank,
>and their US masters. Plans that seek to ensure that Colombia fits in to
>
>the neo-liberal block being developed across the region." With the
>occupation now entering a fifth week and messages of solidarity pouring
>in
>from around the world, negotiations are now taking place at the highest
>level. As Mario Novelli says "We are beginning to get the feeling that
>the
>world is starting to take note of what those inside the tower already
>know:
>this is an historic battle."
>
>
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