Bloodless Coup

Trying to Build Unions in Colombia

The more I think about it, the more I think that Juan Forero's New York Times story (in the November 18, 2004 edition) on union leaders in Colombia may have been the most important story in the last week to go largely unnoticed. Perhaps this is because it wasn't in the A section. Perhaps it was because it dealt with labor and Colombia (hardly issues that typically top the news). Perhaps it was due to the fact that it wasn't "news" as such - it's a problem that's been persisting like a cancer on Colombia for years. But I think it gets at some things that are of central importance as we try to understand other countries and international relations.

The basic problem is that union leaders have been killed on a regular basis. Over 2,100 union leaders have been slain since 1991. Now the number of deaths has been declining during the Uribe government's tenure - only 58 had died this year by the middle of last week, and there were only 94 killed last year (compare that to 1996 when 222 were murdered) - but it's still a major problem, and virtually all of the killings are unsolved. Now, on a basic level, everyone knows who's doing it: right-wing paramilitaries financed by land owners and cocaine traders who see the organizers as rebels, leftists who want to hurt the economy. And in some cases the specific killers are known, but various government officials have made sure that they aren't prosecuted (to the point that some have even been sprung from prison). In response, many union leaders have fled the country.

Why is this important? There are two things about this that strike me as vitally important and are far too frequently overlooked when discussing international relations. First, Americans assume that all of the world's governments function like ours. That is far from the case. Many central governments are far, far, far weaker - and local leaders with interests that may conflict with those in the capital have far more control. This affects a host of political issues from how to deal with humantarian crises to fighting terrorism. Secondly, this gets at the great difficulties faced by the masses as they try to improve their lot in many of the world's poorer countries. Those attempting to challenge the status quo or fight for better wages often end up dead. Given the importance of both establishing a stable middle class and amelioriating wide-spread and extreme poverty to the stability of a country, both economically and politically, and in the fostering of a wide variety of political and social norms that the Western countries supposedly favor, this is a big problem. And on a more specific point, this kind of thing keeps all sorts of wages low and makes it harder for some developed-world workers to remain efficient in a global marketplace filled with sweat-shop-wage laborers.

The article notes that some in Congress would like to tie future trade agreements to fighting these sorts of abuses. I'm not sure that's the answer. But it seems that we need to do something, and not let conditions like these fester.