Chicago, IL
The 2000 recipient of the George Meany-Lane Kirkland Human Rights Award is Luis Eduardo Garzon, President of the Colombian CUT, on behalf of the Colombian trade union movement. Each year since 1980, the AFL-CIO has recognized outstanding examples of the international struggle for human rights through trade unions.
Colombia's trade unions have been the leading advocates for peace, human rights, and economic justice in a nation afflicted by internal violence and external economic pressures.
They have paid a heavy price for this advocacy. More than 2,500 Colombian trade unionists have been killed in Colombia in the past 15 years. According to the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), 90 died in 1998, mostly at the hands of paramilitary organizations supported by government security forces.
Among the victims was Jorge Ortega, Vice President of the Confederacion Unitaria de Trabajadores (CUT) and one of many union leaders who have denounced both guerrilla and government violence and played key roles in efforts by civil society to achieve an effective and lasting peace. The violence continued in 1999, culminating in the assassination on December 13 of Cesar Herrera, president of the banana workers' union, SITRAINAGRO. And this year, union leaders Hictor Enrique Acuqa and Jaime Enrique Barrera lost their lives in the struggle for justice and peace.
In the past five years, not a single assassin responsible for the murder of unionists has been arrested or tried. Yet unionists who strike or otherwise defend their rights have been prosecuted in regional courts, where judges' and witnesses' identities are hidden and secret evidence can be admitted. The International Labor Organization has repeatedly condemned anti-union violence and has appointed a special rapporteur to monitor conditions in Colombia.
Luis Eduardo ("Lucho") Garzon is president of the CUT, Colombia's largest labor federation, representing 600,000 workers. Lucho Garzon was born in Santa Fe de Bogota, Colombia. He went to work for the Colombian state-owned petroleum company, ECOPETROL, in 1975 and joined the petroleum workers' union, USO, in which he held various leadership positions. He entered the leadership of the CUT in 1990, serving as President since 1996.
Lucho is a key figure in the peace process, serving as a member of the Executive Committee of the National Peace Council, the National Conciliation Commission, and the Committee in Search of Peace. He has been directly involved in negotiations between the government and guerrilla forces. His clear and constant advocacy that civil society, led by trade unions, must have a voice in the peace negotiations has made him a target of attacks from both the right-wing paramilitary forces and the guerrillas.
Past recipients of the Meany-Kirkland Award include Kim Dae Jong, current President of the Republic of Korea; Han Dong Fang , China's leading worker-dissident; Frank Kokori and Chief Milton Dabibi, labor leaders of the movement to restore democracy in Nigeria; and Branislav Canak, leader of Serbia's independent unions.