COLOMBIA-The Killing Continues as US Doubles Down on Failed Trade Policies http://www.counterpunch.org/kovalick06072011.html

 A number of notable events took place in the past week which underscore the U.S.'s continued failed policies in Latin America. And of course, these notable events were almost totally ignored by the mainstream of the U.S. press.First, Joel Hernandez Godoy, the Finance Secretary of the SITRABI union in Guatemela, was murdered by two gunmen on motorcycle. Mr. Hernandez is the second SITRABI unionist killed this year in Guatemala. SITRABI represents Del Monte banana workers, and, along with the AFL-CIO, is a party to a pending labor complaint against Guatemala filed under the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA).

This labor complaint involves serious claims of labor abuses in Guatemala -- now the second most dangerous country in the world for trade unionists after Colombia which has held the number one spot for years. Among the labor abuses charged in this CAFTA complaint is the murder of another SITRABI leader, Marco Tulio Ramirez.

While the Colombian Embassy in Washington, desperate for the Colombia FTA, is attempting to write off the three (3) labor-related killings in Cali as somehow unrelated and as the product of random or even drug-related violence, it is well-known that unions in Cali, and the SINTRAEMCALI union in particular, have been a special target of intensive military/paramilitary harassment and threats for years. Most famously, SINTRAEMCALI has been the target of a harassment and assassination program known as "Operation Dragon" -- a joint military/paramilitary operation which targeted 150 social, political and labor leaders, including the SINTRAEMCALI union.

[A.S. Former Presidential Adviser: “Army Worked with Paramilitaries to Exterminate Opposition Party” http://www.justiceforcolombia.org/news/article/989/former-presidential-adviser-army-worked-with-paramilitaries-to-exterminate-oppos   "Counter-insurgency" is a polite term for the mass extermination of civilians http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=101955