Colombian Miners…

There was a bombing attack on the Colombian mining worker’s union office in Bogota on May 2, 2004, according to a communique distributed by the union and translated by the UK Colombia Solidarity Campaign. The union, SINTRAMINERCOL, has its offices in the the building belonging to MINERCOL, the state mining company.


There was a bombing attack on the Colombian mining worker’s union office in Bogota on May 2, 2004, according to a communique distributed by the union and translated by the UK Colombia Solidarity Campaign. The union, SINTRAMINERCOL, has its offices in the the building belonging to MINERCOL, the state mining company.

SINTRAMINERCOL is a union that has been fighting against privatization and against the violent assaults on small independent miners by paramilitaries who are ultimately working for multinational interests — the multinationals want to consolidate holdings and so on, and the small miners are in the way.

Remember that this is in the midst of a conflict between another miner’s union, USO, the oil workers, and the state, over the future of ECOPETROL, the state oil company that is being privatized bit by bit.

SINTRAMINERCOL wants an investigation, a revocation of the liquidation of the mining company MINERCOL, and protection for the lives and labour rights of the workers and the union.

Author: Justin Podur

Author of Siegebreakers. Ecology. Environmental Science. Political Science. Anti-imperialism. Political fiction. Teach at York U's FES. Author. Writer at ZNet, TeleSUR, AlterNet, Ricochet, and the Independent Media Institute.