John Sweeney has a blistering op-ed in the Washington Post on the Colombia FTA, focusing on President Uribe's government complicity in the killing of labor organizers.

The power of an individual story.

Last Sept. 27, 16-year-old Andres Damian Florez Rodriguez was on his way home from school when he was forced into a van by three armed men. Andres is the son of Jose Domingo Florez, a leader of the Coca-Cola bottling union in Santander. The assailants drove along, beating the boy while they received radio instructions. Then they gave him a message to convey: "Tell your papa that we won't rest until we see [the union leaders] quartered in pieces."

On March 22, Adolfo Gonzalez Montes, a member of the Barrancas local Union of Coal Miners, was found dead in his home, tortured and shot, after his union received death threats during a union conflict.

On March 9, Carlos Burbano, vice president of the National Hospital Workers' Union in Colombia, was murdered in San Vicente del Caguán after leading a local peace march. His corpse was found in the city dump, his face disfigured with acid. He was one of four Colombian trade unionists killed in a single week. Their deaths were not random crimes in a dangerous country. Rather, the Colombian government has falsely denounced union activists as guerrilla sympathizers, opening the door for paramilitary groups' death threats.

False promises are highlighted.

Globalization and trade should lift up and promote democratic societies. They should empower the many and lift the poor. They should create a fundamentally better world.

Wacko editorial page complicity is noted.

The editorial pages of virtually every major American newspaper have weighed in with unusual intensity. They have heaped praise on the Uribe administration's self-described successes and vigorously excoriated "bogus" claims about violence against unionists.

There are really no good arguments for the Colombia FTA.  Their economy is too small to matter mathematically for us.  If the goal is foreign policy, then foreign policy tools should be used instead of economy-gutting trade policy tools.  And, oh yes, the NAFTA model is a failure.  A new trade policy is needed before signing more deals.

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