Latest News: The ITUC published it's Annual Survey of violations of trade union rights in June, noting that 

'In Guatemala, anti-union violence is constant, with assassinations, threats, harassment, shootings at people’s homes, raids and attacks on union offices, and assaults and harassment of trade union leaders and their families. In most cases, these actions have not been punished. In the course of the year, more than 20 leaders of unions, indigenous groups and peasant farmers were murdered and the union movement was subjected to a level of persecution reminiscent of the practices used during armed conflict.'

Campaign

In January 2008, Pedro Zamora, General Secretary of the union at the port of Quetzal (STEPQ), was murdered whilst leading a campaign against the privatisation of the port and denouncing the numerous violations of trade union rights, including the sacking of nine workers. Though the workers were reinstated after an international mission by the ITUC and the International Transport Federation (ITF), the murder of Pedro Zamora has so far remained unpunished.

On March 2nd 2008, Miguel Angel Ramirez, founder of the new SITRABANSUR union on the Olga Maria plantation in the Pacific South of Guatemala, was shot dead.

In April 2008 SITRABI union member Enrique Cruz Hernandez was shot during his lunch break. In February 2008 the daughter of the General Secretary of SITRABANSUR was raped by a gang of armed men.                                                                                                                       

Trade union leader Efrén Emigdio Sandoval Sanabria, a member of the coordinating board of the ITUC affiliate UNSITRAGUA (Unión Sindical de Trabajadores de Guatemala) and of the political council of the Guatemalan labour, indigenous and campesino movement, MSICG, has been the target of repeated death threats, issued in various forms. On 27 May 2009, he received threats of abduction, torture and murder by e-mail, reminiscent of those used during the years of armed conflict.

These are just a few of the many recent cases of violence against banana union leaders in Guatemala, which have been escalating since the murder of SITRABI union leader, Marco Tulio Ramirez in September 2007. SITRABI General Secretary, Noé Ramírez, reported that at least five banana workers were killed between February and April 2008. Union leaders and members in other sectors have also been victims of the increasingly generalized violence.

Pressure must be put on the Guatemalan government to ensure that the people responsible for these killings are brought to justice and the systematic violations of labour rights are put to a stop.  As a result of a previous international campaign led by the IUF, EUROBAN and COLSIBA, the new Guatemalan president, Alvaro Colom, promised to take action to ensure that the murder of SITRABI union leader Marco Tulio Ramirez was investigated by the authorities.  However the subsequent lack of action by the Guatemalan government on these violent and shocking cases of trade union repression now necessitates political pressure from EU governments to ensure that Alvaro Colom sticks to his commitments to end impunity and violence in Guatemala.

1)  Write to the British Ambassador in Guatemala, the Honourable Julie Chappell asking her, in the face of a rapidly deteriorating security situation in Guatemala, to take action to ensure a full and open investigation and the subsequent prosecution of those responsible for these acts of violence. Ask that, as representative of the British Government in Guatemala, she will be active in the fight to put an end to this pattern of rising anti-union violence and institutional impunity in Guatemala.
Email to The Honourable Julie Chappell (British Ambassador in Guatemala) at consular.guatemala@fco.gov.uk
Please CC to info@bananalink.org.uk

2)  Banana Link has also produced Urgent Action postcards to highlight the situation in Guatemala and encourage people to take action.  Please contact Banana Link to order multiple copies of the action cards for distribution amongst your networks.

Thank you to everyone who has lobbied the British government so far. Click here to read the most recent response from Ambassador Chappell. 

Further Reading

The extreme vulnerability of democratic institutions in Guatemala and the increased risk of attacks and threats against human rights defenders
Click here to download this document (Peace Brigrades International 2009)

Internationally recognised core labour standards in Guatemala
ITUC report for the WTO General council review of the trade policies of Guatemala
Click here to download this document (ITUC, 2009)

www.amnesty.org.uk/tradeunions or www.amnesty.org.uk/events 

Two reports have also been published by the Human Rights Protection Unit in Guatemala (UDEFEGUA) detailing the situation facing human rights activists in Guatemala in the first half of 2008. Download English versions of the preliminary report and the general alarm documents.