COLUMBIA: STRUCK OIL

A month-long protest against BP contractors in Colombia erupted in violence last week as riot police attacked striking workers and locals.

The workers, striking for better pay and conditions, had been set to hold talks with employers on 16th February. But on the 15th police moved in, breaking up the protest by beating workers with batons and riot shields and firing tear gas canisters, with scant regard for children making their way to school.

BP has been operating in the oil producing region of Casanare for more than 20 years. Until last year, the workers had no union, and right-wing paramilitary groups operating in the area imposed labour conditions and crushed dissent. Campesino and community leaders in the region that challenged that order were assassinated.

However, in 2009 the Oil Workers Union managed to establish a branch in Tauramena, where oil company OCENSA operate. OCENSA is owned by BP, Total and the Colombian state-owned Ecopetrol. The union has spent the last year supporting workers and the community in campaigns for better conditions – not easy work in the country where more union leaders are assassinated annually than in the rest of the world combined.

The British Colombia Solidarity Campaign is now planning action to hold BP accountable for the human rights abuses going on for the benefit of its profits. There will be a protest at 4pm this afternoon (26th) outside BP’s London HQ in St James’s Square. The campaign will be planning further solidarity action at its annual meeting in London tomorrow (27th). The group is also urging people to tell BP what they think of their company by emailing Executive Director and Group Chief Executive Tony Hayward at : tony.hayward@bp.com and to send their support to the workers at usopaz@yahoo.com

*see www.colombiasolidarity.org.uk

*http://sussexcolombiasolidarity.wordpress.com