[act-ma] Connections between Colombian coal and Massachusetts

[Richard Krushnic]

*HEAR FROM AND DIALOGUE WITH A LEADER OF ONE OF THE  TWO LARGEST COLOMBIAN
COAL MINER'S UNIONS*
**
*Presentation with Translation, Refreshments, Discussion*
**
*7:00 pm Thursday November 4, 2010*
*Encuentro 5, 33 Harrison Ave., 5th floor, Chinatown*
*(a few blocks from the Orange Line Chinatown stop*
*or the Green Line Boylston stop)*
*(try to arrive by 6:45 so that we can begin on time)*
**
*Jose Brito--former Sintracarbon leader, member of the International
Federation of Chemical, Eneergy, Mine and General  *
*                  Workers' Unions and the Andean Labor Institute*
**
*Jose Brito formerly worked at and represented workers at the Cerrijon mine,
and Raul Sosa continues to represent workers at the Drummond mine.  Raul is
in the U.S., but is not able to particfipate in the Massachusetts portion of
this speaking tour.  The program, however, will include information about
the Drummond mine and workers.  The thousands of workers in these two unions
and the two giant surface strip-nmines that they work, the Drummond and
Cerrejon mines, produce 90% of Colombian coal and 90% of Colombian coal
exports.  The Mass. Salem and Somerset electrical generating plants geet
much of their coal from these two mines, as do many other generating
stations in the U.S.*
**
*Colombia is the largest recipient of U.S. military aid in the hemisphere,
and the country with the highest levels of official and paramilitary
violence, including forced displacemenet, killings of journalists, trade
unionists and human rights activists.  During most of the period of this
high level of U.S. military aid, Colombia had the highest per-capita level
of unon leader assassinatons in the world, with several thousand
assassinated, including several leaders from the Drummond mine.*
**
*A U.S. network supports these unions and a number of villages and towns
surrounding these two mines.  The surrounding communities have been severely
damaged in every imaginable way by these mines.  A number of folks from
Eastern Massachusetts are involved in this network.*
**
*Sponsored by:  Massachusetts Global Action, the MLK Bolivarian Circle of
Boston, Alliance for Democracy*
**
**
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