7^th Janurary 2008

MARTYN JONES MP VOICES CONTINUAL CONCERN FOR COLOMBIA

This Friday (January 11^th 2008) Martyn Jones MP will be attending the Dee Valley Community Partnership Building in Cefn Mawr to discuss the topic of justice for Colombia.

Trade Unionists and human rights workers face brutal dangers when working in Colombia. Since the rightwing president, Alvaro Uribe Velez, took power in August 2002 there has been a 600 per cent increase in human rights violations perpetrated against women trade unionists and 68 female trade unionists have been assassinated. In 2002, 184 trade unionists were killed in the Colombia.

The event in Cefn Mawr is linked to the Justice for Colombia movement which is continually trying to help those who are trying to secure democracy in the South American state.

Mr Jones stated:

“I have long been a supporter of Justice for Colombia as well as Unite (The Union’s) hard work on this cause. It is easy for us to take our own democracy for granted; we all too often forget the priceless nature of the right to speak out against the government of the day.

President Kennedy once stated that those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. It is vital we work to prevent the hardships and democratic suppression that is the average daily experience in Colombia so that peaceful rather than violent self-determination can take place.

I urge anyone in the constituency who is curious about the work done by Justice for Colombia to attend and to listen to the challenges facing some of this planet’s least free and most oppressed citizens.”