[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 152 (Wednesday, October 12, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H6789-H6790]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     COLOMBIA FREE TRADE AGREEMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Gutierrez) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GUTIERREZ. I want to talk today about two people opposed to the 
Colombia Free Trade Agreement:
  Alejandro Jose Penata--a teacher, a union organizer, a spokesperson 
for fairness for his fellow educators in a country where getting a 
decent education can be difficult to impossible. Also, I want to talk 
about Ana Fabricia Cordoba--an advocate for the displaced, an advocate 
for returning stolen land to those from whom it was taken.
  Ana and Alejandro were part of a vocal and committed and brave group 
of Colombians willing to stand up for what they believed in. They stood 
up for the dispossessed, for peasants, for trade union members, and for 
those who want to join trade unions. Like many Colombians, they were 
tremendously concerned about a free trade agreement that reflected the 
interests of large corporations but not of those workers and farmers 
and poor people they fought for every day.
  Ana and Alejandro, if they could, would be with us today to voice 
their opposition in person to the Colombia Free Trade Agreement, but 
they can't voice that opposition because they were both murdered in 
Colombia. Ana was shot dead on a public bus. Alejandro was tortured and 
hung with barbed wire. These are tragic facts, uncomfortable facts, 
unacceptable facts, but they are not isolated facts.
  Sadly, the faces of Ana and Alejandro are the faces of Colombia 
today. Nowhere in the world is it more dangerous to be a union 
organizer, fighting for the wages and rights of working people than in 
Colombia. Twenty-three trade unionists were killed this year. Fifty-one 
were killed last year. And over the last several years, hundreds more 
have been threatened, driven out by violence or have simply 
disappeared. In 2010, more trade unionists were murdered in Colombia 
than in the rest of the world combined.
  In Colombia, there is an organized, intensive campaign to prevent 
working men and women from working together to fight for better wages 
and working conditions, and it seems to be working.

[[Page H6790]]

So why would the United States want to endorse this behavior and reward 
the companies, working with the government, that have unleashed this 
violent assault on workers' rights?

                              {time}  1100

  That, after all, is what a trade agreement is really about, a 
partnership. This is not a partnership the United States of America 
should enter into.
  I'm voting ``no'' on the Colombia free trade agreement. I urge my 
colleagues to vote ``no'' on the Colombia free trade agreement.
  I believe the facts are simple. Voting for the Colombia free trade 
agreement is a vote for violent union busting, for driving people from 
their land, for setting the American working man and woman up to 
compete on an unlevel playing field that will cost us jobs and 
livelihoods. I know that it is difficult to look at these pictures and 
hard to accept the reality of the danger to people who speak up in 
Colombia.
  But we cannot ignore the facts, and in Colombia, trade union 
activists are targeted for assassination and murder. That's not an easy 
fact to accept, but it's a fact. Approving the free trade pact with 
Colombia says that the United States can live with this fact. It brings 
the blood of union activist victims from Bogota to Washington. That 
blood won't be easily washed away.
  Let's think about the movements for freedom happening from Cairo to 
Damascus to Tripoli. We applaud them. We congratulate the protesters.
  When the union leaders in Wisconsin, Ohio, and Puerto Rico stand up 
for their rights against oppressive State governments, my Democratic 
colleagues, they applaud those workers. When angry Tea Partiers bash 
our government and talk about individual rights, my Republican 
colleagues applaud them.
  Well, today we have a chance to do more than applaud. We can side 
with the people who are standing up for freedom in Colombia. I suggest 
that everyone in the House who has ever celebrated, applauded, or 
supported a popular, pro-democracy movement in the U.S. or abroad think 
long and hard before they vote ``yes'' on the Colombia free trade 
agreement.
  Because what we see is what we get when it comes to free trade in 
Colombia. We get a partnership with a country where speaking your mind 
is a death sentence. I want free trade, but I'm for an agreement that 
builds commerce while protecting commerce, environment, and the rights 
of farmers and men.
  This is not that agreement. This is an agreement that turns a blind 
eye to violence and oppression and injustice.
  So I ask my colleagues to do what Alejandro and Anna who were 
murdered cannot do: say ``no'' to FTA with Colombia.

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