Three Venezuelan unionists assassinated
Three trade unionists, Richard Gallardo, Luis Hernández and Carlos Requena--leaders of the National Union of Workers (UNT) labor federation and members of Socialist Unity of the Left--were assassinated November 27 in the Venezuelan state of Aragua. According to reports, they were killed while making their way home after participating that day in a labor dispute at a factory belonging to the Colombian-owned Alpina food processing company.
"There is speculation that the attack was carried out by paramilitaries hired by the Colombian company, which is reported to have utilized paramilitaries in similar disputes in its home country," the Venezuelanalysis.com Web site reported. "However, the day before, the unionists had also been attacked by the Aragua state police aligned with outgoing opposition governor Didalco Bolivar," a former ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, who defected to the right-wing opposition last year.
The killings highlight the growing conflict across Venezuela in the wake of November 23 regional elections in which the right wing made some gains against the Chávez government.
The following statement was issued by the International Executive Committee of International Workers Unity-Fourth International.
DURING THE night of Thursday, November 27, comrades Richard Gallardo, Luis Hernandez and Carlos Requena were assassinated while they were in Encrucijada, Cagua, an industrial zone and working-class residential area in the state of Arugua. Initial information indicates that they had been shot from a moving vehicle. During the day, the comrades had been actively helping 400 workers in a conflict with the multinational dairy product company Alpina, whose owners are Colombian.
The workers of Alpina had taken possession of the plant because the company had not fulfilled contractual obligations and had threatened to close the business. At midday on Thursday, November 27, the police entered the premises and savagely attacked the workers, driving them out of the plant. Later, with the solidarity of the UNT headed up by the previously mentioned comrades, the workers retook the plant. Four workers were injured during the repression.
Hours later, Luis Hernandez, leader of the UNT and of the workers at the Pepsi Cola plant, and Richard Gallardo, president of the UNT in the state of Arugua, publicly demanded in a press communiqué to local authorities and the new governor, Rafael Isea, who was elected from the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV, by its initials in Spanish), that they speak out about these serious events, which demonstrate the arrogance and tyranny of some bosses who violate workers' rights and threaten them with plant closures, and yet, can count on help from regional uniformed police.
The press communiqué announced that the central union council was putting itself on alert in order to prevent the multinational from closing the plant. Hernandez and Gallardo stated that if this were to happen, they would demand that the government expropriate the company and place it under workers' control. During the night, they were both brutally assassinated, along with Carlos Requena, a UNT leader.
Luis Hernandez and Richard Gallardo had run as candidates for the Socialist Unity of the Left party in the November 23 elections for mayor of the Zamora municipality and the Assembly of Deputies of Arugua, respectively.
We denounce this crime against these workers leaders, class fighters and socialists who have always been at the front of workers' and people's struggles in their country as well as standing in solidarity with workers' struggles around the world against imperialism and capitalist exploitation.
We call for denunciations of this crime with written statements, with marches to Venezuelan embassies or consulates, and with united actions across the globe to demand that the government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, presided over by Hugo Chávez, as well as the regional Arugua government open an investigation to immediately track down and punish the assassins, as well as those behind this horrific crime.
We call on public personalities, unions, and political, student and human rights organizations to speak out so that this crime does not go unpunished and to prevent new atrocities against workers.
