by René Lavanchy
PRESSURE mounted on Foreign Office minister Kim Howells to apologise or resign this week, as trade unions, campaigners and MPs distanced themselves from his comments on a union-backed pressure group.
Mr Howells came under fire last week over his appearance in a photo with Colombian soldiers, including General Mario Montoya (pictured on this week’s Tribune front cover, left) accused of drug-running and murdering trade unionists.
But he responded defiantly, saying that there was no harm in the photo, and said: “This has all been created by the organisation Justice for Colombia, which supports FARC, a band of gangsters and drug smugglers.”
But JFC – which campaigns for human rights and workers’ rights, and is supported by more than half of Labour MPs – dismisses the allegation that they are linked to the Marxist rebel army, while some unions have called on Gordon Brown to sack Mr Howells if does not apologise.
Jeremy Dear, JFC chair and general secretary of the National Union of Journalists, said: “His comments are an outrageous slur on Justice for Colombia, which has consistently condemned all violence and which has as president and vice-president the general secretary and deputy general secretary of the TUC [Brendan Barber and Frances O’Grady].
“[They’re] the kind of comments that are made by the Colombian government in order to discredit those who expose their abuses of human rights… It ill behoves a UK minister to use such tactics.”
Unions also expressed fear over the effects of linking JFC, which helps with several development projects in Colombia, with the FARC.
Mr Dear said: “It puts at risk all those involved in projects: women’s projects, projects for freedom of expression… Everyone involved is a risk.”
Community, which stopped short of joining demands for Mr Howells to be sacked, said it put project workers in “severe danger”.
Tony Woodley, joint general secretary of Unite, agreed: “When senior politicians in Colombia make such comments, assassinations and threats against trade unionists and human rights activists increase and for those reasons we are astonished that a UK Minister would make such dangerous and unfounded comments.
“Kim Howells… clearly has little understanding of the situation in Colombia and we call on him to immediately and publicly withdraw his comments. Should he not do so, we call on the Prime Minster to remove him from office.”
Keith Norman, general secretary of ASLEF, also urged Mr Howells to withdraw his comments or resign in a letter to Foreign Secretary David Miliband this week.
The Foreign Office has long insisted that it is doing its best to improve human rights in Colombia, where dozens of trade unionists are murdered every year and the government is accused of allowing both its own troops and right-wing paramilitaries to carry out killings.
Earlier this year, Mr Miliband defended the £335,000 a year in British aid given to the Colombian army as being meant to “reform” them, and said: “I believe the [Colombian] government is trying to improve the human rights situation, not exacerbate it.”
Mr Howells appeared to maintain the same line at the weekend when he defended his appearance in a photo with General Montoya: “I read the Riot Act to these people, saying that human rights were important above everything.”
But Mr Dear commented: “All Government ministers will have to have serious frank discussions with people they don’t agree with; it doesn’t mean that you pose laughing in photos with those people, or the very battalions that are implicated in those human rights abuses.”
As Tribune went to press, Mr Howells’ comments were due to be raised with Gordon Brown at a meeting of Labour’s National Executive Committee on Thursday this week.
Tony Lloyd, chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party and a vice-president of JFC, said: “JFC has campaigned against violence from all quarters in Colombia. Most recently JFC hosted a reception for families of those kidnapped by the FARC.
It simply is not the behaviour of a front for a guerilla organisation”.
“[It] doesn’t side with any of the authors of violence in Colombian society and will continue to be critical of atrocities from all quarters.” He declined to comment on Mr Howells’ behaviour.
Writing a response to critics in the Western Mail this week, Mr Howells did not retract his comments, but insisted he would do nothing to put “brave” Colombian trade unionists at risk.
