The Irish Congress of Trade Unions has expressed serious concern over Leo Varadkar’s St Patrick’s day visit to Colombia. In a letter to the Tánaiste, ICTU general secretary Patricia King raised the extensive human right issues and ongoing violence in the country, and urged him to raise these issues with the Government.

Colombia is the world’s most dangerous place for trade unionists. The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) counted 22 murders of the country’s union representatives between March 2020 and April 2021. Colombia’s National Trade Union School says there have been over 3,200 trade unionist murders since 1971.

Both Fórsa and ICTU have been working with the trade-union funded organisation Justice for Colombia. Union delegations to the south American country have facilitated first-hand experience of the challenges faced by trade unionists and other human rights defenders.

Varadkar met Colombian president Ivan Duque, who is a member of the Democratic Centre political party. Members of his party have falsely accused the teachers’ union FECODE of seeking to indoctrinate or harm children from low-income families.

The smears on this and other organisations amount to attempts to encourage further aggression towards trade unionists.

Duque ad Varadkar signed a new police cooperation and security agreement in a bid to tackle transnational crime and drug trafficking. But it doesn’t cover violent crime related to trade-unionism.