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The headline story in Colombia’s newspapers last Thursday was that 13 hours of negotiations had saved EMCALI, the Municipal Corporation of Cali, from liquidation. Although the talks between the corporation’s appointed managers, government officials and private banks had broken down several times, and although the workers union SINTRAEMCALI and community representatives were excluded from the negotiation, what emerged from the early hours was a pledge not to liquidate EMCALI. The government claimed a victory, the bankers had agreed to restructure the corporation’s debts of 1.6 million million pesos (US $545 million). Media commentators and Cali’s political elite congratulated Uribe’s team. It seemed to be only SINTRAEMCALI sounding a sceptical note. Union president Luis Hernández told the press “the only beneficiaries of this agreement are the bankers”. As details of the deal are made public, it has become clear that the union’s caution was well founded. On the debt, the element that was renegotiated provides the banks with a generous 8.5% interest accumulating over 18 years. As a result their total payback is now calculated at 2.5 million million pesos, (US $852 million). The bankers will be able to intervene directly in EMCALI to ensure their income. Under Uribe’s new structure for governing the corporation the creditors will have a majority in the Social Capitalisation Fund, which will act as the new board of directors. That is, although formally staying in the public sector, the new EMCALI will be run according to the priorities of private finance. There are two other debts that must be resolved to ensure EMCALI’s viability. The first is payment for Cali’s modern waste water treatment plant, the PTAR project. Under former president Pastrana central government pledged to fund the major part of this project, a commitment that was confirmed in January last year in the agreement that settled the union’s occupation. But in a surprise announcement on Thursday, Uribe has from nowhere slyly brought in a new condition. He will hand over the 600 thousand million pesos (US $205 million) to pay for PTAR in November, only if there is a positive vote to his referendum proposal on 25 October. It’s a mean trick. The referendum is a complicated set of 15 questions covering constitutional and fiscal reform that Uribe hopes to use to endorse his National Development Plan, a package of IMF led measures. The Colombian trade unions and a broad coalition of opposition are calling for an active abstention. The third significant debt stems from a white elephant project called Termocali, an electricity generation plant that because of a one sided minimum price agreement has generated far more funds for the US multinational Sysgen than energy for the people of Cali. EMCALI’s out payments under this one contract are estimated at over US $330 million. Users of EMCALI’s water, electricity and telephone services are threatened with price rises. A 1% charge will be added to their bill for the right to a minority voice in the Social Capitalisation Fund, but with more significant increases to pay off Termocali, PTAR and the bankers’ repayment demands. EMCALI remains a focus of popular protest. Two weeks ago several thousand people, especially women and community organisations, staged a ‘pots and pans’ march through the city’s streets. And last Monday,22 September students of the University of Valle were injured and arbitrarily detained during a protest against privatisation of the corporation. A contingent of military police, several plainclothes intelligence operatives and four uniformed officers riding high powered motorcycles fired shots at demonstrators and students who were leaving their classes. The University was completely surrounded by police, but the students continued. Some managed to leave, and marched to the Valle de Lili Clinic to demand that an injured student be treated. Several students were arrested. The communities, the youth, SINTRAEMCALI and other trade unionists are all repeatedly threatened with assassination by the paramilitaries. In sum, despite Thursday’s official euphoria, many of the issues to settle EMCALI’s future remain unresolved. The bankers have made clear that their remaining concern is the issue of “governability” of the new EMCALI, by which they mean that the union has to be tamed and its alliance with the community broken. In fact SINTRAEMCALI has already conceded employment rights to help cut costs, but that is insufficient for the new masters. They know that SINTRAEMCALI is part of a popular democracy to defend public services. And this capacity to mobilise the people contains a challenge to their domination over the new EMCALI. What in the end Uribe and the bankers want to liquidate is SINTRAEMCALI itself.
Or write to the Colombian Embassy (e-mail: mail@colombianembassy.co.uk) with copies to Bill Rammell MP Under Secretary of State Foreign Office
james.morrison@fco.gov.uk
and colombia_sc@hotmail.com)
demanding that
1) there is no linkage between the 25 October referendum and the National Government completing its commitment to pay 600 thousand million pesos for the PTAR waste water treatment project
2) under the new EMCALI, SINTRAEMACLI will have full rights of trade union organisation
3) the human rights of SINTRAEMCALI and all EMCALI workers are protected.
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