Colombia once again proved to be the most dangerous country in the world for trade union activists in 2001, according to the latest "Annual Survey of Violation of Trade Union Rights" released by the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) on Tuesday.

The South American country accounted for 90 percent of the 223 murders and disappearances of labour unionists worldwide, hitting a record 201 for the year, or just about 90 percent of the global total, the report said.

Asia proved to be the region where union organisers were most likely to be detained or imprisoned in 2001. While 200 trade unionists were imprisoned in South Korea alone, sentences were harshest in China, where organisers were often singled out for torture and the arbitrary extensions of sentences.

The Survey counted a total of 4,000 arrests and 10,000 firings of union activists worldwide during the year.

Zimbabwe and Swaziland stood out among the worst violators of trade union rights in sub-Saharan Africa. In Europe, Belarus "stands out quite simply as an unabridged encyclopaedia of trade union rights violations", the report noted, adding that in many Middle Eastern and Asian countries, such as Syria, Iraq, North Korea, Vietnam and Burma, independent labour unions remain under legal ban.

The ICFTU, whose unions represent 157 million workers in 148 countries, found that much of the past year's repression of unions was due to pressures resulting from continuing global economic liberalisation promoted by industrialised countries and the international financial institutions, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which they largely control.

Workers hard hit

"Throughout the world, workers have been hit hard by the negative impact of the downturn in the global economy coupled with structural adjustment measures, but where they have expressed their discontent governments have been quick to respond with repression," according to the confederation.

Thus, in Argentina, the "cocktail" of an acute economic crisis, privatisation of public services, and new laws designed to weaken labour unions resulted not only in thousands of lost jobs, but also in major demonstrations, lethal confrontations with police, and eventually the resignation of a series of presidents.

In Central and Eastern Europe, where governments are competing for foreign investment, a number of parliaments, including Yugoslavia's and Russia's, approved new labour codes that weaken worker rights — making it easier to dismiss workers or favouring short-term contracts, for example.

In a number of countries throughout the region, firings, relocations and threats of bodily injury increased steadily. In Belarus, where President Alexander Lukashenko defeated trade union leader Vladimir Goncharik in an election denounced internationally as neither free nor fair, trade union activity has become a "virtual impossibility", the Survey said.

In Bangladesh, Iqbal Majumber, the leader of the Jatiyo Sramik union and a major figure in the battle against privatisation and deregulation, was murdered last August in one of the year's most prominent killings.

Anti-labour violence

While the government routinely blamed the anti-labour violence in Colombia on the long-running civil war there, the Survey noted that many victims, particularly among the hard-hit public-sector unionists, had taken strong stands against economic liberalisation and privatisation. Some 65 percent of those murdered in Colombia worked in the public sector, said the report.

Strike breaking and union busting by private employers, as well as governments, also flourished in much of the world.

The Survey found both practices were "rife" in much of Asia, particularly in China, South Korea, Indonesia, and Pakistan where, it said, "employers have no qualms hiring thugs to attack workers, especially when they are on strike or occupying their workplaces".

In China, repression of trade unionists intensified as worker unrest spread throughout much of the country. One union organiser, Yao Guisheng, who was sentenced to 15 years' forced labour based on false accusations, suffered a severe mental breakdown after being beaten and confined to a cell.

Repression also increased in Africa, especially in Zimbabwe where trade union chief Morgan Tsvangirai failed to unseat President Robert Mugabe in elections earlier this years which were also widely denounced, especially by western election observers.

Some 223 of the 282 cases of injured or assaulted trade unionists recorded in 37 African countries covered by the report took place in Zimbabwe last year. Three striking workers were killed at the Zimbabwe Iron and Steel Company last August when the army opened fire during a demonstration.

Little respect for labour rights

The Survey also cited Malawi and Swaziland as countries which have shown little respect for labour rights, while Sudan, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea and Libya all maintained their long-standing bans on independent unions.

Besides Colombia, union organizers were killed in Brazil, Bolivia and Guatemala in Latin America last year. Two of the worst areas for labour rights abuses in Central America were in banana plantations and Export Processing Zones (EPZs) which have become an increasingly important sector for the region's economies since the United States enacted the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) almost 20 years ago.

In El Salvador, on the other hand, workers at a Taiwanese-owned textile plant in one of the country's four EPZs gained formal recognition of their union, marking a major breakthrough in labour rights in that country.

Nor was that the only good news during the year, according to the Survey. International campaigns succeeded in winning the release of imprisoned or detained trade unionists in several countries around the world, including Thailand, Ghana, Belize, and the Central African Republic.

Small advances in the recognition of labour rights were also achieved in Bahrain, Iran, and Yemen, although the general situation for trade unions in the Middle East remained "gloomy", particularly for migrant workers, according to the Survey.