Colombia was the biggest source of Israel’s coal imports in 2023, which were largely supplied by Swiss multinational Glencore and United States coal giant Drummond Company. However, in response to Israel’s escalating genocide against the Palestinians, Colombian President Gustavo Petro announced a decree in June last year banning coal exports to Israel.
The National Union of Coal Industry Workers (Sintracarbón) represents thousands of workers at the Cerrejón mine in northern Colombia, the biggest coal mine in Latin America. The workers are employed by Carbones del Cerrejón, a subsidiary of Glencore.
In the first of our two-part interview, Sintracarbón President Jaime López García speaks to Green Left’s Ben Radford about Colombian coal workers’ solidarity with Palestinians and the role of workers in upholding human rights.
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By November 1, 2023, Sintracarbón had published a statement in solidarity with Palestinians. Could you tell us about the role that Sintracarbón played in the campaign to stop Colombian coal exports to Israel?
Basically, our role in this issue was, first of all, because as a social organisation defending human rights, we could not ignore the reality faced by the civilian population caught up in the conflict.
So, in line with what Petro expressed — he was one of the first world leaders to reject that genocide while countries around the world remained silent, looking the other way — we, as a social organisation and appealing to the principle of solidarity, expressed ourselves in that sense.
Why? We thought ... what if it were us living through a situation in which we were being exterminated as a nation? Would we not want other countries in the world to show solidarity with us and help prevent it from happening?
What is happening clearly goes against international humanitarian law and the laws of war. So, in that sense, we raised our voice in rejection, in solidarity with the Palestinian people, because grave abuses were being committed — war crimes, crimes against humanity, a genocide. We could not ignore the situation.
Therefore, we decided to express that message of support [for Palestinians] and rejection of the tragedy being suffered by the Palestinian people. We believed we had to be in solidarity because a trade union organisation is one that works for the respect and promotion of human rights.
Did alliances emerge with other groups or organisations?
Initially, it was an individual initiative, but as a result we began interacting with other entities, other unions [and] other NGOs that were aligned in rejecting the horrendous crime. Our industrial union, to which [Sintracarbón] is affiliated, also acted in line with that political position, because solidarity must be universal regardless of the political differences that may exist between Israel and the state of Palestine. Human dignity and life had to prevail — and they are still at risk, despite the supposed ceasefire.
Our position was more about supporting the Petro government, because in our region here in La Guajira, where Cerrejón mine operates and where we work and represent the workers of [Carbones del Cerrejón], some commentators in the media claimed that the government’s position and the decrees banning the sale of coal to Israel would generate, or were generating, the specific situation we are experiencing at Cerrejón.
Let me explain. In mid-April this year, the company issued a statement to workers, the community and the public announcing a reduction in this year’s coal production targets and therefore a reduction in staff. In that statement, the company explained that this was due to a significant decline in global coal consumption because of the energy transition and the commitments established under the Paris Agreement.
Many of the company’s main markets — formerly in Europe — no longer consume coal or consume very little. In other words, it was losing buyers.
Meanwhile, the largest consumers are now in Asia, and they are purchasing coal from nearby countries — Russia, Indonesia and so on.
This situation makes coal from Cerrejón more expensive due to freight costs. For that reason, buyers prefer to purchase from nearby producers. As a result, the company reduced its production this year, and therefore its workforce.
But what happened? Once Petro issued the decrees, those commentators I mentioned began claiming that the labour, economic and social situation we’re experiencing in the company was caused by those decrees — which is simply not true.
We, as an organisation, had to make it clear — and continue to make it clear — to the public that this is not the case. The data is conclusive.
The situation at Carbones del Cerrejón today is due mainly to the fact that in the last two decades, coal demand in advanced economies has fallen by 50%. It has nothing to do with the decrees issued by the Petro government. As I said, the countries that still consume coal, mostly in Asia, are buying from Russia, Indonesia and other nearby producers.
What does this mean for Cerrejón? It means the company is less competitive because maritime transport costs increase the price for buyers, so the company has less competitiveness compared with nearby countries.
For example, the average production in 2019, before the pandemic, was 89 million tonnes. From 2020 to 2024 — before Petro’s decree — production fell from 89 million to 62 million tonnes. It has nothing to do with the decree.
The decline in Cerrejón’s production is not a consequence of those decrees. But a politically biased narrative was created, trying to blame the decline in Cerrejón’s coal exports on the decree.
In fact, after the decree and amid so much misinformation, the company itself, Carbones del Cerrejón, issued a statement making clear that it had complied with the decree, and that the last ship carrying coal to Israel left on October 3 [last year], a few days before the decree came into effect. So, it’s not true that the decree affected Cerrejón’s coal production, nor is Petro responsible for the situation.
Even so, regardless of that, our organisation is convinced that we must be in solidarity with the Palestinian population suffering a genocide in real time, as technology makes visible. Overall, the international community has remained largely blind to it, despite the fact that in recent months more countries have recognised Palestine as a state, rejected the genocide and prohibited the sales of certain goods to Israel.
In other words, they are doing things similar to what the [Colombian] government has done, so there is no doubt that actions must be unified to stop the genocide.
Do workers and social organisations in exporting countries have a major role to play in isolating Israel and stopping its genocide against the Palestinian people?
Yes, of course. As an organisation we respect the decisions that each organisation may take, one way or another.
Freedom of expression is a human right, and, as defenders of human rights, we also respect the autonomy of trade unions and labour movements to make their own decisions. But when making decisions, we cannot forget that historically the trade union movement has faced violence, deaths and repression. When we remember what we as workers have lived through — and still live through, despite some better protections than before — we must act accordingly.
If we are consistent with what the global trade union movement has historically lived through, we think — as a trade union organisation — that being on the right side means being in solidarity with the Palestinian people.
I want to be clear about this, because often what we say is misunderstood: We are not talking about the political reasons Israel, Palestine or other countries have for being at war. Those are political matters that concern them. We are speaking from a humanitarian point of view. We are talking about respecting international humanitarian law.
In this case, that law is not being respected at all, because in each attack — sometimes even from Palestinians towards Israel — there is no distinction between civilians and combatants, nor between military installations and schools or hospitals, which under international humanitarian law are presumed to enjoy immunity from attack.
That is what we are addressing. Not the political reasons behind the conflict, which has a long history, but the way it is being waged, the killing of civilians, even by means worse than weapons. [Israel] is killing people through hunger, in a deliberate way, using starvation as a weapon of war. It is preventing food supplies from reaching civilians — children, women, the elderly — and countless civilians have died, especially in the past year.