Assassination of Manuel Esteban Tejada

Ambassador Mauricio Rodriguez Munera
Embassy of Colombia
3 Hans Crescent
London
SW1X OLN

Dear Ambassador

Assassinations of Manuel Esteban Tejada

On behalf of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) representing British workers and the 6.2 million members of our affiliated unions I regret that I have to write once again to raise our deep concern over the assassination of Manuel Esteban Tejada on the 10 January.

Manuel Esteban was a teacher at the Palma Soriana education centre and an active member of the teachers association in Cordoba, ADEMACOR.

As we have discussed on a number of occasions your government has gone to great pains to argue that there has been a dramatic fall in the number of trade unionists being killed. Tragically the facts on the ground continue to contradict this, according to the figures we have received from the ITUC at least 46 trade unionists were assassinated in 2010 and 25 of these were teachers.

We join with the ITUC, the CUT and ADEMACOR in calling on all the relevant ministries and authorities at departmental, municipal and local levels to launch an immediate and exhaustive investigation into this crime and for real action to bring an end to the wider culture of immunity that still surrounds the killing of trade unionists and others.

I look forward to hearing from you regarding what measures are being taken to find and prosecute the murderers in these cases.

Yours sincerely

Brendan Barber

General Secretary