Hearing the sentence handed down Monday, February 28 at 18.30, the union leader said: "I will go to jail, but I just did what I was supposed to do." From November 3, 2010, the date of the formal trial, the defense has presented seventy witnesses, each of which has upheld the legitimacy of the abstention from the activities for non-payment, whether for breach of the terms laid down by collective agreement for the peaceful nature of the strike and for the continued peaceful attitude maintained by the union leader, that the acceptance of requests for workers has always encouraged mediation with the owners.
"El Libertario" has followed the case of Rubén González denouncing both nationally and internationally and fostering the solidarity of anarchist organizations. For us it is a case that exposes the authoritarian and anti-popular character of the Bolivarian government. The condemnation of Rubén González is a clear message against the working men and women of the country, especially against the enterprises of Guayana (the region southwest of the country), and his only goal is to make them back out from the streets to fight for their rights.
Gonzalez is also an example of the state policy of criminalization of popular protest carried out by the prosecutors and the courts, the Ombudsman, the state media and community media as false and Aporrea ANMCLA.
From the pages of "El Libertario" we want to express our support and our solidarity with Ruben, his wife Yadith, the González family, and all workers in Ferrominera of Ciudad Piar. We also support the garrison to be held Wednesday, March 2, 2011 at 10 am in front of the Attorney General's Office in Caracas, to show our rejection of the conviction of Gonzalez and defend militant trade unionism and the right to strike in Venezuela.
For those wishing to have more information on this case, we republish an interview with Rubén carried out in May 2010.
"El Libertario" interview, the union leader Rubén González, held in Puerto Ordaz: "We call on all workers to be take off the fear that prevents them from fighting for their rights"
 “El Libertario” – http://www.nodo50.org/ellibertario – ellibertario@nodo50.org
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In Venezuela, the criminalization of social protest is a growing reality, with more than 2400 persons required to appear in court for demonstrating for their rights. In 2009, in addition, thirty-three people including workers and trade union leaders were placed under judicial. The most serious is that of Rubén González, Secretary General Workers Union of Ferrominera Orinoco (Sintraferrominera), a state enterprise located in the State of Bolívar, on charges of taking part in the failure to work in August the same year.
The prosecutor is not the only organ of the protest punitive, given that we must also remember the state media, which claim that these working events are driven by a different motivation than the vindication of the rights of workers, as in the case of a conflict of Ferrominera. This version of the Government was also empowered by the parastatal media bodies, such as the web portal Aporrea, during the conflict has taken the side of the patron and the government, giving voice only to official versions.
(http://www.aporrea.org/trabajadores/n140848.html)
But the reality is not that.
"El Libertario" visited in prison Rubén González, who still considers himself a militant of the ruling party-at the police headquarters of the City of Caroní in the state of Bolivar, where he is serving a sentence of imprisonment for an indefinite period without taking account of the case and no guarantee of the right to defense. The authorities give us only a few minutes of conversation, which takes place in the body of the police headquarters under a scorching sun, at a temperature of almost 40 degrees centigrades. The spread of this conversation to raise awareness activists, national and international, on the situation of Rubén González, urging his immediate and unconditional release, and denounce the criminalization of the social sectors who suffer in the struggle in Venezuela.
It is said that the situation where you are depends on the political rivalries between areas close to the Bolivarian government in the region and not by your actions as a union leader. What can you say about this?
This is a manipulation that are putting out there. The reality is that "red" union leaders are holding to make the game's of the lobby firm, the government and his group. And thus depriving me of the way is left a free place for them. They say that I went against the party because I was a candidate for mayor in the town of Angostura de Raúl Leoni with the Movimiento Electoral del Pueblo (MEP), which was a party of government that supports Francisco Rangel and President Chávez. This fact is now being trumpeted from the rooftops to show that they are an unruly and things like that. As can be seen covered when you see that things are not going well? When you require a precise line, if you decide not to comply blindly, or you go or arrest you and imprison you. Them is what they want to see but the reality isn't this.
And then your arrest is the result of your choices as union leader?
At Ferrominera in December of 2008 we signed a collective agreement, which came into force in June 2009. With its entry into force should begin to pay the retroactive pay for the month of July as determined by the collective agreement, and the sums equal to 7000, 4000 and 9000 Bolivares. Would then correspond 40 Bolivares to employees excluded from the collective agreement. At this point we introduced a Sunday, July 9, arrived at the factory and President Hugo Chávez, a trade union leaders I'm talking stopped and said that Ferrominera everything was fine, that there was no problem and that it should not be giving anything to the workers. This caused increasing discontent.
In Ciudad Piar workers stood at the gates. I went to the gates. I asked them, "You're okay?" Are you going to stop? Because if so, you should know that is an important choice. " They said they knew me and that I should look for the president to explain that it was because the President had not been told things as they were, because they were waiting on the salaries of work, and that our situation was pretty bad: the clinic did not work, transport and services do not work. In the bathrooms lacked toilet paper and towels, it was a disaster. The workers decided to stop and I went to Puerto Ordaz. I managed to have a meeting with the personnel officer who asked me if I wanted to speak to the president of Ferrominera. I replied yes, that workers who wanted him presented itself. What happened? It happened that the same manager told me that the president did not even know he wanted to talk to me. I replied, "Okay, who does not speak with me, but those workers who are out there are the workers that he directs." You know what they did then? They played exacerbate workers, and spent fifteen days there was no representative of the company who showed up. It was absolutely irresponsible action. After sixteen days came and told that they wanted to reach an agreement. Also signed a document of commitment. With this document we went to a meeting where there were more than 1000 workers. There, the president said he had been deceived, because he was told that there would be only forty poor devils. I told him: "Look at that chair. He sees that it is not forty poor devils? They require his presence to know what's going on with their salaries. " There he signed a document which says that it would try to find the money to heal the debts with the workers, and also took into account the salary of the days when it had abstained from work. This happened without any consequences and now the situation is much more critical. The workers are right.
How did the process of deprivation of your liberty?
What happened? I am also a city councilor, I was elected on two occasions in the town of Raúl Leoni and I got ambushed. I do have an order to appear DISIP (Dirección General Sectorial de los Servicios de Inteligencia y prevención, the intelligence agency of Venezuela in force until 2009, ndt). I showed up and then began to stall until the operative CICPC (Cuerpo de Investigaciones cientificas, Penales y Criminálisticas) that picked me up. These gentlemen have made use of force, and I resisted. One of the DISIP told me "Do not worry, Ruben, have an arrest warrant, the better for you not to resist." I did get in a car, they took me to the CICPC and there I started to worry.
What are the crimes that you are being prosecuted for?
Conspiracy, incitement to crime, road blocks, violation of safety zones and violation of the right to work. I do not know what is the evidence of these crimes, they are not giving me any explanation. Now they are beginning to define more precisely my position, but four months have been a prisoner of nobody. At the beginning led me to a place in Guaiparo where there were just thugs. Then they made me pick up and led me to the Patrulleros del Caroní. In court, I became aware of my charges. The court ruled the precautionary measure of deprivation of liberty to be served with the house arrest, which is why they brought me back home. I was under house arrest for four months. A month ago, I can not remember the exact date, has presented a command CICPC and was taken home. They told me: "We'll take you there, you sign and return it back." But in reality I was held without anyone knowing where I had been brought, and sources close to this environment claim that the order was to kill me.
They left me to Patrulleros for two days and then at ten o'clock at night took me back in Ciudad Piar, but have brought me back immediately. I arrived in court at 11 and a half at night. And to make you understand how everything was unheard of, at seven in the evening they have suspended the judge, at ten have appointed a new judge and at midnight they pulled out a document with which I have brought here under arrest. It was at that time that produced the dossier to leave here. Then they brought me back to the CICPC and at two in the morning I learned that I had been terminated the previous interim measure and that I now had to serve their sentences in prison in a cell. So we have lodged an appeal, and we got it and the parties have been summoned. But the court here has not summoned the parties. We then sent another request of appeal that first admitted but then said no, arguing that we self appear. Why do I say this? Because since they have issued the measure of deprivation of liberty, the court has been without courts and without the office. How do you explain then that the prosecutor has issued a final act? This final act is what we are attacking, because it is devoid of even the slightest semblance of legality. According to the law what has happened in this time has no validity. But they will not respect any of this, just want to take me to court, a preliminary. My wife saw what was happening when she started a hunger strike which lasted nineteen days. There has been nobody showing up, no authority. The level of insensitivity is enormous.
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Caracas |
Some are scared others...
How long will be the deprivation of your liberty?
Everything depends on the court that is judging me. They are in the hands of politicians who take up a phone and say to a judge or a prosecutor: "Let him there not get him out." Here the art. 48 of the Criminal Procedural Code and Article. 49 of the Magna Carta have no validity here all this has no value, here there is no constitution. You do not respect the law but only the orders of those behind the stage.
What are the current conditions of your imprisonment?
Thank God for the moment I can not complain about anything, are behaving well with me. I'm with four others, police officers who have had some problems. But I do not want to stay here, I'm going to be 51 years old and I do not deserve this treatment, in life I did nothing but work. I tried to do things so clean since I was in the trade union world. I am a militant of the PSUV (Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela, President Hugo Chávez's party, ndt), I organized the party in various municipalities, I have been in the referendum, constitutional amendment, the constitutional reform in the election of the President, I have supported all these things. When there is something wrong and when I say okay I admit, but they want me to say that what goes wrong is fine, and vice versa. I believe that we must be conscious to do what we do.
What was the reaction of the PSUV?
There was no reaction. Among those who support me are afraid to expose some showing their support, because that would mean losing their jobs and start being persecuted. A student who has supported me have placed the DISIP under house. What did I do wrong? I've only done my job! If people did not work and I am the secretary general, how can I turn my back on workers? I have to get off the front lines. When you say "conspiracy" of which conspiracy we are talking about? Roadblock, we have not done any road blocks, were the same staff supervision to block access to gates. But the worst thing is the incitement to crime, we did absolutely nothing.
What message would you give to the social movement and workers of the country?
I appeal to union leader to the entire mass of workers in Venezuela and all the trade union leadership, a leadership that was elected to represent the interests of workers. This is his task, not to sell to the owner nor support a political party or special interests. Our task concerns the collective agreement, the labor laws and the laws as such. I appeal to reflect on the work they are carrying out and fulfilling the mandate of workers. I think it's the first time in our history that they are trying to criminalize the workers' protest because they were not respected their rights. If it were true that within Ferrominera there was no breach then it would be right for me I am now under arrest. But there really were not respected the rights of workers that have been agreed in the collective agreement and are never respected. Thank you for coming to see me to spread my message to the international bodies. This democracy, as is taking place in Venezuela, does not give us the right to protest and those who do are put in prison or be made to disappear. I am here, although I am still part of the party in government, because I do not agree with some lines. Or are seeking personal interest in a union, and for this I have to be taken away. I have enemies so much in city government as within the union leadership, but the meaning of democracy is to act taking into account all the factors, and the end to win the reasoning, ideas and dialogue, not imposition of one on others. I would also add that there have been redundancies, but luckily their dismissal has been declared invalid, and there is an ongoing dismissal procedure against six union leaders. I appeal to all workers to be get rid of the fear that prevents them from fighting for their rights. We continue our struggle despite what is happening. Is there anyone who fights a day, and it's good, others struggling five years, and they are better, others ten, and are excellent, but the important thing is that there are people who struggle all his life to keep going forward.
anno
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El Libertario