In spite of the tireless calls of the Liyannaj Kont Pwofitasyon (LKP, Collective against Exploitation), the employers and the French government have let the situation deteriorate.
Instead of really facilitating the negotiations, the French government’s representatives went from evasions to evasions (the prefect left the negotiation table on the 28th of January, and the French minister for overseas territories fled on the 8th of February, following the government’s reneging on its pledges), while they sent more than 2,000 gendarmes to Guadeloupe.
| Un Mort à la Guadeloupe Témoin sur Europe 1 |
What was foreseeable has happened.
The workers and youth of Guadeloupe did not accept the violence perpetrated against the trade unionists as well as a part of the population by the forces of repression on Monday, 16 February. So, the situation could only deteriorate. On the night of 17 February or in the early morning of 18 February, a member of a trade union, the CGTG (Confédération générale du travail de Guadeloupe, General Confederation of Labor in Guadeloupe), was killed. We don’t know the exact circumstances yet, though we can see crocodile tears are pouring down.
The Association of the Workers and Peoples of the Caribbean, ATPC, condemns the role played by the employers and the French government in aggravating the movement and creating the situation we see today.
The ATPC calls upon the organizations throughout the Caribbean to condemn this repression and demand that the negotiations be immediately reopened and that the people’s demands be met.
Pointe à Pitre, 18 February 2009
The original appeal “Communiqué de l’ATPC suite au décès du camarade de la CGTG” was published on the Web site of the General Union of Guadeloupe Workers (UGTG) on 18 February 2009. Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com).