(en) IWA External Bulletin #8* - Amnesty for the Oil Workers of las Heras!

The Regional Workers? Federation of Argentina is committed to the cause of the workers of 
Las Heras and we have been making different solidarity actions. It called on the Sections 
of the IWA to mobilize and make protests at government offices of Argentina (Embassies, 
Consulates) on March 24, (a day which in our country commemorates another year of the last 
military dictatorship), with the aim of freeing the oil workers of Las Heras. ---- THE 
CAUSES ---- 2006: The oil workers, some of them outsourced, protest against a tax on their 
earnings, for entrance to the plant and to enter into the collective agreement of the Oil 
Workers Unions (which would mean a raise in salary). After 20 days of strike, in an act of 
provocation by the Governor of the province of Santa Cruz, the spokes-person of the 
workers was detained while speaking on the radio. During the actions in his defense, a 
police office, Jorge Sayago died.

2007-2008: A hunt follows, looked for the guilty party. People are arrested and tortured. 
Curfews and the militarization of the town by the Gendarmes. With the statements of 
those detained in their homes, beaten and pressured, ?The Cause? arms itself: the uncle of 
Sayago, declares that those sitting on the bench, facing charges, are just scapegoats. One 
of the defense lawyers, Claudia Ferrero, admitted that ?there is no concrete evidence), 
and those that were, were based by the Investigative Brigade of Santa Cruz on torture, 
terrorizing the whole population and getting false testimony through threats and persecutions.

2009: Militarization and persecution continues in the town of Las Heras. The workers have 
already been detained for 3 years, in conditions of physical and psychological torture.

2013: The request for life imprisonment of 6 of the accused and 18 years for the rest. The 
Prosecutor Candia, admits the torture and the illegal mistreat-ment. At the same time he 
declares ?PUTTING A BAG OVER THE WITNESSES HEAD AND SLAPPING HIM IS NOT THE SAME AS 
TELLING HIM WHAT TO SAY?. The court turns a deaf ear to the information about torture and 
leaves the defendants to ?reflect and reconsider?.

December 2013: Four oil workers are convicted for life, CORTEZ, ROSALES, PADILLA Y 
GONZALES and another 6 workers to 5 years in prison. This is one of the greatest attacks 
against workers who were fighting for their rights, almost without precedence in 
consti-tutional governments, with the goal of punishing the workers' struggle.

2013-2014: Various sectors of the workers' movement mobilize demanding the amnesty of the 
condemned oil workers of Las Heras. With every month, more and more solidarity actions 
take place. In turn, the national government orders the repression and breaking of all the 
pickets and demon-strations and there are many injured and arrested.
The workers of the Regional Workers' Federation of Argentina are committed to the cause of 
the workers of Las Heras, and because of this have been making different solidarity 
actions. We ask the IWA to make actions as well, not only to join forces for the amnesty 
of the oil workers, but because a conviction of this magnitude in Argentina is a dangerous 
precedent for workers' organization.

STATEMENT OF FORA-AIT

On Decemeber 12, 2013, the Santa Cruz Judiciary sentences four oil
workers - Ram?n Cort?z, Jos? Rosales, Franco Padilla y Hugo Gonz?lez ? to life 
imprisonment and another 6 to 5 years in prison for the alleged aggravated coercion, 
injury and murder of a police officer.

The only thing that was proven in the court was the torture which those sentenced 
suffered, in order to extort incriminating statements, acts which were justified by the 
Prosecutor which downplayed the torture.

* www.iwa-ait.org/sites/default/files/documents/iwa_external_bulletin_no.8_june_2014.pdf