El Salvador: Investigate Trade Unionist Assassination

November 23, 2004  
 
President Elías Antonio Saca González  
President of the Republic of El Salvador  
Via Fax: 011-503-243-9942  
 
Dear President Saca:  
 
We write to express deep concern regarding the assassination of trade unionist Gilberto Soto. We urge you to ensure that a thorough and impartial investigation into this crime and its motive is undertaken immediately and that those responsible are prosecuted and punished.  

Mr. Soto was a U.S. citizen, born in El Salvador, and a respected union organizer for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters in New Jersey. He worked to organize port container drivers in the northeastern United States and had hoped to extend these organizing efforts to Central America. Mr. Soto was scheduled to begin meeting with port workers and drivers hauling shipping containers in El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua during the week of November 8.  
 
Mr. Soto was reportedly shot at close range outside his mother’s home in Usulután, El Salvador, on November 5 and died instantly. At least two assailants allegedly fled the scene into an awaiting vehicle.  
 
On November 14, two days after denouncing Mr. Soto’s murder, the office of the Center for Labor Studies and Support (CEAL), a leading nongovernmental labor rights organization in San Salvador, was reportedly burglarized.  
 
Human Rights Watch is profoundly troubled by these incidents and their potential effect on Salvadoran workers’ right to freedom of association. If they go unpunished, they could give rise to a climate of fear that prevents workers from exercising their fundamental human rights.  
 
It is particularly important that the perpetrators of these crimes not enjoy impunity on the eve of possible legislative action on the United States-Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA)—an accord with potentially serious repercussions for workers’ human rights. As we documented in a December 2003 report, Salvadoran workers already face systematic human rights violations, while the government disregards or even facilitates the abuses. In particular, workers encounter myriad obstacles to exercising their right to freedom of association and fear dismissal and retaliation for doing so. It is unacceptable that they should also fear physical violence and even murder because of their organizing activities. We therefore urge El Salvador to undertake, without delay, a thorough investigation of these crimes and bring to justice all those responsible, including both perpetrators and any intellectual authors.  
 
Sincerely,  
 
/s/  
Arvind Ganesan  
Director  
Business and Human Rights Program  
Human Rights Watch  
 

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Related Material

Deliberate Indifference: El Salvador's Failure to Protect Workers' Rights
Report, December 4, 2003

CAFTA's Weak Labor Rights Protections: Why the Present Accord Should be Opposed
Background Briefing, March 10, 2004

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