'My life's work': Venezuelan union leader vows to defend workers after pardon
By Angus Berwick and Maria Ramirez. LA PICA, Venezuela, Sept 3- One of Venezuela’s most influential union leaders has vowed to press on with his fight for workers’ rights after his release this week from two years of detention in a military prison on what he calls trumped up charges. Soldiers detained Ruben Gonzalez, one of 110 people pardoned on Monday by President…
By Angus Berwick and Maria Ramirez
LA PICA, Venezuela, Sept 3 (Reuters) – One of Venezuela’smost influential union leaders has vowed to press on with hisfight for workers’ rights after his release this week from twoyears of detention in a military prison on what he calls trumpedup charges.
Soldiers detained Ruben Gonzalez, one of 110 people pardonedon Monday by President Nicolas Maduro, in 2018 after he led aprotest to demand the Socialist leader defend Venezuela’sonce-potent steel industry.
A military court sentenced him to almost six years in prisonfor attacking an army outpost and insulting the armed forces,leading the United Nations to call for his release.
Granted his freedom Tuesday, the 61-year-old, dressed in ablue and white shirt from his steel workers union, was met byhis daughter, Yarudid, at the gates of La Pica prison.
In a phone interview from his home in Puerto Ordaz, in thesoutheastern state of Guayana, Gonzalez said he did not considerhimself pardoned, but “freed from a kidnapping because I did notcommit any crime.”
After returning to his wife, their four children and 13grandchildren, Gonzalez vowed to continue as head of theSintraferrominera union to “keep defending the just cause of theworkers.”
The mass pardon came as Maduro seeks to encourage theopposition to participate in parliamentary elections scheduledfor early December, despite concerns the vote may not be freeand fair.
Top government officials have claimed the pardons will quietdown opposition voices. But Gonzalez was adamant that hisregained freedom did not mean holding back from criticizing whathe decries as the state’s abandonment of workers.
Having had little contact with the outside world in prison,Gonzalez said he was shocked to find out that his workers nowearn even less than when he was jailed, unable to afford achicken or a carton of eggs with a month’s pay.
“I have a responsibility to carry their message and theirstruggle,” he said. “That is my life’s work.”
Gonzalez once backed Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chavez. Buthe went on to become a strident critic of the government, whichhe blames for allowing corrupt officials to pillage Venezuela’sresources and betraying its promise to empower workers.
Late last year, Reuters visited Gonzalez in La Pica prison,outside the northeastern city of Maturin. He was the onlycivilian jailed there – a sign, he said, of how the governmentwanted to make an example of him.
“I represent the truth,” he said at the time, sitting at aplastic table outside his cell. “God will judge those that putme here.”
Born in 1959 to a poor family in the coastal city ofBarcelona, Gonzalez was a rebellious teenager, causing hisfather to kick him out. After drifting, he ended up in Guayana,the site of much of Venezuela’s natural wealth.
He found work at Ferrominera, the state-owned iron oreproducer, and began helping his fellow workers by organizingunion activities.
In 1998, Chavez won a presidential election by a landslide,pledging to help the poor, and Gonzalez supported him. He waslater elected as a local counselor for Chavez’s socialist party,but the former army lieutenant colonel soon chafed against theunions as he asserted his control.
Gonzalez became head of Sintraferrominera in 2008 and calledprotests to demand Chavez agree to new pay terms. He was jailedfor two years on charges of conspiring to “sabotage”Ferrominera.
“Chavez turned on me,” Gonzalez said.
“ALL I DO”
Maduro took over in 2013 after Chavez’s death. Global oilprices sank, pushing the economy into recession: investment inFerrominera dried up and the mines began to close.Hyperinflation eroded salaries, leaving workers earning theequivalent of just a few dollars a month.
Gonzalez again took the government to task.
On Aug 13, 2018, he tried to enter a mine to present demandsto executives, but guards barred him, Gonzalez said. Soldiersordered him to go their command post for questioning, accordingto a National Guard report, but he drove home.
When officers tried to enter his house, the National Guardsaid Gonzalez’s friends and relatives hit and insulted them.Gonzalez, along with his family and lawyers, deny this, thoughthey acknowledge he refused to go with them.
He escaped and went into hiding. Two months passed and hethought authorities’ attention on him had dissipated. On Nov.27, he traveled to Caracas to lead a march for improvedcontracts. Returning to Guayana, his bus was halted at aNational Guard checkpoint and soldiers arrested him.
A day later, a court in Maturin ordered his imprisonment.
“I don’t stand for the opposition or the government,” hetold the judge, according to the ruling. “All I do is protectworkers’ rights.”(Editing by Dan Flynn and Tom Brown)
