TRADE unionists heard about progress in Colombia under its first left-wing President Gustavo Petro, but also the serious threats his government faces, at a Justice for Colombia fringe meeting at the Scottish TUC today.

The meeting was addressed by the international secretary of Colombia’s biggest trade union federation the CUT, Rosalba Gomez, who explained that powerful right-wing forces work constantly to scupper the Petro administration’s efforts to achieve peace after decades of civil war and for social justice.

Corporate-dominated media meant that looking at Colombian newspapers you get the impression that “if it rains it’s Petro’s fault,” Ms Gomez said.

Years of conflict had been used to displace peasants from their land, six million hectares of which were stolen from poor farming families under previous right-wing governments, and the current government is trying to get that land returned.

Peace talks with groups that remain armed are ongoing, with talks in progress in Cuba, Mexico and Venezuela.

“This is a crucial moment. We need the peace process to advance, because peasants, students, teachers, workers are right in the middle of this conflict and in the midst of the bullets being fired.”

Educational Institute of Scotland general secretary Andrea Bradley spoke of her union’s conviction that teachers must be “educators for peace” and praised the way Justice for Colombia had built links between British unions and Colombia’s teachers’ union Fecode, including through a meeting with Fecode international secretary Martha Alfonso at the recent National Education Union conference, which highlighted the way neoliberal education policies had created a two-tier schooling system in Colombia.

She praised the Petro government’s education reforms and noted the key importance of education in rehabilitating the civil war’s victims and former guerillas.

Tony Caleary of Unison Scotland and former MSP Neil Findlay stressed the ongoing need for solidarity with Colombia, with powerful vested interests keen to prolong the war.

Justice for Colombia’s Nick MacWilliam noted the need to raise awareness of what’s at stake, pointing to Argentina as an example of how the far right benefits when left governments fail to deliver on reforms.