Tribeless

This is a news article in the Inq7.net. It’s a good thing that even Hollywood personalities as prestigious as Jessica Lange support the plight of Filipino workers sepecifically in Nestle Phils. I hope that this will encourage us to decisively quest for justice for Ka Fort and Boycott the bloody products of Nestle.

And of course, aside from Jessica Lange, more peoples of different nations support our cause. Let’s all make this campaign victorious. Let not the workers bleed again for Nestle’s sake.

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Labor leader’s slay case reaches US
First posted 09:37pm (Mla time) Sept 29, 2005
By Marlon Ramos
Inquirer News Service

Editor’s Note: Published on Page A17 of the September 30, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

CALAMBA CITY—OSCAR WINNER ACTRESS JESSICA Lange has signed an open letter condemning the murder of the leader of the striking workers of Nestlé Philippines, the Gabriela International Network (Gain) said on Monday.

In an e-mail sent to the Inquirer, poet and writer Ninotchka Rosca, Gain spokesperson, said Lange signed the petition condemning the killing of Diosdado “Ka Fort” Fortuna “after delivering a fiery speech against the US invasion and occupation of Iraq at the anti-war mobilization in Washington, DC,” on Sept. 24.

She said about 500,000 anti-war activists joined the rally.

Lange won an Oscar trophy for her role as a mentally disturbed wife of a military officer in the 1994 movie “Blue Sky.”

She also got an Oscar award as Best Supporting Actress in 1982 for her role in Sydney Pollack’s “Tootsie” opposite Dustin Hoffman.

Rosca said the petition was addressed to President Macapagal-Arroyo and Peter Brabeck, chief executive officer of Nestlé’s mother company in Switzerland.

Fortuna, president of the Union of Filpro Employees-Drug and Food Alliance, was gunned down by two armed men on board a motorcycle in Barangay Paciano here on Sept. 22.

He was also the chair of the Pagkakaisa ng mga Manggagawa sa Timog Katagalugan (Pamantik), the regional arm of the Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) in Southern Tagalog.

“We protest the assassination of Diosdado ‘Ka Fort’ Fortuna … He is the second union president at the Nestlé plant in the Philippines to be assassinated,” the petition said.

It added: “We call on Mr. Brabeck to resolve the three-year labor dispute at the plant. We call on (Ms Arroyo) to investigate reports that members of the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the (Philippine) National Police carried out this murder. We call on both to respect human, civil and labor rights—without which there is only barbaric fascism.”

Rosca said the signing of the appeal “was somewhat impromptu.”

“We were mobilized under the Women’s Anti-Imperialist League (Wail) banner for this rally but those of us of Philippine ancestry felt we should also be doing something for Ka Fort, KMU and Anakpawis,” Rosca said.

She added: “After all, most Filipino-Americans belong to the working class and some have parents who were migrant workers. So we wrote the open letter and carried it to the anti-war march.”