Thousands of coffee workers stage walkout

Thousands of workers, as well as farmers from small and medium-sized plantations, have joined swelling industrial unrest in the Latin American country.

In the western Tolima province activists clashed with police on Monday when officers tried to prevent a demonstration going ahead.

Protesters insisted that they would camp out in provincial capital Ibague until at least tomorrow to press their demands.

Telesur journalist Milton Henao said peasant demonstrators had been marching peacefully when police attacked them.

He stressed that the farmers remained unintimidated.

Growers have been hit hard by falling global prices in coffee beans, pointing to a 55 per cent drop in the price of arabica beans since a 30-year high in 2011.

Farmers are now paid around £190 for a load, or 125 kilos, of beans, but production costs them more than £230 per load.

The growers are calling for an increase to their £20-a-load government subsidy.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos branded the strike "inconvenient and unnecessary" and he was backed up by National Coffee Growers Federation president Luis Genaro Munoz.

Mr Munoz supported the setting up of a new government commission for the industry and rejected the use of roadblocks to press demands.

But Tolima leader Danilo Lopez said that the federation needed to be democratised to serve small and medium farmers.

He said the protests were the "awakening of the Colombian people against capitalist exploitation" and claimed the fight was a political one against bosses and the anti-popular policies of the government.

Mr Lopez added: "What we want is a minimum support price of 800,000 pesos (£290) per load for coffee and to curb the cost of inputs.

"We continue to negotiate other aspects of agrarian and peasant security."

Elsewhere negotiations to end a strike at one of the world's largest open-cast mines in northern Colombia kicked off today.

Directors from Cerrejon coal and representatives of union Sintracarbon agreed a draft agreement to end the 19-day strike.

Workers are calling for health and safety improvements and wage rises.