How the protest continues in Colombia eleven days later …

From Medellín. Eleven days after the mobilisations and police brutality, young Colombians are still in the streets in marches, artistic events, candlelight vigils, the masses and many other expressions of deep disagreement with the government in power, the economic model and the abusive response by public forces, police infiltrators and unidentified armed squads that left at least 23 homicide victims, mostly protesters, and a police officer. The national strike which began on April 28 rejected, in principle, the third tax reform of the government of President Iván Duque which aims to offload 75% of national taxation on the shoulders of citizens while companies only assume 25, All this amid the boredom and violation of rights generated after months of a pandemic that left most of the Colombian population without income, jobs, food, vaccines and salvation, totaling over 76 thousand deaths from Covid19.

Since this Wednesday, Colombia fanned the flame of the demonstration that began in November 2019 and it also resulted in a massacre, as now, spread by force of bullets from the state and parastatal forces to dozens of young people who, unarmed, had joined the thousands who take to the streets of the capitals. even when they know that the response of the national government and local leaders has been, instead of listening to their demands, to fire their rifles, sound bombs, revolvers, armed tanks, as well as incitement to violence and hatred on the part of the protesters who demand respect for private property and the non-blocking of roads, food and other means of transport. Also they truck drivers, teachers and locals joined strike, expressing outrage over historic violations of past mobilization agreements, including those of the 2019 strike. Also, “because of the” blatant response of the government to the current demonstration: they want to silence us and lock us up to the point of terror “, explains Liliana Vásquez to this Cali newspaper , where blood is spilling: about twenty young people were killed there amid gunfire and persecution by the police and men in civilian clothes who directly attack the demonstrators, and today there is also a shortage of food, d ‘gasoline, electricity and connectivity.

Vazquez, a housewife who saw her livelihood and that of her family threatened by the alleged tax increase of Ivan Duque food and other staples, had never participated in such protests before. “We decided to support the strike because we were blown away by so much injustice and so much corruption, and seeing the boys in the neighborhood who didn’t bow their heads gave us strength. It hurts us to see how they disappeared, beaten and killed for claiming their rights. The young people of today are wild boars, ”says with emotion the woman of the capital of Cauca Valley, to what extent the Native minga from the neighboring province of Cauca to join in the cry for the life of the Colombian people who, instead of responses, are subjected to such strong repression that they are condemned not only by local human rights organizations, but also by heads of government, members of Congress, churches, academics and other members of the international community who, like Colombians, demand guarantees in order to exercise the right to protest.

Agree with “Defend freedom», A network of neighborhood, student, feminist and social organizations in the country, until May 8 216 people are said to have disappeared as part of the national strike throughout Colombia. In addition, they have collected 629 complaints for abuse of authority and power and police violence, and reports the arbitrary detention of 1,291 people. The deceased, including a minor, is 32 years old according to this campaign which expresses “its concern and its rejection of the arbitrary and disproportionate action (of the State) which goes against international protocols on the actions of the Public Force in scenarios of social protest”.

This serious situation also raised demonstrations in places like Miami, New York, Madrid, Oslo, Uruguay, Buenos Aires, La Paz, among others, and abundant messages of rejection from the government of Iván Duque and the political leader of the right-wing community, Alvaro Uribe, to those who are asking to be removed from their posts and to go to court due to the multiple evidence of the current abuse of power and the case and the two separate court processes that Uribe has faced in the Colombian justice system during of the past year for the alleged formation of paramilitary groups and drug traffickers, and being responsible for state crimes which, thanks to the Peace Agreement, are now documented and known in an organized manner as they are the 6,402 extrajudicial executions which, according to the Special Jurisdiction of Peace (JEP) created with the Agreement, took place under the Duque government.

These serious acts, widely repudiated by today’s youth and also known as ‘false positives’, continued to be committed alongside political violence which, according to the semi-annual reports of the Cinep human rights database and information from it Permanent Peoples Tribunal – not only with murders but with harassment, threats and persecution – seeks to eliminate opponents of the economic and political model that privileges capital, private property, extractivism and repression at the cost of suffering and violence against communities still exploited and forgotten such as peasants, Afro peoples, indigenous peoples and popular urban communities who today constitute the majority of citizens who, fed up with years of war , impunity, lack of employment, education, health and in the midst of hunger and bullets, they cling to the protest to make themselves heard and transform the structures of the country to overcome inequalities and obtain the respect and guarantee of their basic needs.

Isaac buitrago, a lawyer and activist from Medellín, said Page 12 that amid the historical vulnerability of the poor in the cities and years of conflict, coca and displacement in the fields, the mobilizations in the capitals continue to increase. The flame continues to grow among various sectors such as the healthcare workforce, the middle class and even the upper class. it was feeling the ravages of the pandemic and government neglect that left the most to their fate with a slow progression in immunization as banks received multi-million dollar grants.

“They want us sorry, strangers to ourselves and they will not succeed, their death will not triumph, they will not pass,” said the influencer. “Aquinoticias” in their social networks where yououtubers and instagramers like “La Liera” and others have influenced the indignation of sectors which previously had no interest in political life, such as the youngest or the middle class. And although the commercial media is focused on showing as protagonists those who commit excesses and are branded as vandals, live information circulates like hot cakes, successfully denying official versions that attempt to show the enormous and historical current mobilization as a situation where public order has become uncontrollable, without leaving room for social demands and political positions of young people and organizations participating in the national strike which is still developing without end.

“I want to be part of a new story,” he explains. Esteban Agudelo, a young artist and businessman from the capital of Antioquia, for whom the country has been very badly administered, leading to boredom for the younger generations who do not see a future in the current system “but we have more information “and this is why they decided, he explains, to give dignity to the people by showing their disagreement and by demanding the dismantling of the brutal riot police (ESMAD) the police who, with each mobilization in the country, end the lives of young demonstrators or seriously injure them. Regular civilian police and a large number of plainclothes infiltrators have been discovered in protests and cellphone videos that prove these men are being used to vandalize public and private property such as the Medellin Metro and the Hotel Luna de Cali they are plentiful.

But it’s not just men in uniform who shoot and kill boys. Lucas, a student at the Technological University of Pereira, was shot eight times from a car by strangers while demonstrating in the city of Pereira after participating with dance and art in the march which started at the same time in different capitals with tens of thousands of participants. Today the yoga teacher is between life and death. Nicolás, a graffiti artist killed in Cali, and dozens of names have been honored since the first day of the last national strike. Meanwhile, hundreds of people who left to walk and did not return are searched. One of them was found dead in the Cauca River, after demonstrating in Cali. In the face of mass disappearances, civil society organizations such as thea Colombian corporation of jurists, the Yira Castro Corporation and others call for urgent international intervention. For its part, Research and popular education center of the Society of Jesus In Colombia, he indicated that: the government wants to justify the generalized repression and militarization of the capitals and intermediate municipalities, alluding to the existence of actions qualified as “vandalism” or “terrorists”, such as the burning of vehicles, looting of businesses and unjustified attacks on the police. However, the attacks by the police are not only applied against the alleged perpetrators of these events, but also against those who demonstrate peacefully. And that in addition to that, doubts persist about the origin of the weapons and the funding of this type of group that infiltrates the demonstrations.

During this time, the cities have been militarized. And mayors and local leaders are starting to take sides. Claudia lopez at Bogota rejected the presence of the army, while in Medellín, the offices of youth and non-violence have joined together to receive complaints and support the search for the missing. Now, there are fears of an even more ferocious repression in the middle of the hours when life on social networks becomes more and more difficult due to alleged breakdowns in the servers, and in the days of contestation when the electricity is cut, even the night: moments of horror when, at the end of the marches, motorized police and armed individuals chase the demonstrators with rifles and take them away in cars, patrol cars and trucks.

Thus, every day more and more neighbors are quoted in their fields, headquarters or balconies of their houses for the daily cacerolazo, and more and more Colombians in the country and in the world are outraged by the blood shed in front of them. fair claims of citizenship. which mobilizes in the streets and virtuality. The call for justice, the rejection of the right, its historic crimes and the reforms of the current government, as well as boredom at the scarcity of opportunities and stigma multiply with expressions and demands that wait to be met instead of being silenced with guns.