A long night of terror in Cali | CNN

Why are there massive protests in Colombia?

2:36

Editor's note:

Gerardo Quintero Tello is a journalist and writer from Cali, editor-in-chief of the 90 Minutes Regional newscast of the Autonomous University of the West, in Colombia.

He is also a columnist for the newspaper El País de Cali.

(CNN Spanish) -

A night of terror.

Without euphemisms, without more adjectives and without further explanations.

That was what the more than 68,000 people who inhabit Comuna 20, a popular neighborhood in Cali known as Siloé, located on the southwestern slope, experienced the night of Monday, May 3, and whose images of death and violence have turned it around. to the world.

What was initially a concentration of a few dozen people to reject the tax reform led to a violent clash with members of the Mobile Anti-riot Squad (Esmad), accused of violent practices in the context of the protests.

• What is happening in Colombia?

  Tax reform, protests, militarization of cities and threats to the UN

The videos reported by some media show a level of aggressiveness rarely documented in this way. "They are throwing gases at us from the helicopter," a girl is heard screaming desperately, while a shower of artifacts is observed that fall on a group that runs aimlessly. In another video, taken from a neighboring house, some police officers with long weapons are also observed trying to guard a corner. Beyond that, a mother mourns the shooting death of her son. The pitched battle lasted until midnight and what was left was a gruesome spectacle of blood and destruction.

Some versions of social leaders in this hillside area warn that there are five dead and at least the injured, a fact that was confirmed on Twitter by the Secretary of Security and Justice of Cali, Carlos Alberto Rojas.

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“Around five in the afternoon the peaceful demonstration began in the round point of Siloé and around nine thirty at night, when people were leaving because it was late to leave, the Esmad Police arrived and began to 'gasear us'.

The first line of them started shooting as well and some people from Siloam responded.

But there was no comparison in the power of weapons.

I had to run, take refuge, but I saw how many people fell to the ground, I am in shock, I had never seen anything like this ... friends fell, others do not appear, I am very afraid, "said a young witness to the events, who preferred anonymity because fear of reprisals, and that he went to the candle that had started early in Siloam.

Duque: The attacks on the police hurt us 0:35

However, the commander of the Metropolitan Police Juan Carlos Rodríguez affirmed at a press conference that Esmad agents do not carry firearms. He did not validate the videos, as he affirmed that many have circulated revealing alleged events that have not even occurred in the capital of the Valley. “They are generating panic among citizens. If there are videos, please make them known and we will verify them. This directly affects citizens, generates terror and that is one of the strategies, ”he said.

Rodríguez also warned that the Technical Investigation Body of the Prosecutor's Office is investigating all cases of death and delivered a balance of the damages in the city.

In this sense, he reported that 49 buses of the integrated transport system have been destroyed, as well as 11 stations.

In addition, he specified that there have been 47 looting of different warehouses, 21 attacks on bank headquarters and that eight ambulances were vandalized.

It regretted that 171 policemen had been injured and seven small police stations were destroyed.

• What is Esmad, Colombia's Mobile Anti-Riot Squad, and why is it so controversial?

A besieged city

Since April 28, the day the mobilizations began in Colombia, Cali has been the city that has led the protests against the government of President Iván Duque.

What happened in the Siloé neighborhood on Monday night has been repeated previously in other sectors of the city and on departures to other municipalities.

But also in internal corridors that connect neighborhoods and in emblematic sectors such as Loma de la Cruz, 'Puerto Resistencia' and El Paso del Comercio.

The pattern repeats itself every day: early blockades begin, some quiet mobilizations, harangues, music, but in late afternoon the violent clashes begin.

The participants in the march say that they are provoked by the Police, while the authorities affirm that they only comply with the obligation to clear the roads and allow the free mobilization of people.

• PHOTOS |

  Repression, violence and chaos: the protests in Colombia in pictures

The situation has become so serious that today Cali is a besieged city.

Fear reigns, chaos gripped the city and some analysts dare to suggest that the civil authorities seem to have lost control.

This Tuesday, the Army Commander, General Eduardo Zapateiro, spoke about the crisis, assuring that the Colombian public force seeks to regain control of the cities that are the focus of the riots, following the request of President Iván Duque.

“Our mission is and always will be Colombia;

the tranquility and well-being of Colombians.

The stability of the regions is at the forefront of our best effort.

We do not stop at service, at conviction;

we are children of this country, "said the Army chief before more than 100 members of the forces trained in the Unified Command Post that was installed in Cali.

The statements were picked up by Colombian media such as El Espectador.

This is how the police responded to the protests in Colombia 2:18

The pronouncement came after military assistance was ordered in the face of the overflow of violence and the millionaire losses in commerce and business.

Recognized human rights organizations have denounced the excessive violence and some attacks on the missions that are on the ground.

Marta Hurtado, spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, condemned the excessive use of force in Colombia against protesters.

"We are deeply alarmed by the events that occurred in Cali, when the Police opened fire on protesters protesting the tax reform, killing and wounding several people, according to the information received," he said through a video.

In the balance of damages, from April 28 to Tuesday May 4 in the afternoon, damages are recorded in: 11 stations of the mass transport system, 80 buses (18 of them incinerated), 21 financial entities, 9 government headquarters, a hotel, a health post, a school, 47 commercial establishments (which were looted), 53 gas stations and at least 15 emergency vehicles including vandalized ambulances and fire trucks, according to an official statement from the National Police.

Regarding the number of people killed in Cali since the protests began, until Tuesday afternoon, the National Police said in the statement that 27 victims had been registered, a figure that was confirmed by the entity's deputy director, General Hoover Penilla. Of that number: 17 homicides were by firearm and three by knife, according to the document. "Seven of these events coincide with places where days of public demonstration were held, cases that are being verified by the Attorney General's Office, with the support of the Technical Body of Judicial Investigation CTI, to guarantee total objectivity in the investigative process and thus clarify them with the greatest agility ».

As the last two nights in Cali have turned into long dark days of death, destruction, vandalism and disappearances, the city watches its supplies dwindle. Since Saturday, the market places began to run out of food. Several trucks at the entrances of the city prevent the passage of vegetables and raw materials for food production. Beef has disappeared from most shelves since Sunday, as has chicken. Every Sunday, between 3,500 and 4,000 tons of food should arrive at the market squares of Cali, but due to the blockades, the trucks have not been able to enter the city, says Oliver Medina, coordinator of prices and markets of the wholesale supply center, in an interview with the news outlet Noti90 Minutos.

• Alarming images from Colombia reveal brutal response to protesters, says Amnesty International

And the numbers are overwhelming.

This region produces the majority of eggs and chicken in the country, according to figures from the Cali Chamber of Commerce.

Luis Fernando Tascón, manager of the Santa Anita Napoles poultry farm, maintains that of the 37 million birds in Valle del Cauca, 30 million are at risk of death due to lack of food, 67 million eggs were dammed and 8,000 tons of chicken could not be distributed to the rest of the country.

As if that were not enough, according to the governor of Valle del Cauca, Clara Luz Roldán, the oxygen used for hospitals and clinics in the city has run out and the anguished call of the mayor and the president is to open a humanitarian corridor that allows the arrival of food, medicine and oxygen, vital for patients at a time when the country is going through the third peak of the coronavirus pandemic. “We cannot decide on the national issues that the protesters are asking for. What we are trying is to establish tables for humanitarian corridors, we cannot resolve the requests of the organizers of the strike because they are issues that the national government resolves, ”Roldán accepted.

And is that the problems are exacerbated throughout the country. Bogotá is the focus of great protests and blockades. Medellín, Cartagena and Bucaramanga remain with demonstrations in their streets, while President Duque announced meetings with leaders of related political parties to design the presentation of a new tax reform, a fact that has not gone down well with the protesters and neither among the movements. opposition.

Cali senator and presidential candidate Roy Barreras, an opponent of the Duque government, requested through Twitter that the president convene a national dialogue table starting with the strike committee; that expressly disavows human rights violations by the security forces; that it stands in solidarity with the victims, that it demands responsibilities; and that the militarization of cities be reversed.

Meanwhile, some analysts are trying to explain the chaos the country is experiencing today.

María Alejandra Arboleda, professor and political scientist at the Javeriana University of Cali, warns that one of the problems is that the government did not understand that the trigger for the situation did not merit technical responses, but political ones.

"When people came out to demonstrate, after a year of confinement and with a great burden due to the economic crisis, the response was authoritarian, through force and that caused the confrontation to escalate even more."

How did Cali become the focus of the protests?

For other analysts, the fact that the focus of the protests has been centered in Cali also has to do with some specific aspects. The first is that despite the fact that the announcement of the tax reform was the trigger, the truth is that a deep social crisis is brewing in this city, exacerbated by the restrictions left by the covid-19. Last year, more than 356,000 Cali were below the monetary poverty line, according to the National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE). As if that were not enough, the economic crisis caused the closure of hundreds of companies, so the unemployment rate went to 18.7%, 4.7 percentage points above the same period in 2020, when it was 14%.

If to that is added a dissatisfaction with the management of the current local mayor, Jorge Iván Ospina, and the strong questions that persist for having invested last year more than US $ 3 million (11,000 million Colombian pesos) in a virtual Cali Fair , the breeding ground for the protest was served.

Luciana Manfredi, analyst and academic, affirmed that there is evidence of a host of aspects that have been added and that range from the legitimate exercise of protest to exhaustion due to the closure of the pandemic and the economic crisis derived from these restrictions.

"Many people have realized that, through this pressure, they managed to overturn the reform, propitiate the exit of the Minister of Finance and feel that they can go for more, perhaps for the health reform and other changes."

For Manfredi, what is definitive to lower the climate of tension is to suspend violence and repression from the state apparatus, since it does not contribute to seeking dialogue and consensus, which is what would be needed at this time.

Another day ends and as the sun begins to set in Cali, the worst fears of a city that surrounds it with chaos emerge.

"We want to go back to sleep peacefully," says a client to the owner of the Chocolata bakery, who complains because there are no supplies.

Like the refrain of the national anthem of Colombia, the people of Cali would like to exclaim: "The horrible night has ceased!"

Cali protests