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Repressive violence in Colombia renews the call for police reform

2021-05-10T15:22:58.330Z


Confidence in the security forces has been cracked amid the new cycle of mobilizations against the government of Iván Duque


Protesters in front of the building of the Prosecutor's Office, guarded by police, in Bogotá.STRINGER / Reuters

Police abuses documented in videos that flood cell phones every night have once again stirred outrage in Colombia.

With more than twenty deaths on the asphalt of several cities in the country after ten days of mobilizations against the government of Iván Duque, the postponed debate on a police reform has resurfaced.

Voices abound that advocate seeking formulas to rebuild a cracked trust.

Reports of police abuses in Colombia have been frequent even in the midst of confinement measures to deal with the coronavirus pandemic, a malaise that has accumulated since the first wave of demonstrations against Duque at the end of 2019. At that time, a projectile from the The Esmad Mobile Anti-Riot Squad killed high school student Dilan Cruz during a peaceful protest in the center of Bogotá.

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In the early morning hours of September 9, the murder of law student Javier Ordóñez in police custody, tortured by two patrolmen who had previously subjected him to incessant

tasers

despite his pleas, unleashed public anger. This crime, committed within an Immediate Action Command (CAI), caused two chaotic nights of riots in Bogotá, which in turn unleashed new and serious abuses, with a balance of 13 deaths. The mayor of the capital, Claudia López, publicly asked President Duque to lead a profound process of police reform. The Government responded with a closed defense of the public force and the Duque himself photographed himself wearing a police jacket to stage his support.

In this new cycle of mobilizations, which began on April 28, there are at least 27 deaths, according to the Ombudsman's Office. Human Rights Watch, for its part, has received 36 reports of deaths during the protests. In the capital alone, Tuesday night left almost a hundred injured and a mob tried to set fire to a CAI with policemen who managed to escape. The reports grow every night and the crisis of confidence is palpable. In the most recent study by the Invamer firm, in February, 55% of those consulted had an unfavorable image of the police.

The human rights violations committed during the protests show that the “systematic, arbitrary and violent” intervention of the uniformed in the demonstrations continues to exist and has become more serious, points out the Dejusticia think tank. Together with other organizations, they have asked the Supreme Court to declare a breach of what was ordered by the high court in a sentence of September 22. The Court found that the State "systematically, violently, arbitrarily and disproportionately" represses citizen demonstrations, and in that ruling ordered the Government, among other measures, not to stigmatize social protest.

The multiple episodes of excessive use of force also occur at a time of transition, when Colombia tries to turn the page on the violence associated with more than half a century of armed conflict with the defunct FARC guerrilla. The complaints have led to the ruling of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, the court in charge of trying the most serious crimes that occurred during the war.

"Transitional justice is characterized, among other things, by claiming non-repetition of the violations that occurred during the Colombian armed conflict, in any of its manifestations," said the JEP when calling for, with the support of the UN and of the international community, "promote a profound reform of the Armed Forces of the Colombian State." The court asked Colombian society to take seriously the transitional process that should lead it to "replace, and demand that it be replaced, violence by other forms of conflict resolution."

The outbreak of violence has stirred the debate.

"In recent weeks we have received alarming reports of abuse by the police, including indiscriminate and lethal use of weapons, arbitrary detentions and beatings," he told EL PAÍS José Miguel Vivanco, director for the Americas of Human Rights Watch. .

Among others, the NGO has corroborated that the uniformed men have used tanks with multiple projectile launchers aimed at protesters, in a behavior that they had not seen before in Latin America.

Colombia: With eyewitnesses and digital video verification we have corroborated the use of tanks with multiple projectile launchers aimed at protesters.



It is a dangerous and indiscriminate weapon.

@mindefensa must give explanations.pic.twitter.com/97x2GqfU1e

- José Miguel Vivanco (@JMVivancoHRW) May 6, 2021

“In the protests that took place in 2019 and 2020, the Police and Esmad had already shown their structural flaws to control demonstrations in a way that fully respects the human rights of the population.

Given the serious violations committed, the discussion on a police reform seems urgent, ”says Vivanco.

"Colombia must take urgent measures to have a civilian police, which is subordinate to the Ministry of the Interior, not the Ministry of Defense, and that has adequate training on the use of weapons and firm controls that help prevent abuses", details.

“Of course there are training problems,” says María Victoria Llorente, director of the Ideas for Peace Foundation (FIP), “but I think it has more to do with issues of institutional culture, with control and leadership mechanisms. civil". "They are on a war footing, and that is a very fertile ground for crazy theories such as the dissipated molecular revolution," Llorente warns, referring to the term that former president Álvaro Uribe, Duque's political mentor, spread on networks. The former president has also defended the right of police and military to use weapons in protests, which has raised tension.

The institutional relocation of the police or the creation of an intermediate force, in the style of a civil guard or gendarmerie to provide better security in rural areas, are alternatives that should be considered, argues the IFJ in a document on the crisis of the public force.

But the context of polarization prevents a serene and sufficiently qualified discussion from taking place both within the police and outside it.

Among several ideas, the IFJ proposes that the police should be open to the participation and scrutiny of civil society.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2021-05-10

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