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The bloodbath of police repression in Colombia

2021-05-20T23:02:18.899Z


NGOs estimate that 41 young people have been killed in just two weeks of protest A soldier guards the Popayán Prosecutor's Office, in southwestern Colombia, on May 15.Erik Serna / EFE Since April 28, an unprecedented wave of protests has erupted in Colombia. Perhaps the closest point of comparison is 1978, the year of the last major national strike. The country has 1,122 municipalities, and on April 28 there were protests and demonstrations in at least 564 of them, according


A soldier guards the Popayán Prosecutor's Office, in southwestern Colombia, on May 15.Erik Serna / EFE

Since April 28, an unprecedented wave of protests has erupted in Colombia.

Perhaps the closest point of comparison is 1978, the year of the last major national strike.

The country has 1,122 municipalities, and on April 28 there were protests and demonstrations in at least 564 of them, according to data from the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation.

From that moment the demonstrations were constant and young people have been the protagonists.

Blockades, sit-ins, marches and cultural events are the common denominator.

The government of Iván Duque did not expect it and was totally dislodged. After a few days of disorientation, the right-wing administration chose to create four strategies to defuse the national strike. Among them, the main strategy was what is popularly known as

the Venezuela model

or the Nicolás Maduro model. In other words, end the protests with high levels of violence. The toll is terribly tragic: dozens of victims.

The

Venezuela model

applied by the Duque Government has three phases. The first is based on the strong repression of social protest by state agents. The data in Colombia is simply appalling. According to the NGO Tremors, there are 41 dead, 12 sexual assaults, 28 people who are victims of attacks on their eyes, 129 cases of firearm shooting by the police and more than a thousand arbitrary arrests. All of this allegedly committed by members of the national police. In a comparative exercise, the data are very high in Colombia.

For example, during the protests in Peru, Brian Pintado and Inti Sotelo were assassinated, which is why President Manuel Merino fell, who lasted five days in power.

In Chile, during all the protests that broke out in 2019, there were 36 deaths, including six in the context of clashes with the forces of order.

In Colombia, 41 young people were murdered in just two weeks of protest.

Perhaps the most aberrant case occurred just a few hours ago, when a 17-year-old minor was allegedly raped by four police officers and hours later committed suicide.

This happened in Popayán, in the southwestern part of the country, which caused the city to explode in rage.

More information

  • Duque announces a major military and police operation to unblock roads in Colombia

  • From centennials to 'pandemials': the truncated future of young people in America

The repression has been brutally violent, but it has only been a phase. The second began just a week ago: messages began to be rolled via WhatsApp for civilians to come out to confront the marchers and attack them. Put civilians against civilians to fight. This was experienced mainly in Cali, when civilians attacked the indigenous minga. It is still not clear where or how these chains began, what is certain is that when these confrontations were to take place the police simply disappeared. Neither the first nor the second phase have worked. In fact, the second was a huge fiasco.

The third phase of this strategy is judicialization. In the city of Popayán, the Defense Minister offered rewards to capture alleged vandals. However, he mentioned aliases of those alleged vandals that coincided with pseudonyms of traditional social leaders in the region. This situation led to the reaction of the governor of Cauca asking for clarifications and ignoring this offer of rewards. For social organizations it is a persecution unleashed by the national government with the aim of disrupting the social movement.

For years, police repression has been a constant, but this time things have changed. On the one hand, all the governments accused the protesters of being infiltrated by the guerrillas to delegitimize and demonize social protest. This time they tried to do the same, but nobody believed them. In fact, the largest demonstrations have taken place in areas where illegal armed groups do not operate. On the other, the police violence this time has been very great, systematic and, above all, visible. Most of the police abuses have been recorded on videos of citizens. The legitimacy crisis is very great and the majority of citizens call for a thorough police reform. Perhaps the main point is to remove the military criminal jurisdiction from a body that, in theory, should be civil.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2021-05-20

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