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65 victims of eye injuries during protests in Colombia

2021-06-05T08:44:48.279Z


The NGO Temblores reported 65 injuries to the eyes of protesters at the hands of the public forces during the national strike that began on April 28.


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(CNN Spanish) - 

Andrés David Lago, a 26-year-old street artist, lost one of his eyes when shot by an Esmad agent on the first day of the protests in Colombia.

He is one of at least 65 people who have suffered eye injuries in just over a month of demonstrations in Colombia.

All these injuries have a common denominator: they are produced by law enforcement personnel, according to a report by the NGO Temblores.

According to Lago, on April 28 he and a group of protesters were returning to the southwest of Bogotá at the end of the protests, when a group from the Mobile Anti-Riot Squad (Esmad) arrived to disperse the people - both those who were protesting and those who were returning home. from work - and used stun bombs, tear gas and rubber bullets, he told CNN.

Lago was heading home after a day of protests.

“An Esmad agent comes out of that group (of policemen) and starts to point at me, but in less than a second that I try to get away, the policeman shoots me.

And the next thing I feel is the impact of a small object in the eye and what I do is try to get away from that group of policemen and seek help, "Lago told CNN.

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"The eye was opened in two," he said.

The doctors reconstructed the eye, but they told him that it was left without a retina, and that the cornea was badly beaten.

He no longer sees out of his left eye.

"The policeman did it with the full intention of the case," he says.

It's absurd, isn't it?

That the response of a policeman to a demonstration is to leave life like that to a person just because, "adds Lago.

The National Police has so far not responded to CNN's questions about this specific allegation of police assault.

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Andrés David Lago, a 26-year-old young man who was the victim of an attack by the police during the demonstrations in Bogotá, on April 28, 2021. This photo is from the day of the attack. 

"I don't trust justice" 

Lago, who was attacked more than a month ago, says he has no confidence that justice will be served in his case, as he says that, although he joins the class action lawsuits in preparation, he does not have evidence to report his aggressor individually. .

"I don't really believe in human justice, and less in Colombian justice," he says.

“But I know that every action has a reaction in everything… not only with the person who pulled the trigger, but with the person who gives the orders.

I believe that the man or men are going to have what they need. 

The NGO Temblores told CNN that the class action lawsuit has not yet been filed as the document is under construction. 

The press department of the National Police told CNN that at the moment there are 11 investigations in the General Inspection of the Police for eye injuries due to events that occurred in Bogotá, Popayán, Neiva, Medellín and Risaralda.

The investigations are for alleged physical assault or alleged abuse of authority, police said.

The majority of victims of eye attacks (60%) have been registered in Bogotá, but also in the departments of Valle del Cauca, Cundinamarca, as well as in the cities of Pasto and Popayán, according to Temblores.

Police Inspector General Jorge Luis Ramírez said a few weeks ago that his office is investigating 170 cases of abuse at the hands of the police.

Eleven of those cases are directly related to the deaths of protesters at the hands of the police.

Although Lago lost an eye in the demonstrations, he says that he also lost the possibility of continuing to participate in them, since as a street artist he does pedagogy to explain to people the importance of the protests.

“Now I regret not having supported more the marches against police abuse, in favor of the dismantling of Esmad.

That's what would really have saved my eye, ”he says.

But he insists on the importance of the demonstrations: "This is a very violent country that right now needs solidarity."

«In Colombia there are many people suffering from hunger and that is what people feel, right?

There are many missing brothers without children, dead, injured and tortured and raped girls, "he reflects on the violence in the country, which he emphasizes, it did not begin with the Duque or Juan Manuel Santos governments, but it is something historical .

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Andrés David Lago, one month after the attack, on June 3, 2021. (Credit: Andrés David Lago / for CNN)

More than one eye injury per day

The excesses of public force in the framework of the protests have left at least 65 people with eye injuries in the long month of protests that began on April 28, according to the NGO Temblores, whose platform Grita receives complaints of violence from the public force in the framework of these protests.

According to a previous report by Tremors after one month of protests, of 47 injuries, 40% "occurred due to direct and intentional shots against the victims," ​​8.5% due to blows against the protesters and 51.5% of the cases are yet to be identified.

Alejandro Rodríguez, who coordinates GRITA within Temblores, told CNN that the cases of these injuries against protesters have increased in the 2021 strike compared to student and agrarian strikes in the past, even compared to 2019. Rodríguez said they are attacks "Systematic" by the public force.

"They are systematic but it had been happening in isolation in the demonstrations (of previous years)," Rodríguez told CNN.

“Obviously what is happening today is that in addition to being systematic, it is no longer isolated, it has already been redundant and is happening more and more frequently.

So more than one case is occurring per day in the entire month of mobilizations.

According to figures from the Ministry of Defense, between April 28 and June 2, 1,106 injured in the protests have been reported, but it does not distinguish in the type of injuries in the official figures.

According to Temblores, most of these attacks (60%) were at the hands of the Mobile Anti-Riot Squad (Esmad) of the National Police, a force whose objective is to control riots, crowds, blockades and accompany evictions from public spaces or private, in places where there is a "possible materialization of terrorist and criminal acts" and to restore public order.

Duque: There is no "systematic nature" in police attacks

President Iván Duque came out on Tuesday in defense of the Police and its procedures and denied that the violence was systematic.

"Of course, there have been cases of abuse of authority, but they are investigated, sanctioned and do not show a systematic trend," Duque said in a virtual conversation about the Amazon.

"When you look at the number of complaints of abuse over 30 million police procedures, we are really talking about numbers that may be reaching below 1,000 complaints a year and that shows the level of professionalism our police have," added Duque.

Previously, the government has defended the actions of Esmad because, according to Duque a few months ago, it "is part of the public force at the service of Colombians, it cannot be dismantled."

And Major General Jorge Luis Vargas said on May 4 that in the framework of the demonstrations there have been "multiple interventions by Esmad against the riots, never against the peaceful demonstration."

Bogotá Mayor Claudia López told CNN in early May that it is "unacceptable" that several young people have gunshot wounds from Esmad shots.

"Trying to burn 10 policemen alive is frankly inadmissible," López said on May 5 on CNN, referring to a situation of violence in the night protests in Bogotá.

“But having today, as I have in my city, 14 young people without an eye for rubber bullets fired by the riot squad is unacceptable too.

That cannot be the future of democracy ”.

Esmad's injuries and weaponry

José Miguel Vivanco, director for the Americas at Human Rights Watch, denounced in early May that the Colombian police have engaged in "brutal" behavior to suppress the demonstrations.

Vivanco denounced that there are “arbitrary arrests.

There are people who have injuries to the eyes, to the face, there are very harsh, brutal beatings.

There are hundreds of people arrested.

He also mentioned the case of the dead policeman and others injured with firearms or sharp weapons.

And precisely the police abuse and violence against the protesters is one of the points that the Unemployment Committee asks the government to control in order to sit down and negotiate the end of the demonstrations, but the parties have not yet reached an agreement.

Colombia: Unemployment Committee exposes demands for dialogue 6:30

"There is no type of proportional or directed use of force," said Rodríguez, from Temblores.

«Many of the cases of eye injuries or assaults by the police are not even of people who were in demonstrations, without meaning that because they are in the demonstrations they should be beaten by the police, but they are people who were leaving their work and in amid some clashes and the 'witch hunt' where anyone is shot to show results, the police are not very selective in capturing and identifying the people who are exercising violence in the demonstrations ”.

Temblores says that, although in previous demonstrations the injuries were made with rubber bullets and pellets, there are other non-lethal weapons used by the police against protesters, according to the complaints brought by the NGO.

"What you are seeing is that tear gas cylinders are being fired directly into the tracks of the protesters causing eye injuries, but also all over the face," Rodríguez said.

In countries such as Argentina, where the use of rubber bullets has been denounced against protesters by public forces, the use of rubber bullets has been criticized, but weapons such as tear gas or stun bombs have not been used, according to the complaints. Rodríguez, from Temblores.

In Chile, the use of tear gas against protesters in the 2019 demonstrations has also been reported.

«So we have that tear gas is being fired directly at people's faces and on the other hand we see the case of stun (bombs) that… are expansive and take out splinters that cause third degree burns in people. These splinters fall on the protesters' clothing or reach people's faces or eyes. That is also new, "added Rodríguez.

According to the Police, the Esmad uses "bean bags" or buckshot bags. It also uses 37 and 40 millimeter gas cartridges, smoke grenades, all of which are known as "less lethal" weapons. Esmad has been accused of using "unconventional" weapons, something that the Ministry of Defense has denied in the past, but acknowledged that the weapons can cause injuries such as penetration or laceration of the skin, may require extraction, can lacerate the eyes , generate fractures, concussions, injuries to internal organs, hemorrhages and if the shot is at close range and on the chest, abdomen or head, "these injuries can be fatal."

"As these are less lethal weapons, there remains a risk and the recognition of associated injuries," said the then Colombian Defense Minister in 2019, Carlos Holmes Trujillo. "These injuries [...] can be fatal."

A support network

Tremlores not only makes complaints of police aggression, but also accompanies the victims to a network of legal and psychosocial support after the attacks, according to the NGO, which for some of its projects has the financial support of the American Open Society foundation.

"Many people have already started their case with a lawyer and strategic forms of litigation so that people can have justice in their cases, because we give legal attention," said Rodríguez.

Now, due to the large number of eye injuries in a month - more than one each day of unemployment, says Rodríguez - that network is expanding to expand towards the route to medical care to rehabilitate those who suffered injuries to their eyes.

In an isolated case, but that has also attracted attention, is Dr. John Jairo Tapia, a dentist specializing in maxillofacial prosthetics, who has offered his help to poor people who have suffered eye injuries during the protests.

“As we see that protests and eye injuries have increased so much and that the people who are on the street who are protesting are people who really go out to protest because they are of limited resources and need a change in their life and they are the ones who are being affected the most, so what I have seen in the NGO reports ... is that there is a large amount of eye loss, "Tapia told CNN from Medellín.

"I decided to start an initiative in which I could offer prosthetic, non-surgical rehabilitation to people who do not have resources and who have lost their eye in the framework of these protests," added Tapia, who says he hopes that patients with limited resources They can contact him and review their cases separately to find out if they can benefit from a facial prosthesis.

Protests in Colombia

Source: cnnespanol

All news articles on 2021-06-05

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