Colombia
People Take Action in Defence of Their Rights and Against State Terror
Youth on the streets of
Bogotá protesting state terror and impunity,
September 11,
2020.
On September 7, after a hiatus of several
months and with
the COVID-19 pandemic still a very real threat --
Colombia has the
sixth highest number of cases worldwide -- members
of unions and
other social movements drove through the streets
of Bogotá
in a
caravan for life. The caravan protested the Duque
government's
anti-worker labour and pension reforms and other
punishing
austerity measures. Millions of workers have been
left destitute
and abandoned, without protection from the effects
of the
pandemic and its attendant economic crisis.
Other
demands of the caravan were that the state take
action to
stop what have become almost daily massacres of
social leaders
and former guerrilla members by paramilitary death
squads, and in
some cases by known or suspected government
security forces, and
that the government implement the peace accords
instead of
sabotaging them. As of September 9, it is reported
that 218 persons
were killed in 55 massacres since the beginning of
this year. The
gruesome record since the signing of the Peace
Agreement between
the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the
Colombian
state in 2016 is 240 unarmed former guerrillas and
1,000
social leaders killed in targeted assassinations.
The
demand for the government to stop the massacres
took on a
whole new dimension two days after the caravan.
Early on
September 9, Javier Ordóñez, a 46-year-old
engineer who was
finishing a law degree and drove taxi to support
his family, was
for unknown reasons tasered multiple times and
forcefully pinned
down in the street by police as he pleaded,
"Please, no more!" All of
it was
captured on video. Mr. Ordóñez was then taken to
a police station
where he was further tortured and beaten to death.
Many have
likened his brutal killing to that of George Floyd
in the U.S.
The reaction to his death was similar as well.
Large numbers of
outraged youth took to the streets, demanding an
end to police
brutality and for Javier Ordóñez's killers to be
brought to
justice. Demonstrations have been taking place in
Bogotá as
well
as Medellín, Cali, Manizales, Armenia, Pereira and
other
cities.
A number of buses and several police stations
known as Immediate Action Commands (CAI) were burned in Bogotá.
In
less than two days of protests 13 more people were
killed,
the vast majority in their teens and twenties,
shot by
police in Bogotá and the nearby municipality of
Soacha. Over
200
have been reported injured, with some estimates as
high as 400,
many with gunshot wounds. More than 100 have been
detained.
People's social media accounts quickly filled with
videos of
police shooting demonstrators as well as random
people as they
fired indiscriminately into the crowd. At times
men in civilian
clothes, some wearing hoods, can be seen shooting
alongside the
police and generally terrorizing neighbourhoods.
While some
protesters threw rocks at police, police were seen
throwing rocks
to smash the windows of people's apartments in
targeted
neighbourhoods.
In light of the most recent events,
as well as the ongoing
serious crisis gripping the country, there are
calls for mass
mobilizations. There is every indication that in
spite of the
difficult conditions -- COVID-19 still far from
controlled, a
severe economic crisis, and a long history of the
use of state
terror to drown in blood the striving of the
people for freedom,
democracy
and peace -- the Colombian people will rise to the
occasion. Family members and friends of those
killed and injured,
political personalities and organizations and many
others are speaking
out, denouncing the police and the government,
demanding to know who
gave the orders to shoot, and that those
responsible at the highest
levels be held to account. The youth in particular
have shown they are
in no mood to submit and continue to courageously
demonstrate, knowing
they do so at the risk of their lives.
On September
11 a large group of young people took over and
transformed the space around a burned-out police
station in one
neighbourhood into a space for art and culture. In
the ruins of a
station that for some had served as a torture
centre, they engaged in
performances of different types and set up an
outdoor "public
library" full of books. They said they did so to
pay homage to
those whose lives were taken in the previous two
days of police
terror and as a way to show what it is the youth,
who the
president of Colombia, his Defence Minister and
others of their
ilk call "vandals," are fighting for.
 
Youth
turn space around a burned-out police station into
a place of culture
and art.
This article was published in
Volume 50 Number 34 - September 12, 2020
Article Link:
Colombia: People Take Action in Defence of Their Rights and Against State Terror
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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