The Colombian army, obeying the order of President Ivan Duque, began on Saturday (May 29) to deploy a thousand troops in the city of Cali, where at least thirteen people were killed the day before. The country’s third-largest city, with a population of 2.2 million, is the epicenter of anti-government protests.
Eight of the victims were shot dead, police said. An investigator from the Cali prosecutor’s office fired at the crowd, killing two civilians, before being lynched by protesters, according to the prosecution.
The violence comes exactly one month after the April 28 uprising against a quickly abandoned tax reform project led by right-wing President Ivan Duque, which aimed to increase VAT and broaden the income tax base.
In a month of popular uprising, at least 59 dead, including two police officers, have been recorded in the country, according to an official count. Some 2,300 people were injured and 123 are missing. Human Rights Watch reports up to 63 deaths.
“The situation in Cali is very serious”, tweeted José Miguel Vivanco, Director for the Americas of HRW, who urged President Duque to take “Urgent de-escalation measures, including a specific order to ban the use of firearms by state agents. Colombia cannot deplore more deaths ”.
Peaceful protests by day, rebels by night
For a month, the scenario has almost always been the same: by day, the demonstrations are peaceful and creative, at night the rebellion turns into riots where fireworks and Molotov cocktails mix with live ammunition.
This unprecedented revolt shakes the big cities, where barricades are erected and where road blockages cause shortages and exasperate part of the population. The government, despite mediators responsible for negotiating with the National Strike Committee, initiator of the movement, is unable to deactivate a crisis which, for the moment, does not threaten to overthrow it.
This sudden crisis has above all revealed, according to analysts, the dull anger of a politicized youth, impoverished by the pandemic, who no longer wants to be silent.
Backfire
For half a century, the conflict with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) has obscured a reality that has become too glaring: according to the World Bank, Colombia ranks among the most unequal countries in terms of income and has the most informal job in Latin America. The state concentrated in its fight against the guerrillas – that against the National Liberation Army (ELN) and the dissidents of the FARC still continues – and has completely abandoned social demand.
In 2019, a year after the election of Mr. Duque, students took to the streets to demand better free public education, jobs, a more united state and society. The pandemic put an end to the mobilization in 2020 without the 42-year-old head of state making big concessions. The backlash is all the stronger, with poverty that has accelerated to 42.5% of the 50 million inhabitants, the Covid-19 epidemic plunging the most vulnerable into poverty.
US Foreign Minister Antony Blinken expressed on Friday “His concern and condolences for the loss of human life” occurred in Colombia and “Reiterated the indisputable right of citizens to demonstrate peacefully”, following a meeting with his Colombian counterpart, Marta Lucia Ramirez, who is visiting Washington this week.
