#WORLD #WORLDWIDE #COLOMBIA #ANARCHISM #News #Journal #Update - (en) Colombia, vialibre: One year after the national strike of April 28 and the social outbreak in Colombia (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 In the following text we present a reflection on the first anniversary of the

national strike of April 28, 2021 and the social outbreak in Colombia, from the
perspective of Grupo Libertario Vía Libre. For this we reconstruct the origin of
the call, we analyze the development of the protest, we review the policies of
repression against the movement and finally we review what we think are some
legacies and pending tasks of this enormous protest. ---- the summons ---- On
April 28, 2021, multiple union and popular organizations called a national strike
against the government of Iván Duque of the Democratic Center and his tax reform
project. At that time, the country was going through a strong public health
crisis associated with the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, which to date had
left nearly 73,000 accumulated registered deaths, and at the same time, due to
the closure of the economic activity, the extreme effects of the deepest economic
depression in contemporary history, with poverty figures hovering around 42.5% by
the end of 2020, unemployment reaching 15.1% at a general level and 23.3% among
the young population in the month of April and a situation of job insecurity,

The unpopular Uribista government, which registered disapproval levels of 70% in
the polls for April, sought with this its third tax reform project, to increase
tax collection between 25 and 35 billion pesos and reduce public spending, in a
project registered in broader set of neoliberal economic adjustment policies on
the population, maintaining the historical course of the country, all under the
leadership of the corrupt Minister of Finance Alberto Carrasquilla.

The tax reform that the government sought to approve with its majority in the
Congress of the Republic, stood out for its regressive nature, with measures such
as the increase in indirect taxes on products from the family basket, the
elimination of subsidies for the payment of public services , direct income taxes
focused mainly on the middle and popular sectors. In the context of a country in
which more than 40% of the population ate two or fewer meals a day, the
foreseeable rise in the cost of food would have extremely negative effects on the
food sovereignty of the population, especially critical among poorest sectors.

This protest movement, led by the questioned National Strike Committee with a
union majority and also made up of pensioners, peasants and truck drivers, was
the eighth national strike against the Duque government, after the partial
cessation movement of 2018, the 4 calls of 2019, which had as its axis the great
strike of November 21 and the two smaller calls of 2020. At the same time, it
reflected the feeling of protest that led to the revolt against police brutality
on September 9 and 10, 2020 and the mobilization of the Indigenous Minga of Cauca
to Bogotá that same year, as well as the national university strike of
October-November 2018.

The movement

On April 28, there were blockades on multiple national highways in Valle,
Cundinamarca, Boyacá and Arauca, work stoppages concentrated above all in the
education sector, and large union, student and neighborhood mobilizations in most
of the country's cities, as well as peasant marches. , indigenous and black in
some rural areas. The day ended with new concentrations on roads in different
areas of the country and some limited expressions of cacerolazos.

The protest continued in the following days, becoming a real social outburst,
which despite not being able to become a general strike, did generate strong
effects on transportation and work activities, in a good part of the big cities,
as well as some areas. rural and national highways. The mobilization was soon
reinforced by the rejection of State repression and was incorporating new social,
political and cultural demands, as well as collective actors such as the women's
movement and sexual dissidence that reached high levels of visibility and prominence.

In the capital, the Pesonería came to register during the first month of the
outbreak, an average of 9 daily collective protest actions. Likewise, although
large mobilizations continued to take place, the axis of activity shifted to
street blockades, which by May the newspaper El Tiempo estimated at 90 newspapers
nationwide, activities that on many occasions led to clashes with the Police and
elements of the State.

The protest, which some have called a democratic spring, came to have 75% support
among the population, which rose to 81% among young people, in various
journalistic surveys carried out in May. It was concentrated above all in the
south-west of the country, particularly in the department of Valle and the
metropolitan area of the city of Cali, where street blockades on strategic roads
near popular neighborhoods became continuous for about 30 resistance points. This
city, where delegations from the Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca (CRIC)
joined the mobilization, was also the one where state and para-state repression
was most violent.

At the same time, during the mobilization there were multiple acts of demolition
of statues and monuments of colonial leaders by indigenous peoples and community
organizations in cities such as Bogotá, where a group of the Misak people
demolished the statue of Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada, as well as Cali, Cartagena,
Pasto and other cities. In parallel, various demonstrations of solidarity were
presented in front of Colombian embassies and consulates in the hands of 21
foreign countries.

Thus, three months of intense political activity took place, between April 28 and
the end of July, although the first month registered the highest levels of
mobilization, the second already represented a contraction with some sporadic
upswings and the third was a general retreat. . During this period, the one-month
national strike of state educators organized in the Colombian Federation of
Education Workers (Fecode) in adherence to the protest took place, as well as the
two-month student strike in the hands of the 18 public universities of the
country, which continued in some local institutions such as the Pedagogical and
Technological University (UPTC) for a longer time, due to its own demands.

The movement that managed to open a broad national debate on the right to
protest, managed to force the withdrawal of the tax reform project and the
subsequent resignation of Carrasquilla, one of the strong men of the Duque
government, as well as the withdrawal of the parallel reform project. to the
health and resignation of Chancellor Claudia Blum, also a defender of government
repression.

The policies of repression

State and para-state violence against the protest reached extraordinarily high
levels, not seen for years, all under the leadership and support of Defense
Minister Diego Molano, committed to multiple war crimes. The repression
incorporated the traditional activity carried out by the Mobile Anti-riot Squad
(ESMAD) and other National Police agencies, which took violence to very high
levels, including multiple shots of anti-riot shotguns and firearms by agents,
run over by vehicles police and even shots from helicopters. One of the cruelest
expressions of these events was the Siloe massacre on May 3, where 5 people were
killed by the public force in the repression against a candlelight.

In parallel, the repressive actions of non-traditional organizations such as the
Criminal Investigation Directorate (DIJIN), the Attorney General's Office or the
National Army itself, deployed in various rural and urban areas of the country,
also increased. At the same time, the government stimulated the formation of
civic guards to support the Police, temporarily blocked the internet service in
the city of Cali and simulated a multimillion-dollar cybernetic auto-attack
against the pages of cybersecurity agencies.

In addition, there was extensive participation of para-state forces in the
repression, coordinated in multiple ways with state agents. This included the
passage of the infamous high-end white vans, protected by the Police, from where
intelligence material was recorded, shots were fired and illegal arrests were
made, as well as the movement of hit men on motorcycles. There were also illegal
power cuts that facilitated the repressive action, snipers lying in buildings and
armed civilians, guarded by the Police, who on several occasions fired at the
protest.

The repression against the movement left a balance of 80 fatalities among the
protesters according to Indepaz, the vast majority of them working class youth,
concentrated in more than half of the cases in Cali and its metropolitan area, as
well as cities such as Bogotá or Pereira. . In addition, there were 129 cases of
disappearance of people for the month of May, 82 victims of eye violence, 1,200
injured of different magnitude, 2,005 arbitrary arrests and 28 victims of sexual
violence by the public force, according to the joint report of Indepaz, Tremors
and PAIIS, the vast majority of events, today unpunished. The death of 3 police
officers was also recorded during the protests.

Legacies and pending tasks

That of April 28 is possibly the largest and longest-lasting social protest in
the country's history. The strike seems to have combined elements of the massive
strike of November 21, 2019, with elements of the revolt against police brutality
of 2020, in a contradictory synthesis marked by a weak union leadership, a
continuous although not always coordinated mobilization of student sectors,
workers and peasants, as well as a great role of popular youth.

As in 2019, the social outbreak of 2021 brought the appearance of multiple
popular assemblies at the local and, to a lesser extent, sectoral level, which,
however, did not achieve higher levels of development and coordination. The
so-called National Popular Assembly led by the People's Congress failed to unite
the living forces of the mobilization, develop a movement from the bottom up, or
consider deepening grassroots organization. In the same way, the student
assemblies did not manage to structure themselves in a more unified union
perspective and the smaller workers, nor did they motivate a new dynamic of
democratic renewal of the union organizations.

Around the spontaneous expansion of the front lines, which focused their action
above all on resisting police repression, various organizations emerged such as
humanitarian camps, community pots, mothers' associations and legal committees.
However, although attempts were made to transform the front lines into authentic
organizations of popular self-protection at the service of social organization,
such as the urban guard in Bogotá, in general this orientation did not prosper
and these organizations continued to act as dispersed shock groups. , exclusive
of young men addicted to risk, marked by a multitude of patriarchal practices,
without many prospects for the future or greater ties to community movements.

Paradoxically, the triumphalist rhetoric so strongly installed in the left and
popular movements, long before these events, served as a theoretical and
practical barrier to weigh with a reflective and self-critical spirit the
weaknesses and shortcomings of a movement, which aroused a enormous popular
sympathy, which, however, I was unable to mobilize and organize.

After the strike there was no real social leap, which could be understood as an
increase in the level and strength of social and popular organizations, nor did
sectoral and territorial conflicts necessarily increase. Nor was there a change
in political culture, because although the hegemonic vertical and bureaucratic
traditions on the left were once again harshly questioned, as they were in 2019,
as symbolized by the criticism of the National Strike Committee, the alternatives
of horizontal participation and federation were weak and the gestation of a new
libertarian political culture did not deepen.

On the other hand, it does seem to have produced an electoral jump, since the
movement was key to reinforcing the Uribe sentiment of the population and
strengthening the candidacy of the center-left opposition of Gustavo Petro and
the Historical Pact. However, neither does it seem that there has been a greater
political development in an organic and programmatic sense, linking the rejection
of Uribeism, adjustment and state repression with more general anti-capitalist or
anti-authoritarian perspectives.

The strike of April 28 and the social uprising showed millions of people the
enormous capacity for self-organization of the population, the political efficacy
of protest, and the importance of various forms of popular direct action. The
task of strengthening the levels of organization and mobilization in all work,
study and housing spaces remains pending, of deepening among those who fight a
libertarian socialist political program and of building alternatives for a
dignified life for the most impoverished working youth.

Now to organize this great rebellion as a popular force!

Up those who fight!

Freeway Libertarian Group

https://grupovialibre.org/2022/04/28/un-ano-del-paro-nacional-del-28-de-abril-y-el-estallido-social-en-colombia/
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