Conflict Without End
After 18 days of protests, people gather at the Los Héroes monument in Bogotá, Colombia on May 15, 2021. Photo by Sergio Olmos
What began as complaints against a new tax has mushroomed into an ongoing referendum on the Colombian government’s handling of the pandemic, growing inequality, and police brutality
On a humid night in Siloé, one of the poorest neighborhoods of Cali, Colombia, a man held his arms out, showing me two fistfuls of shell casings he had picked up off the streets. It’s evidence, he said, of what police had just done in this colonial city southwest of Bogotá.
“The police came in last night and started shooting at us,” the man said, agreeing to talk only if I shielded his identity. “Many people want to come out and protest, but they are afraid.” He lived in Siloé and recognized the restaurants now pocked with bullet holes.
Across the street from where we were talking, a group of police officers stood guard at an intersection.
This summer, police at times responded with egregious and indiscriminate use of force, maiming and killing demonstrators. Fifty-eight people have been killed in protests this year according to Colombia’s human rights ombudsman. Human Rights Watch says at least 419 people have been reported missing. Demonstrations and clashes with police nationwide have shaken Colombian politics and given rise to a crop of political hopefuls challenging the ruling party ahead of next year’s presidential election
On May 11, a man who asked not to be identified shows off shell casings he said are evidence of police shooting at protestors the night before. Photo by Sergio Olmos
In late spring, thousands of Colombians took to the streets, at first to protest a tax reform bill that would have hiked prices on basic goods. But what began as a spontaneous movement against a specific tax mushroomed into a referendum on the federal government and President Iván Duque Márquez. The list of complaints grew to include a perceived mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic, growing inequality, and widespread reports of police brutality.
The recent waves of demonstrations are a continuation of anti-government protests that flared up in 2019. Those earliest marches, by hundreds of thousands, were about government austerity measures. Then a national strike committee, composed of labor organizations began another series of protests against proposed changes to the minimum wage, pensions, and the planned privatization of state-owned companies.
The onset of a global pandemic created a detente in civil unrest, but the government’s response to the coronavirus only fueled civil discord. The pandemic has devastated Colombia, which now is among the top ten countries with the highest death count in the world. It doesn’t help that Colombia has yet to solve chronic problems of governmental corruption. Last year, 10 mayors were arrested by Colombia's attorney general on allegations that they channeled COVID-19 relief funds to campaign donors.
In December 2019, thousands of Colombians marched to Plaza Bolivar in Bogotá during a nationwide strike led by labor organizations. Photo by James Wagstaff via Shutterstock
With growing unease in the country, accounts of police brutality became the match that lit the fire of public unrest this summer.
Alleged brutality is a symptom of a national police force born of civil war. But after peace deals with rebel factions, tens of thousands of citizens took to the streets in protest of strong-arm tactics used against civilians.
The first incident of police excess happened in 2019: teenager Dilan Cruz died after being hit by a projectile fired by riot police during an anti-government protest.
Demonstrators called for the disbandment of the national police force’s specialized riot units.
Tensions grew in 2020 with the death of 46-year old Javier Ordóñez, who was tased by police in Bogotá. Seven more people were killed in the ensuing protests. The violence led to sharp criticism by human rights activists, who demanded criminal investigations of police tactics.
Protestors hoist an anti-government banner on the way to the Los Héroes monument on May 15, 2021. Photo by Sergio Olmos.
But by then, protests had become a nationwide bonfire. Uprisings disrupted daily life and commerce in Bogotá, Medellín, and Cali until mid-summer. That’s when leaders of the national labor strike called for a pause so they could team up with leaders of indigenous tribes and student organizations to prepare a list of demands that they delivered to the federal government on July 20, Colombian Independence Day. Inaction, the coalition said, would lead to even larger protests.
The day came and went. While there were large demonstrations in Colombia’s major cities, the federal government did not move on the protests' demands.
“Unfortunately, the Colombian people believed Iván Duque was a young man filled with ideals and a new way of thinking,” said Claudia Jiménez, a nurse in Bogotá, who is among those disappointed with the Duque regime.
But the Duque government did finally send a $3.95 billion tax reform bill to Congress, much smaller than the $6.3 billion proposal that had originally sparked mass protests.
Alleged brutality is a symptom of a national police force born of civil war. But after peace deals with rebel factions, tens of thousands of citizens took to the streets in protest of strong-arm tactics used against civilians.
The impact of the protests on tax reform is unclear, but they must have made a difference: In a country with a population of 50 million — more than 20 million of whom are mired in worsening poverty — a recent poll by the consulting firm Centro Nacional de Consultoría and the Colombian magazine Semana showed that 64% of those surveyed have a unfavorable opinion of President Duque.
It is hard to ignore the effect of a year and a half of constant civil protest. The paro nacional — (national strike) — and its 3,000 disruptive blockades formed the largest demonstration of political opposition since the 2016 peace deal with the Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (FARC, in Spanish)
Acrobats entertain protesters with a trapeze act from a pedestrian bridge at the Los Héroes monument. Photo by Sergio Olmos.
During the strikes, in the city of Cali, drivers have had to line up for up to six hours for gasoline. Fuel and food shortages are side effects of strikes that are popular among the working class. “Taxi drivers and truck drivers know the vital choke points in arteries of the major highways that connect the country and international markets,” said Sergio Guzmán, founder of the political consulting group Colombia Risk.
Even now, as some strike leaders urge a shift in strategy ahead of Colombia’s upcoming political season, leading to the 2022 presidential election. Some protestors refuse to acknowledge the authority of the strike committee. Blockades are still up, drawing a backlash from a growing number of everyday Colombians.
Made in Washington
The United States government has officially said little about the recent stream of violent protest in Colombia.
In an op-ed last year, then-presidential candidate Joe Biden wrote: “Colombia is the keystone of U.S. policy in Latin America.” He said he had an “enduring conviction that security and prosperity throughout the entire hemisphere hinged on a close and effective partnership between the United States and Colombia.”
But that was it. Once in office, Biden seemed to cool on Colombia, finally calling President Duque in late June. A readout of the conversation said Biden had “voiced support for the rights of peaceful protestors, underscored that law enforcement must be held to the highest standards of accountability.”
“What happens in Colombia is immediately relevant to (The U.S.),” says Guzmán,
“A lot of the conflict from Colombia ends up dovetailing on the conflicts of Central America and Mexico,” including migration, drugs and crime in the United States. In short, the unrest in Colombia reverberates beyond national borders and through the 1.2 million people of Colombian descent in the U.S.
U.S. military aid to Colombia has played a significant role in the development of the national police force, which was used during the decades-long civil war to carry out a counter-insurgency strategy and to crackdown on narcotraffickers.
While barely registering on the general public’s radar in the United States, Colombia’s civil unrest is closely monitored by the Biden administration. In fiscal year 2020 the U.S. sent $448 million in aid to Colombia. According to the U.S. Congressional Research Service, Colombia remains “the single largest recipient of U.S. assistance in Latin America and the Caribbean under the Administration.”
That’s why Biden’s words in June resonated in Colombia.
U.S. military aid to Colombia has played a significant role in the development of the national police force, which was used during the decades-long civil war to carry out a counter-insurgency strategy and to crackdown on narcotraffickers. Retired U.S. Army General David Petreaus, who led the fighting in Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, once said Colombia’s policing was “a great example” for dealing with insurgents.
“The police in Colombia have not been a citizen police. It's been a much more military oriented police, and that's what's given it access to helicopters and very big armaments; they're more akin to the military,” Colombia Risk’s Guzmán said.
Marchers confront police in Medellín at a protest on April 28, during the nationwide strike aimed at the tax reforms proposed by Colombia’s President Iván Duque. Photo by Sergio R via Shutterstock
The peace deal with the FARC had included the dismantling of the federal riot police, and moving the national police force out of the control of the Colombian Ministry of Defense.
“This would provide more civilian authority over the police, as opposed to its predominant military structure. But since President Duque assumed office, he has not been very keen on implementing many of these reforms that were brought upon by the peace agreement,” Guzmán added.
This has led cynical Colombians to complain that no amount of civil protest will change anything.
“These elites are letting us fight each other, watching us kill each other while they sit in a chair sipping whiskey,” said Claudia Jiménez, a nurse in Bogotá. “The oligarchs want us to remain in submission.”
In Siloé this summer, I found a neighborhood that remained defiant in the face of police response against protestors. Yet residents were exhausted. I had come to examine reports of police violence. People were afraid, but willing to say what they’d seen.
For the man collecting the bullet casings, the metal was a symbol of the power average people like him were up against.
“They say we are the bad ones because we’re (protesting), because we don’t accept injustice,” said the man, his hands dirty after a morning of picking up spent casings on Siloé’s streets.
“What else can we do?” “This is the evidence that they’re the ones killing people …”
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Sergio Olmos is a freelance journalist based in Portland, Oregon. He covers conflict. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Reuters.