Post by LFC on May 7, 2021 20:37:46 GMT
Sadly Colombia, like so many other countries in Central to South America, is turning into a shitshow.
BOGOTÁ—As Colombia concludes nine days of nationwide protests with hundreds of thousands of individuals taking to the streets, a dispirited government led by lame duck President Ivan Duque continues to cast aspersions that the marches have been premeditated, organized and financed by illegal groups involved in narco-trafficking.
The concern is what comes after these declarations, as there is neither any sign that the protests—triggered at first by an unpopular tax reform bill—are diminishing in size or spread, nor that the government plans to de-escalate their militarization of towns and cities.
“These actions were organized and financed by the FARC dissident groups and the ELN guerrillas,” said Minister of Defense Diego Molano on Sunday. “Amongst the criminal organizations, we have identified the following movements or groups: JM19, Luis Otero Cifuentes, Gentil Duarte, the escudos azules, and the escudos negros,” added Molano, referring to illegal armed groups involved in cocaine production and trafficking in Colombia.
Part of a tired strategy employed in Colombia which people now openly question, this laundry list of armed groups detailed by Molano has also been repeated by the president and the district attorney. But this narrative feeds into something even more worrying: the possibility that the government, with momentum now firmly with protesters, may declare a state of emergency.
The move to declare a state of emergency, albeit drastic, would permit authorities to skip due process, control the flow of information, make arbitrary detainments, and further erode human rights. Local NGO Temblores has registered 37 homicides, 1,708 cases of police brutality, and 10 cases of sexual violence at the hands of the police since protests began on April 28, and international organizations like Amnesty International have called on authorities to guarantee the Colombian people’s right to peaceful protest.
“They look like war warriors in the early ’90s casting about for a new enemy to accuse their political opponents of colluding with,” Adam Isacson, director for defense oversight at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), told The Daily Beast. “For 50 years they delegitimize peaceful political opponents by accusing them of links to the FARC. Some got killed by paramilitaries—and it was certainly impossible to have a big broad-based protest.”
Isacson added: “Now the big national guerrilla group is gone. But they’re still trying to stigmatize the protesters by tying them to guerrillas. It looks sort of ridiculous now because the new enemy is small, dispersed, and not very ideological.”
Nightly running street battles in smaller towns, in addition to major cities, have led to the government miscalculating the extent of the resentment and polarization in the country. Images of bloodied citizens have flooded social media, footage of police tasering and killing protesters and ARVs popping off tear gas and flash-bang grenades into crowds have circulated on social media, prompting global outrage.
The concern is what comes after these declarations, as there is neither any sign that the protests—triggered at first by an unpopular tax reform bill—are diminishing in size or spread, nor that the government plans to de-escalate their militarization of towns and cities.
“These actions were organized and financed by the FARC dissident groups and the ELN guerrillas,” said Minister of Defense Diego Molano on Sunday. “Amongst the criminal organizations, we have identified the following movements or groups: JM19, Luis Otero Cifuentes, Gentil Duarte, the escudos azules, and the escudos negros,” added Molano, referring to illegal armed groups involved in cocaine production and trafficking in Colombia.
Part of a tired strategy employed in Colombia which people now openly question, this laundry list of armed groups detailed by Molano has also been repeated by the president and the district attorney. But this narrative feeds into something even more worrying: the possibility that the government, with momentum now firmly with protesters, may declare a state of emergency.
The move to declare a state of emergency, albeit drastic, would permit authorities to skip due process, control the flow of information, make arbitrary detainments, and further erode human rights. Local NGO Temblores has registered 37 homicides, 1,708 cases of police brutality, and 10 cases of sexual violence at the hands of the police since protests began on April 28, and international organizations like Amnesty International have called on authorities to guarantee the Colombian people’s right to peaceful protest.
“They look like war warriors in the early ’90s casting about for a new enemy to accuse their political opponents of colluding with,” Adam Isacson, director for defense oversight at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), told The Daily Beast. “For 50 years they delegitimize peaceful political opponents by accusing them of links to the FARC. Some got killed by paramilitaries—and it was certainly impossible to have a big broad-based protest.”
Isacson added: “Now the big national guerrilla group is gone. But they’re still trying to stigmatize the protesters by tying them to guerrillas. It looks sort of ridiculous now because the new enemy is small, dispersed, and not very ideological.”
Nightly running street battles in smaller towns, in addition to major cities, have led to the government miscalculating the extent of the resentment and polarization in the country. Images of bloodied citizens have flooded social media, footage of police tasering and killing protesters and ARVs popping off tear gas and flash-bang grenades into crowds have circulated on social media, prompting global outrage.