Colombian President Warns Indigenous Protesters
Amid Mounting Attacks by Vigilantes
HAVANA TIMES – In Colombia, as massive anti-government protests continue for a second week, the city of Cali has become the epicenter of skyrocketing violence against demonstrators by police and vigilantes. On Sunday, over a dozen protesters were wounded after they were attacked by unknown armed assailants who demanded protesters end the blockade of major highways during a series of Indigenous-led actions in Cali. Right-wing President Iván Duque on Monday announced more security forces would be deployed to Cali and urged Indigenous leaders to leave the city. This is one of the protesters.
Giovanni Yule: “The president has been making some reforms and changes against the Colombian people, benefiting a few families, big banks and big international corporations and placing all the tax burden on the country’s poorest population.”
Nationwide protests started on April 28 against a now-withdrawn tax reform proposed by Duque and have continued to grow amid increasing poverty, inequity and police brutality in Colombia. This is a member of the National Strike Committee speaking from Bogotá Monday.
Jennifer Pedraza: “One of the basic guarantees we asked for was respect for the constitutional right to peaceful protest, a simple social right. On the contrary, the discourse of President Iván Duque was permissive toward the excess of the security forces.”
Anti-Imperialist, your name should be Anti-Common Sense! You missed the whole point of my post. I , like many of my other comments simply say that the US has a double standard when dealing with human rights in other countries. The US Cuba policy is less about human rights than about Florida’s 29 electoral votes. That is why the US electoral system is undemocratic and should be abolished immediately. According to The NY Times, police have murdered several protesters and used other brutal methods to stop dissent. The authorities in Columbia have used tactics, which are unthinkable in Cuba. Because Colombia and other countries such as Israel and Saudi Arabia are US allies, anything they do is ok!
Curt there you go again trying to exonerate the Cuban government for its intense repression of all dissent. You do so by saying it’s worse in Colombia. Would you say the same thing in the US? Do you tell BLM people and the indigenous oil line protesters their struggle is unworthy because the situation for dissenters or minorities is worse and more violent in Russia or Hong Kong or Colombia? I’m pretty sure you don’t.
The repression shown by the police in Colombia is horrible, much worse than the actions of the Cuban authorities against the San Isidro movement. Yet Colombia is a US ally, while Cuba is subjected to the most Draconian sanctions by the US against any other country in the world. The hardline Cuban exiles and writers of HT make a big deal of house arrest of a few Cuban artists, yet hardly anything is written about the Gestapo tactics shown by the Colombian police. Oh well, double standards shown by Cuban exiles and the US government is American as apple pie!