PARO NACIONAL 2021: Colombians’ Prolonged Outrage Takes Over the Streets
Demonstrations in Medellin during the National Strike in May 2021. (Image: Oxi.Ap from Medellín, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)
As the presidential elections and a glimpse of change approach, Colombians keep rising to disclose the numerous human rights violations and other abusive realities that the current administration has caused. In order to make sense of what is happening on the ground at the moment, however, we need to look back at the national strike that shook the country in 2021.
A year ago, news media from Colombia and elsewhere were filled with information regarding the protest wave that took place across the country between April and July 2021. At first, it seemed that it would be just another outrage manifestation that the government could easily undermine. However, intense police brutality, an unresponsive government, and Colombians' accumulated indignation made it one of the biggest, and most violent strikes in the recent history of the country.
While mainstream news media focused on explaining the details of the proposed tax reform that triggered the call for a national strike on April 28, they failed to expand on people’s demands and situate the strike in the structurally violent and repressive context of the country.
Colombia’s recent history
To understand the 2021 protest wave, it is important to review some events that shaped recent national strikes. Colombia is marked by over 50 years of armed conflict between the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) guerrillas and the Colombian State, often with the backing of right-wing paramilitary and drug trafficking groups. Over time, political leaders have implemented different strategies to build peace. During the presidency of Alvaro Uribe (2002-2010), the approach was mainly military force. There was a drastic increase in both military checkpoints and operations to combat FARC, efforts that were sponsored by Plan Colombia and other military and foreign aid agreements with Northern nations.
Inevitably, FARC counterattacked, and though urban Colombia felt safer (increasing Uribe’s approval ratings), rural areas were forgotten by the government and news media. Simultaneously, the government implemented neoliberal economic and environmental policies, which exploit biodiversity, increase inequality, and shape power dynamics.
Attempting to build peace
In 2012, under the mandate of President Juan Manuel Santos, talks between the Colombian government and FARC started, and despite efforts by Uribe and his Centro Democratico party to terminate the dialogue, the Peace Agreement was officially signed in 2016.
What initially seemed to be a hopeful solution to a conflict that had long affected Colombia, failed due to a lack of collaboration, capital, and general support for the agreement on the part of the subsequent and current President Ivan Duque. For instance, Duque and his party disrupted the implementation of a plan to disarm and reintegrate former combatants reinsertion, leading to a return of violence and disappointing a country that once hoped for peace.
Understanding the 2019 strike: Colombia’s accumulated outrage
On November 21, 2019, Colombians declared a historic national strike and demanded:
Implementation of the Peace Agreement.
A halt to further labor and pension reforms.
Development of structural police reform.
Stricter anti-corruption measures.
Better and more accessible education for all.
In addition to increasing massacres in rural areas, murders of social leaders, environmental crisis, and forced displacement, the uncovering of a military operation in a FARC camp where at least eight children were knowingly murdered by the Colombian Army was the tipping point for millions of Colombians to mobilize for a better future.
Violence takes over the streets
Another turning point for the protests was when a police officer shot Dilan Cruz during a peaceful demonstration. The young student’s death was officially announced two days later, and Dilan became a symbol of the protests.
Such an act of police brutality shifted the protest’s dynamic to a violent one. The government offered a national dialogue that did not directly tackle the people’s demands. Thus, the strike continued, and state repression increased.
What the news media ignored, and what is essential to understand, is that the Colombian police represented a threat to the protestors, who felt misunderstood and attacked.
Despite the 2019 strike’s momentum, protests were automatically shut down by the surge of the COVID-19 pandemic in February 2020.
The SOS Colombia 2021 national strike
Colombian National Strike in May 2021. (Image: Oxi.Ap from Medellín, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)
On April 28, a new national strike was announced. Duque’s proposed tax reform was the decisive event that made people risk their lives to protest amidst the pandemic. Initially, the strike’s main demand was the withdrawal of the proposed tax reform. While the reform was created to broaden the tax collection base to cover the pandemic costs and alleviate public debt, people were outraged because the burden would fall primarily on the middle class.
Despite the withdrawal of the proposed tax reform, protests continued, demonstrating that the reform was only a trigger to resume the 2019 protests. Thus, the strike evolved to request:
Structural police reform: over 1000 cases of police brutality, and tens of missing people, were reported within a month of protest. People asked for post-conflict police that treat people as citizens, not like armed groups.
Justice for murdered social leaders: Colombia is the most dangerous country in the world for environmental activists.
Peace agreement implementation: Duque’s party worked to defund entities in charge of peacebuilding, post-conflict, and justice, which inevitably created a climate of violence.
Equal access to quality education and healthcare.
An economic system where Colombians are prioritized over foreign investors.
Tactics such as destruction of public property, banks, and chain stores emerged during the strike as a way of expressing indignation. These acts were used by the government to delegitimize the strike. Protestors' “violent” acts were widely published daily on mainstream media, while alternative media shared evidence of police brutality, government infiltration, and abuses: #SOSColombia.
In my next article, I will provide some deeper analysis of the ideological role played by the mainstream media coverage of the Colombian National Strike.
