{"id":118296,"date":"2021-05-15T20:39:43","date_gmt":"2021-05-15T18:39:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ceadigilaw.org\/colombia-la-horrible-noche\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T21:34:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T19:34:14","slug":"colombia-la-horrible-noche","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ceadigilaw.org\/en\/womens\/blog\/colombia-la-horrible-noche\/","title":{"rendered":"Colombia, the horrible night"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 class=\"post-title entry-title\">Colombia, the horrible night<\/h1>\n<div class=\"post-vinfo\"><b>40 deaths, 500 missing people and more than 2,000 cases of police violence in less than 20 days of brutal repression. <\/b><b>President Iv\u00e1n Duque was denounced for crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, but the Colombian call is urgent: &#8220;S.O.S., they are killing us.&#8221;<\/b><b>\u00a0<\/b><\/div>\n<div id=\"post-body-3311584302928212982\" class=\"post-body entry-content\">\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"separator\"><a href=\"https:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-DmjtuaQVfO8\/YJ8lIOefgJI\/AAAAAAAAEi4\/kaC5yEOG7-MwGChBzCPobrlbfTzPRd3QACLcBGAsYHQ\/s2048\/COLOMBIA%2BREPRESI%25C3%2593N%2B1%2BPERY%2B2021.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-DmjtuaQVfO8\/YJ8lIOefgJI\/AAAAAAAAEi4\/kaC5yEOG7-MwGChBzCPobrlbfTzPRd3QACLcBGAsYHQ\/s16000\/COLOMBIA%2BREPRESI%25C3%2593N%2B1%2BPERY%2B2021.jpg\" border=\"0\" data-original-height=\"1365\" data-original-width=\"2048\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><i><b>By Aristides Obando Cabezas* and Carol R Hinestroza**\u00a0<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n<div><i><b>Special from Colombia<\/b><\/i><\/div>\n<div>\n<p><i><b>15\/5\/2021<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>This article constitutes an objective narrative about the recent events in Colombian society on the occasion of the national strike and the days of social protests starting on April 28, 2021.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>S.O.S. COLOMBIA, is the urgent call to the community so that, based on truthful and objective information, it participates in the search for possible solutions to the situation of violence that is experienced in all corners of the country as a response to the just demands of the citizens, in the face of government errors,  its disastrous public policies and the insistence on sustaining an economic and political model that clearly negates the possibilities of improving the quality of life of the least favored sectors of Colombian society.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Today, Colombian citizens complete almost 20 days in the streets exercising the constitutional right to social protest. What sparked the mobilizations at the national level was the filing of bill number 594 on Tax Reform known as the &#8220;Sustainable Solidarity Law&#8221;, an article signed by the Minister of Finance and Public Credit Alberto Carrasquilla Barrera and presented to the Congress of the Republic by President Iv\u00e1n Duque M\u00e1rquez.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The Tax Reform included going from a VAT of 5% to 19%, income tax return from 2,500,000 pesos, increasing the value of gasoline and taxing some elements of the family basket, something that becomes unacceptable in a country where 42.5% of the population is classified as poor by the National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE). But what generated the most indignation was Minister Carrasquilla&#8217;s response to the question about the value of eggs in an interview with the media outlet &#8220;Revista SEMANA&#8221;.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The Minister said that the dozen eggs have a value of 1,800 pesos (approximately 50 cents) when the cost ranges between 4,000 and 10,000 pesos depending on the quality. People cannot explain the fact that whoever occupies a position of this type is so disconnected from the realities of the country and that from that ignorance he wants to implement an economic policy that would further deepen poverty in the country.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><b>Something must be happening in Colombia for people to go out and demonstrate despite the risk of COVID-19 contagion\u00a0<\/b><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>And yes, the situation in Colombia is serious. In addition to the above, there are other flags by which citizens are in the streets:<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<ul>\n<li>The regulation of the\u00a0<b>Prior consultation<\/b>\u00a0and informed, because through this measure what the Government seeks is to limit the exercise of this fundamental right, which allows indigenous peoples and other ethnic groups to protect their cultural, social and economic integrity in the face of legislative or administrative measures that represent a risk to the survival of the people.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><b>The massacres<\/b>. According to the Institute for Development and Peace Studies (INDEPAZ), 381 people were killed in 91 massacres in 2020 and another 132 in 35 massacres that have been perpetrated so far in 2021.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><b>The assassination of social leaders.\u00a0<\/b>According to INDEPAZ, in 2021, 57 people who held leadership and\/or human rights defense roles were murdered.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><b>The murder or disappearance of signatories of the Peace Agreement<\/b>, ex-combatants of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia \u2013 People&#8217;s Army (FARC-EP). INDEPAZ registers 22 events of this type.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Bill 010 of 2020 of\u00a0<b>Health Reform<\/b>\u00a0which represents the detriment of the fundamental right to health in favor of the financial profitability of the entities providing the service.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><b>The mismanagement of the health emergency<\/b>\u00a0caused by COVID-19. During the pandemic, 79,760 people have died, according to the National Institute of Health (INS). Many of these deaths could have been avoided if the National Government had done better management in the acquisition of intensive care units, speed and massiveness in the samples to detect cases, taking sanitary measures in time, the absence of corruption and the obtaining of vaccines. In relation to the vaccination plan, it must be said that it has been slow and poorly coordinated, to date, approximately 4% of the population has received the two doses of the vaccine.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><b>The precarious working conditions of health workers.\u00a0<\/b>This has been exacerbated by the pandemic due to the fact that job insecurity and non-payment of salaries is compounded by the lack of personal protection elements, overload in the demand for care, risk of contagion and physical, mental and emotional exhaustion caused by stress (burnout syndrome).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><b>The resurgence of violence<\/b>\u00a0in some departments such as Cauca and Nari\u00f1o where communities denounce clashes between illegal armed groups in the struggle for territorial control of strategic places that serve as corridors for drug trafficking. As a result of these events, 2,185 people had to be forcibly displaced in the municipality of Argelia (Cauca) and more than 3,000 in the municipality of El Charco (Nari\u00f1o) between the months of March and April of this year.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>In the departments of Cauca and Putumayo, the\u00a0<b>Anti-personnel mines<\/b>, aggravating the human rights situation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The forced eradication of\u00a0<b>Illicit crops<\/b>\u00a0ordered by the National Government in the department of Putumayo and the non-substitution of them as provided for in the Peace Agreement has led coca growers to have confrontations with those who carry out this work.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The failure to comply with the stipulations of the fourth point of the Peace Agreement, which deals with the substitution of crops for illicit use, in the face of which the National Government does not seek the implementation of what has been signed, but rather announces\u00a0<b>aerial spraying with glyphosate<\/b>, a measure that threatens the environment, food sustainability and the lives of those who inhabit the territories. The peasant coca growers find the actions of forced eradication and aerial spraying with glyphosate as a threat to human dignity, since it is precisely these crops that allow them to live in moderate conditions of dignity in places where the state presence is reduced to militarization and investment in services such as health,  education, basic sanitation and electricity are minimal and in most cases non-existent.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>A particular flag, especially for the indigenous movement of Cauca, is the rejection of the\u00a0<b>assassination of the governor of the Indigenous Reservation of La Laguna-Siberia (Caldono-Cauca), Sandra Liliana Pe\u00f1a Chocue<\/b>, on April 20, 2021 for the exercise called Minga Hacia Adentro, which consists of eliminating from the territory practices that for indigenous communities generate disharmony and imbalance such as illicit crops. On April 22, the 127 authorities associated with the Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca (CRIC) mandated that a commission should advance to the municipality of Caldono, in the north of the department, to continue with the Minga Hacia Adentro and were received by an armed attack. This action left more than 30 injured.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Although some are very particular, all these demands of the Colombian people are related to each other and have led the country to the crisis that today has them in the streets demanding answers from the National Government that allow a way out of it.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>On April 28 of this year, the different sectors and social organizations met in villages, towns and cities throughout the national territory.\u00a0The banner of this mobilization was initially the withdrawal of the Tax Reform, announced by President Duque on Sunday, May 2 &#8211; after four days of demonstrations &#8211; but it was only made official until Tuesday, May 4 by the Deputy Minister of Finance and Public Credit Alberto Londo\u00f1o, who after the resignation of Minister Alberto Carrasquilla on May 3,  he served as Minister in Charge; while the current minister, Jos\u00e9 Manuel Restrepo, was sworn in.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>It should be noted that, although the National Government has announced the withdrawal of the Tax Reform since May 4, the truth is that citizens remain in the streets demanding solutions to the rest of the problems and the National Strike has been strengthening due to the fact that many social sectors are adhering to the protest spaces in various parts of the country. Added to these demands is the cessation of police violence.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"separator\"><a href=\"https:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-SpPWVIPDjxQ\/YJ83XzxuW-I\/AAAAAAAAEjA\/juHU3mYPmvQNNEPbiJRTondGXflwgyBGgCLcBGAsYHQ\/s2048\/COLOMBIA%2BREPRESI%25C3%2593N%2B2%2BPERY%2B2021.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-SpPWVIPDjxQ\/YJ83XzxuW-I\/AAAAAAAAEjA\/juHU3mYPmvQNNEPbiJRTondGXflwgyBGgCLcBGAsYHQ\/s16000\/COLOMBIA%2BREPRESI%25C3%2593N%2B2%2BPERY%2B2021.jpg\" border=\"0\" data-original-height=\"1365\" data-original-width=\"2048\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<h3><b>\u00a0<\/b><\/h3>\n<h3><b>What has happened in these 20 days of social demonstration?\u00a0<\/b><\/h3>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>People have taken to the streets en masse and have remained in them despite curfews and police brutality. There have been marches, sit-ins, candles, pots and pans, cultural occupations, total\/partial blockades of main roads and closures in the Port of Buenaventura.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The Misak people of Cauca toppled the statue of Sebasti\u00e1n de Belalc\u00e1zar in Cali. It is a political trial that they are making for the extermination to which he subjected the indigenous people and through this action they seek to rewrite history and that those who lived it have participation in it. Another action of the same type took place on May 4 in the city of Popay\u00e1n (Cauca), where demonstrators toppled the statue of Julio Arboleda &#8220;slaver and slaver.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>In the context of the demonstrations, people have burned tolls in protest against the high values charged and the poor condition of the roads; they have also burned Immediate Attention Commandos (CAI) of the Police as an act of repudiation of police brutality.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The National Strike is diverse and includes students, teachers, workers, drivers, the LGBTIQ+ community and the unemployed. Sectors such as peasants, Afro-descendants and indigenous people have arrived with their respective guards from the countryside to the main cities in order to strengthen the strike and build a country from diversity where everyone has guarantees for good living (Sumak Kawsay) or living tasty, in terms of human dignity and harmony with the environment.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>On Saturday, May 1, President Iv\u00e1n Duque M\u00e1rquez, as commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, ordered &#8220;military assistance&#8221; in the cities, which aggravated the situation of human rights violations.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>According to TEMBLORES NGO and INDEPAZ, between April 28 and May 12, more than 500 people were reported missing after being detained in the midst of the protests. There are 2,110 cases of police violence, distributed as follows: 362 victims of physical violence, 39 homicides allegedly committed by the security forces, 1055 arbitrary detentions, 442 violent interventions to protests, 30 eye attacks, 16 cases of sexual violence and 3 cases of gender-based violence.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>In addition to the cases of sexual violence, there is also that of the minor A.M., events that occurred on the night of May 12 in the city of Popay\u00e1n. A.M was arbitrarily detained by four members of the ESMAD and later released. The young woman denounced the violence to which she was subjected on her Facebook account and the next day she was found without vital signs at home. They say that he decided to commit suicide. There were multiple demonstrations in repudiation of the violent who perceive the woman&#8217;s body as territory or battlefield.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>In the midst of this humanitarian drama, there are no guarantees for freedom of the press, the work of human rights defenders and health brigades.<\/div>\n<div><b>\u00a0<\/b><\/div>\n<div>To all this, the Copa Libertadores matches between Junior and River Plate and Am\u00e9rica de Cali and Mineiro at the Romelio Mart\u00ednez stadium in Barranquilla were played in the midst of confrontations and had to be suspended on several occasions due to the effects of tear gas.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>History repeats itself. In 1985, President Belisario Betancur ordered his Minister of Communications, Noemi Sanin, to broadcast the match between Millonarios and Union Magdalena on national channels, while outside the El Campin stadium, at least 98 people were killed in the Taking of the Palace of Justice. The government intends to repeat the entertainment strategy in order to censor the reality of the country, but the obvious cannot be covered up with a soccer game. in Colombia they are killing us.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<h3>Let the horrible night cease!<\/h3>\n<div><i>The horrible night has not ceased, the National Anthem lies.\u00a0<\/i><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>May 4 was perhaps one of the most tense days for everyone, because in Cali, Bogot\u00e1, Popay\u00e1n, Tunja, Manizales and other cities, with the arrival of night also came horror, something that became systematic. The violation of Human Rights by the National Police and the Army of Colombia took to the streets again, but now with some more aggravating circumstances; people reported that they had been left without cell phone signal, it was not possible to broadcast live on platforms such as Facebook, many pages were censored, the videos that were published were later deleted, armed civilians attacking the demonstrators, state agents dressed in civilian clothes (infiltrators) and helicopters were dropping gas from the air.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>It is worrying that in a country mired in social inequalities, dialogue is replaced with violence and that a large amount of resources are also spent on the exercise of repression of social protest, when these resources should be allocated to social investment in favor of the well-being of those who for years have been denied minimum material conditions for their existence.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><b>We denounce<\/b>\u00a0before the national and international community the events that are taking place in Colombia in the framework of the National Strike and we alert them of possible violations of Human Rights in the next spaces of mobilization.<\/div>\n<div>Originally published in perycia.com<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><i><b>*Aristides Obando Cabezas is Director of the Research Group in Ethics, Political and Legal Philosophy. University of Cauca. Colombia.<\/b><\/i><\/div>\n<div><i><b>** Carol R Hinestroza is a student member of the Research Incubator in Ethics, Political and Legal Philosophy. University of Cauca. Colombia<\/b><\/i><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Colombia, the horrible night 40 deaths, 500 missing people and more than 2,000 cases of police violence in less than 20 days of brutal repression. President Iv\u00e1n Duque was denounced for crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, but the Colombian call is urgent: &#8220;S.O.S., they are killing us.&#8221;\u00a0 &nbsp; By [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58956,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_cea_women":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1109,1106],"tags":[],"cea_women":[1111],"class_list":["post-118296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-digital-rights","category-women-digital-law"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ceadigilaw.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ceadigilaw.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ceadigilaw.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ceadigilaw.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ceadigilaw.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118296"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ceadigilaw.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118296\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":119358,"href":"https:\/\/ceadigilaw.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118296\/revisions\/119358"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ceadigilaw.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ceadigilaw.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ceadigilaw.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ceadigilaw.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118296"},{"taxonomy":"cea_women","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ceadigilaw.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cea_women?post=118296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}