Colombia, plunged into chaos after the first month of strikes

There is no solution in sight after a month of strikes and vandalism. The Government and the National Strike Committee remain in distant positions, although they will try to reach an agreement tomorrow, Sunday, in a new meeting. But there are no signs that they will achieve a rapprochement that will end the month of general strike in the middle of the third peak of the pandemic, with more than 400 daily deaths from Covid.

The situation for the real economy is dramatic, with thousands of jobs lost and others at risk because dozens of factories, shops and companies are closed. In most companies, employees want to go to work but cannot because of the blockades of streets and highways and because of the protesters' threats against their property and lives if they dare to break the strike.

This Saturday, the country partially recovered calm after Iván Duque decided to militarize Cali and Valle del Cauca, after a Friday of exacerbated violence, which got out of control and where there were at least ten deaths.

The opposition leader, Gustavo Petro, had called for a demonstration throughout Colombia that he announced would be historic and would break all attendance records, but what the South American nation experienced were some concentrations of a few thousand people who marched peacefully and dozens of violent actions that cost lives and destroyed public and private assets.

Perhaps the most gruesome scene, known from the recordings broadcast on social networks, was the kicking and punching to death of an investigating agent from the Attorney General's Office. A mob killed him in retaliation for earlier shooting dead a protester. There is still no clarity about the reasons that led him to use his weapon against unarmed protesters, although the Prosecutor's Office assured that he was not in an act of service.

In other videos, broadcast by ordinary citizens, civilians appeared -accompanied by policemen- shooting at the protesters. “Faced with videos circulating on social networks, which show people using weapons in Cali, and in which some uniformed men appear, the National Police opened an investigation to determine if there were possible omissions,” said Major General Jorge Ramírez, Inspector General of the National Police.

Also in different recordings protesters can be seen firing their guns. In none of the cases can the shooters be observed.

The chaos that the city experienced yesterday, which became uncontrollable for the public forces, forced President Duque to go to Cali at night and announce that he was sending troops both to the city and to the rest of the towns in Valle del Cauca that have also suffered a violent onslaught by protesters and criminal gang infiltrators. According to the Defense Ministry, FARC dissidents and ELN groups participate in what it has called “urban terrorism.”

In addition to the deaths, which must be investigated, the roadblocks -vital for the Colombian economy- have become the Government's biggest headache. Businessmen pressure them to remove them or remove them by force and the Strike Committee and international organizations such as the IACHR allege that they are legitimate.

“Unlocks must be total, absolute. Prolonged blockades are not legitimate, even with the humanitarian corridors. They affect the right to work, they are bankrupting our businessmen,” said yesterday Emilio Archila, the new government official responsible for leading the dialogues with the Committee, after the surprising resignation of the former High Commissioner for Peace, Miguel Ceballos, who left the post to run for the presidency in 2022.