New day of protests in Colombia: "Iván Duque has little leadership to get out of the crisis"

They closed public transportation in Cali and deployed a legion of officials, dressed in blue helmets, to mediate in possible clashes between security forces and protesters.. They also closed public transport, which has been vandalized, and locked up the ESMAD (riot police), the body that the National Strike Committee demands to dismantle. They will only act in extreme cases. Everything so that the demonstrations, called for this Wednesday, take place normally in the city that has become the epicenter of violence that has clouded the protests.

It will not be possible to count the follow-up to the general strike, because without buses, with blockades in some parts of the city and with the risk of being caught in the middle of the riots, most companies and businesses preferred not to open their doors.. But the response of the citizens, in mobilizations that lasted twenty-two days, with the consequent economic damage, was massive.

“Critical citizen expression and pressure must be maintained without blocking or paralyzing the country,” Angélica Lozano, senator of the social democratic Green Party, told EL MUNDO. “The false attitude of dialogue of President Iván Duque, his reluctance to recognize abuses by the public force, are blowing up the relationship of the institutions with the citizenry for the long term.. The Strike Committee only represents a piece of the strike, it does not collect the massive voice of young people who are on the streets and have no option to study or work.”

He also blames the Head of State for “little leadership to get out of the crisis, in the middle of the aggressive third peak of the pandemic, when the crowds invigorate the virus and the ICUs are at their best.”

road blocks

On the day, in which so far there have been few disturbances to public order, one of the exceptions was Buenaventura, 80 kilometers from Cali. There were clashes with the police and looting. From the department of Valle del Cauca, with half a million inhabitants, mostly poor, it is home to the only port on the Pacific Ocean. It had been closed since April 28, with significant detriment to the economy, and now they have allowed the opening of humanitarian corridors to transport basic products.

It is precisely the roadblocks that have been a point of contention. The President intends to remove them by force, if necessary, a method that the unions repudiate.

In other regions, such as Caquetá or Norte de Santander, coca farmers who reject the eradication of their crops also participated.. Some joined voluntarily, but others, as this newspaper has learned, are forced by the guerrillas.. They intend to avoid the destruction of their crops with aerial spraying of glyphosate, a measure that raises blisters in opposition political sectors.

And if it was already complex for Duque to begin eradication, it will be almost impossible in the coming weeks given the climate of maximum tension and the political weakness of the government, which sees how its initiatives do not find the support of its allies at this time.

In any case, the demands of the claimants are so many and diverse, some with hardly any social representation, that it will not be easy for the government to make concessions and appease the anger so that people return to their homes.

For tomorrow, Thursday, at 7 in the morning (2:00 p.m. on the peninsula), they have scheduled the fourth meeting between the Strike Committee and the government delegates, with Miguel Ceballos, High Commissioner for peace, at the head.