Colombians Protest President Duque, Calling for More Action
Protesters flooded Plaza Bolivar in the center of Bogotá. ( Wikipedia)
Colombians marched into the streets in protest of conservative President Iván Duque on Thursday, November 21.
Despite the light rain, more than 200,000 protesters gathered around Bogotá’s historic Plaza Bolivar carrying colorful umbrellas and powerful signs. Colombians are angry about growing economic inequality, government corruption, and a lack of action surrounding many pressing issues.
The crowd comprised of student, teacher, labor, political, and social groups, each protesting their own grievances.
University students rallied against corruption and the underfunding of education. Although Duque increased the education budget last year to levels he claims are the “highest” in Colombian history, student groups accuse the government of not fully complying with agreements, emphasizing a particular lack in funding for science.
Labor unions feared pension cuts, tax reforms, minimum wage, and the privatization of state companies. Women’s rights groups demanded a change in gender equality policies while environmentalists marched to protect grasslands and prohibit fracking.
Indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities rallied to bring attention to an increase in threats and violence that has tainted their communities, emphasizing the continuation of human rights abuses after a failure to fully enforce a peace agreement with leftest rebels. The violence includes the recent killing of indigenous people by criminal groups in Cauca and the bombing of the rebel group ‘Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia’ (FARC) that killed at least eight children on November 7. This attack had prompted the resignation of Defense Minister Guillermo Botero, who allegedly withheld information prior to the tragic incident.
While protesters represent a variety of groups, they are united in their call for President Duque’s government to do more for the country. One demonstrator, Camila, who decided to protest in response to the attack on the eight children, put it very simply: “We need them to listen to the people, we need Duque to govern for all.”
Although the protests began peacefully, they gradually grew violent by the end of the day. The police resorted to using tear gas against protesters who threw rocks and bottles, chanted “Get out Duque!” Reports of looting, a truck bomb explosion, and bus crashes further escalated the violence.
Between Thursday and Friday, 146 people were detained amid the unrest, while 151 police officers and 122 civilians were injured, most of whom were hospitalized for inhaling tear gas. Six people were killed.
On Friday night, the day after protests erupted, the capital city of Bogotá enacted a curfew, the first of its kind in 43 years.
Colombia joins the list of many other South American countries whose citizens have resorted to mass protesting. However, experts say the situation in Colombia is unlikely to intensify to the degree of those in neighboring Chile, Bolivia, and Ecuador. While the demonstration on November 21 was planned a month in advance, initially to protest rumors of Duque cutting labor pensions, protesters are not specifically unified under a central cause.
“The protests have successfully brought together a lot of different groups, but there is no one rallying cry or one coherent social movement organizing so it will be difficult to sustain it in an organized fashion,” says Dr. Christopher Sabatini, the senior fellow for Latin America at Chatham House, a think tank based in the U.K.
Duque suffers from a low approval rating of 26 percent, a figure that starkly contrasts with his predecessors, Juan Manuel Santos and Álvaro Uribe, who both enjoyed approval ratings in the high 60 and 70 percent ranges, at the same point in their presidencies in 2010 and 2002.
In response to the protesters, President Duque offered words of assurance, saying in a televised address early Friday, “Today, Colombians spoke. We hear them. Social dialogue has been a main principle of this government and we need to deepen it with all sectors of society and speed up the social agenda and the fight against corruption.”