[The defeat of the regressive tax bill is an unprecedented triumph
for the youth, the urban poor, and the unions of teachers and health
care workers who promoted the uprising. ] [[link removed]]

COLOMBIA ON THE BRINK  
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Alejandra Marín Buitrago
May 7, 2021
CounterPunch
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_ The defeat of the regressive tax bill is an unprecedented triumph
for the youth, the urban poor, and the unions of teachers and health
care workers who promoted the uprising. _

, Humano Salvaje – CC BY-SA 2.0

 

In the last week, Colombia has experienced the most widespread civil
unrest of its modern history. Since Wednesday, April 28th, millions of
people have taken to the streets to fight back against a regressive
national tax reform bill. The bill, farcically called the “law of
sustainable solidarity,” aimed to cover budgetary shortfalls
resulting from the paralysis of the economy brought on by COVID. In
fact, the legislation was a cynical attempt by right-wing President
Ivan Duque to shift the burden of the economic crisis onto those who
can least afford it.

The Reforma Tributaria, as the bill was called, aimed to raise US $
6.3 billion (about 23 billion Colombian pesos), through regressive
sales taxes of 19% on essential products such as cereal, milk, sugar,
and coffee. It also threatened to impose 19% taxes on utilities
(water, electricity, and gas).[1]
[[link removed]] Meanwhile,
the financial sector and oil and mining corporations enjoy substantial
tax benefits that were granted as part of Duque’s last tax reform in
2019.[2]
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Demonstrations began last week with a strike, called by the Comité
Nacional del Paro and the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores (National
Strike Committee and the National Unions Council). By the weekend huge
protests had broken out in the major cities of Cali, Bogota, Medellin,
Pereira, and hundreds of other municipalities. On Sunday night, with
half a dozen cities up in flames, President Duque rescinded the bill.
But as you Americans are fond of saying, the horses were out of the
barn.

Throughout the week, protesters have remained on the streets in force,
fueled by anger at the poor management of the pandemic and widespread
sentiment that the government has completely lost touch with the
struggles and troubles of common people in the country. This feeling
has only been exacerbated by the extreme police brutality unleashed
during the strikes, which has left close to 30 dead, hundreds wounded,
and close to a hundred missing. Amnesty international has called the
use of force by ESMAD (the riot police of Colombia), “excessive and
unnecessary,”[3]
[[link removed]] and
the UN reported its own mission in Cali was attacked and threatened by
the police[4]
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What has emerged in the last week is a distinct pattern, a contrast
between tense protests during the day and police terror at night.
Daytime protests are often led by strike committee members and other
civil society groups: teachers, civil servants, students, activists.
These protests have been attacked by the ESMAD, but have remained
largely peaceful. At night, the security forces’ reign of terror
begins. Across the country reports have emerged of kidnappings,
assassinations, random shootings at unarmed crowds, and rapes. As
Bogotá based El Tiempo columnist Sandra Borda said in an interview
with the New York Times, Duque appears to be offering an olive branch
to protestors during the day and sending police and thugs out to kill
protestors by night.[5]
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In Bogota, the protests during the day have remained relatively
peaceful. Green Party mayor Claudia Lopez rejected Duque’s offer to
send troops alongside of ESMAD police and instead sent the army to
guard jails and police stations. However, protesters have denounced
ESMAD abuses and human rights activists have been detained. In the
south of Bogotá, the anti riots police (ESMAD) attacked protesters
with an electronic multiple projectile launcher propelled from a tank.
The “Venom,” as it is nicknamed, costs US $ 110,000, and the flash
grenade canisters of tear gas that it fires cost $ 71 a piece.[6]
[[link removed]] By
the middle of the week, on the 8th day of protests more than 27,000
protesters were gather in 20 points around the capital. Despite heavy
rains and strong ESMAD presence protesters held rallies at cities main
parks and universities. On Thursday, a major of the police in a town
near Bogotá was captured as person of interest for the murder of the
24 year old Brayan Niño, who has become a symbol of police violence
in the capital.[7]
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Last weekend Cali, a city of 3 million (the third largest in the
country), became the epicenter of the protests. Famed for its Salsa
dancing, a huge “salsa party protest” broke out in the streets,
with people dancing to the rhythm of their beloved salsa music and the
sound of the cacerolazos (banging on pots and pans, a universal form
of protest in South America, especially when food is at stake).
However, this week the situation in Cali has become increasingly
complicated. The city has been the focus of an intense police and
military crackdown on the protest—it is by far the most militarized
of Colombian cities at this point. However, this is in part because
the national strike has in Cali been infiltrated by unidentified armed
groups, which in addition to looting and stealing gasoline have been
accused of shooting protesters. In one strange case, protesters
actually convinced looters to return goods to stores. On Tuesday,
Caleños endured twelve-hour-long Internet and power outages.
Protesters were panicked because they could not get through to their
families and post on social media, the preferred mode of denouncing
ESMAD’s abuses. As of today, Cali has suffered the most cases of
police brutality and murders,[8]
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is running out of gasoline, as the main access roads to the city are
barricaded.

North of Cali, in the heart of the coffee region, Pereira was the site
of the tragic death of Lucas Villa-Vargas, one of the faces of the
movement. On Wednesday evening, Villa-Vargas, a college student of
physical education, was standing on El Viaducto, the main bridge
running into Pereira, when he was killed by a gunman in a drive-by
motorcycle shooting. As people who live in popular neighborhoods in
Colombian cities know well, two men approaching on a cheap motorcycle
is an ominous sign. Along with Villa, the gunman shot two other young
movement members, who are now fighting for their lives at a local
hospital.[9]
[[link removed]] The
mayor of Pereira has offered rewards for capturing the gunman and
hundreds of thousands of viewers have seen Lucas’s assassination
online. Amongst Pereiranos there is little doubt that Villa’s
murderer was a hired gun. Lucas’s leadership had become highly
visible among the protesters in Pereira; sadly, such recognition in
social justice protests often comes with a high cost in Colombia.

The rage over the proposed tax reform also comes amidst one of the
worst waves of Covid outbreak in the world. In many cities’ ICUs are
at full capacity, and the vaccination drive has been a resounding
failure. Less than 8% of the population have received the first dose
and many of those saw their second doses postponed as far as three
months due to lack of supplies. Instead of prioritizing direct
negotiating with Pfizer, the government authorized private health
companies to negotiate in order to purchase doses for the elite.
Public testing is hardly available, and at $50, private labs testing
is well beyond the budgets of most families.[10]
[[link removed]] The
day after the strikes began, the Minister of Health tweeted a threat
that cities with large strikes and protests would have their already
poor supplies of the vaccine suspended. He retracted his grotesque
threat a day later, but the damage was done.[11]
[[link removed]] Social
media and news outlets have ridiculed the incompetence of the
government and the high-profile staff who, as is well known throughout
the country, fly to Miami to get vaccinated while prioritized groups
in the low-income class wait anxiously for their first shots.[12]
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As in many countries, so in Colombia, covid has exacerbated what were
already, before the pandemic, outrageous wage and income disparities
and deep inequality. In Colombia 63.8% of the population earn no more
than a minimum wage, equivalent to US $270 monthly (DANE, 2020), and
2.2 million Colombian families eat only twice a day (DANE, 2020). The
percentage of people living in poverty went from 35.7% in 2019 to
42.5% in 2020 (Portafolio, March 2021). Contrast this with the
government officials who were poised to push through the regressive
reform. In Colombia, a member of congress earns thirty four times the
minimum monthly salary, or around US $9,430 every month. Congressman
and women also receive a monthly quota of plain tickets, a rented
bulletproof car, insurance, cellphone plans, and staff salaries for a
total monthly cost per member of US $ 25,837.[13]
[[link removed]] As
far as public spending goes, in March, Duque announced a decision to
acquire twenty-four last generation F-16 air force planes for US $ 4.5
billion. On Tuesday, May 4th, amid the protests, the minister of
finance withdrew the plan.[14]
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Across society, Colombian inequality is backed by a well-consolidated
stratum system. In the strata system, urban areas get assigned a
number from one to six according to the quality of the dwellings and
urban development (Decree-Law 3069/1968; Law 142/1994). The stratum
system is unique to Colombia, designed in the late 60s to redistribute
utilities costs by assigning subsidies to low strata (1 and 2) through
overpayments from high strata (5 and 6). However, in reality, it has
become a widespread mark of status and contributes to discrimination
and social immobility. While the strata system is not based on
household income, it has led to outcomes that are similar to the
effects of redlining in American cities. In a large city like Bogota,
a strata 5 person in the north could spend his or her entire life
without setting foot in the poor south. In all likelihood, the maids,
nannies, and doormen working for them are the only close relationship
with a low strata person that high-strata people ever experience. This
total disconnection, separating rich and poor, perhaps explains why
vice-president Marta Ramirez recently blamed informal workers
themselves for not having savings to ride out the pandemic, adding
that they should stop expecting welfare to solve their problems and
urging them to take the pandemic as an opportunity to “rebrand”
themselves.[15]
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Colombians have tended to respond to such ignominies with
meme-gallows-humor in social media. Likewise, they responded to
colossal corruption scandals, and continuous incites of public money
defraud. Each corruption scandal floods the news for a few weeks until
it dissolved into the next, hardly ever any high public official is
held accountable or the public money recovered. Meanwhile, neighboring
countries have overthrown presidents and convicted high officials for
similar white-collar crimes. Accurately, conservative sectors flaunt
that the country is the steadiest democracy in the continent. But last
week, sarcasm and passivity gave way to fury.

The resilience of the protesters is a hopeful sign for a country that
has not witnessed the level of popular urban protest and progressive
political organizing as many of its neighbors on the continent.
Colombia was, of course, home to Marxist guerrilla movements, most
famously the FARC, and experienced a half-century-long civil war. This
war, however, was fought in the rural hinterlands while cities remain
in compliance with every neoliberal reform implemented by one right
wing government after another. For decades, the very presence of the
unpopular guerilla helped the government and elites stigmatize and
delegitimize any political activity that showed the slightest
socialist influence. When more muscle was needed, paramilitary groups
could be relied on, and Colombia was long one of the most dangerous
places in the world for union organizers.

However, as Hylton (2020) has written, many Colombians see their
current political situation as a potential historical opening.
President Duque’s labor reform bill in 2019 catalyzed a nationwide
urban mobilization not seen since the 1977 civic strike.[16]
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this presidential period, protests have emerged as a regular feature
of Colombia’s political landscape. The defeat of the regressive bill
is an unprecedented triumph for the youth, the urban poor, and the
unions of teachers and health care workers who promoted the uprising.
The government, eager to regain control of the situation, has reached
out to the Comite del Paro to accelerate the time table for talks. The
Strike Committee has maintained that the demilitarization of the
cities is a condition of its coming to the table.

_Thanks to Patrick Madden for editorial assistance._

NOTES.

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_Alejandra Marín Buitrago is a Ph.D. student in urban planning at the
University of Illinois at Chicago. She’s a Colombian lawyer and a
former law in professor the cities of Pereira and Bogota. She can be
reached [email protected]._

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