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<font size="1"><a href="https://www.resumen-english.org/2021/06/colombia-the-crisis-that-no-one-talks-about-anymore/">https://www.resumen-english.org/2021/06/colombia-the-crisis-that-no-one-talks-about-anymore/</a>
</font><h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Colombia: The Crisis That No One Talks About Anymore</h1>By Alejandra Garcia on June 10, 2021</div><div class="gmail-content"><div class="gmail-moz-reader-content gmail-reader-show-element"><div id="gmail-readability-page-1" class="gmail-page"><div id="gmail-wrapper2">
<div id="gmail-attachment_17782" class="gmail-wp-caption"><p><img src="https://i2.wp.com/www.resumen-english.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/6-11-colombia-img.jpg?fit=825%2C550&ssl=1" alt="" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="445" height="297"></p><p id="gmail-caption-attachment-17782" class="gmail-wp-caption-text">Photo: <a href="http://radiomacondo.fm">radiomacondo.fm</a></p></div>
<p>Colombia is no longer news. In the past 24 hours, over 50 people were
injured by agents of the Mobile Anti-Riot Squad (ESMAD) during a new
night of terror and police brutality. But few outlets of the mainstream
media are covering the reality of this Latin American country, whose
people have been protesting in the streets against President Ivan Duque
for over one month.<span id="gmail-more-17784"></span> In fact coverage of
this significant countrywide social uprising in the face of violent
repression is practically nonexistent in the vaunted news agencies based
in the US.</p>
<p>The fact that at least 70 demonstrators have been killed in the
country in just one month amid the social outbreak is of no concern to
the corporate media, which have echoed Duque’s insults to his own
people. “Vandals, terrorists,” the president has called the protesters,
who are mostly young people, women, social leaders, members of the LGBTI
community, farmers, Indigenous people, and workers.</p>
<p>From time to time, EFE brings out reports on how the protests are
coming to an end because social anger has subsided. “The ‘takeover of
Bogota’ deflated with a march that was barely attended,” reads its most
recent publication, which alludes to the call made by the National
Strike Committee (CPN) to Bogota’s citizens to peacefully take to the
streets this Wednesday.</p>
<p>A different story is told by Portafolio, a local newspaper:
“Thousands of people marched chanting slogans against Duque and police
brutality to the Tequendama hotel, where the Inter-American Commission
on Human Rights (IACHR) is meeting with NGOs, victims, and institutions
during its working visit to the country to verify the human rights
situation amid protests.”</p>
<p>Despite the heavy rain that fell on the city, there were balloons,
slogans, flags, and tears for the victims of homicide, arbitrary
arrests, rape, and police violence. As night fell, the agents of the
state returned to attack the capital’s citizens with short and
long-range weapons and tear gas canisters.</p>
<p>Videos posted on social networks show a group of demonstrators
rushing several bloodied bodies to nearby hospitals. Other videos show
people placing makeshift tourniquets over the face of a protester who
was hit by a tear gas canister in his eyes.</p>
<p>Twitter has become an indispensable platform for denouncing the
police brutality to which Colombians have been exposed. Thanks to these
testimonies, the NGO Temblores reports that 70 people have been hit by
firearms, 50 journalists have been harassed, assaulted, and detained,
and 29 civilians have been arrested for documenting agents’ excessive
use of force.</p>
<p>The government remains silent and immobile in the face of the ongoing
human rights violations occurring in Colombia. Duque comes out of his
burrow to point the finger at other governments in the region as
responsible for the crisis he himself unleashed. He has set his sights
on Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, but this is not news either.</p>
<p>It is not a surprise that the Organization of American States (OAS)
Secretary-General Luis Almagro has recently requested the suspension of
Nicaragua’s membership, due to the “unprecedented onslaught” of
President Daniel Ortega against his opponents. It is worth clarifying
that the “onslaught” refers to the house imprisonment of opposition
leader Cristiana Chamorro, who is under investigation for money
laundering, abusive management, and ideological falsehood.</p>
<p>While the OAS sets its sights on Nicaragua, Almagro remains silent on
the 1,248 victims of physical violence and the 45 homicides committed
by members of the security forces from April 28 to May 31 in Colombia.</p>
<p>The European Parliament, which is also part of Duque’s support
network, has not raised its voice against the police brutality
encouraged by the Colombian government to contain the protests either.
However, it has wasted no time in trying to break relations between
Havana and Brussels “for the violations of civil liberties” that are
taking place on the Caribbean island.</p>
<p>“Everyone is to be blamed for this crisis: the strike, Santos,
Maduro, the pandemic, the Indigenous people, and the cousin of the
girlfriend of the neighbor’s son. Everyone, but the government. This is
how these rulers are who we have to go through life with, crying when
they are not in power and accusing the opposition when they are in
power,” said Colombian journalist Adolfo Zableh.</p>
<p>Colombia hurts, it hurts to see it so beaten and alone. But the pain
is inescapably necessary, according to Zableh. “At last we understand
that public interests are above private interests and that fattening
ourselves with our hands full while others starve is the wrong way. The
privileged ones have experienced just over one month something faintly
similar to what the rest of the country has gone through their entire
lives, and Duque is panicking.”</p>
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