Colombia on National Strike: What and who will negotiate?

Carolina Bautista[1]

The National Strike that began on April 28 has once again brought to the forefront an undeniable fact: the transformation of social struggle in Colombia. It is not only about reclaiming protest as a right by breaking the historical stigma it has faced, but also about multiple changes in the ways people take to the streets and express their voices, both in person and online, a significant generational shift, and a change focused on ethnic and gender diversity.

Amidst so many transformations, the traditional leadership of the social and popular movement has also been overtaken because this mobilization, like that of 2019, lacks total centrality and single leaders. Moreover, at the local level, the fundamental bastion of protest, those who convene, who put their heart and soul into it, are learning their craft in this Colombian May of 2021. This includes the young people on the front lines; the university students who are now mobilizing both within their academic community and their neighborhoods; the mothers demanding respect for their children's lives; the feminist collectives, LGBTQ+ groups, and the artistic and cultural movement; the inhabitants of the smallest towns where marches and blockades had never been seen before; and also the new generations of union members, mingueros and mingueras (members of the mingueros and mingueras), Afro-Colombian activists, human rights defenders, and environmental activists, among many others.

The level of fragmentation we see today—its greatest strength and its greatest challenge—also speaks to the magnitude of the problem(s): it is a national issue that unfolds with particularities at the local and regional levels; it is structural and concerns us all; this must be accompanied by responses of a similar nature. The supposed openness to dialogue by Iván Duque's government is clearly insufficient, as it consists of closed-door meetings with small groups of people, mostly from the elite, in which everyone speaks, particularly the president, few listen, and the establishment decides. In this sham dialogue, the day is for photo ops of useless conclaves in Bogotá, while at night military and paramilitary repression is fueled. Why do they do it? Well, it is just one piece in the chess game of attrition, crafted primarily with violence, with which they intend to subdue the most significant popular uprising in Colombia's contemporary history.

But it would be both naive and obtuse to think that this is merely a wild, chaotic, and aimless movement. While all renewal is fraught with contradictions, the one experienced by the Colombian social and popular movement is the product of the last twenty-five years of struggles that have left a significant accumulation of demands and proposals for reforms to the functioning of institutions, alternative laws across multiple sectors, and popular mandates.

Furthermore, at the gathering points, popular assemblies are being held to organize and systematize demands, as was done by the members of the First Line in Puerto Resistencia, Cali, the city hardest hit by state violence in its police and paramilitary forms. Thus, the First Line, a purely grassroots movement, has made it clear that it is not only courageous enough to defend the mobilization with shields and stones, but also has proposals to “be heard and not excluded,” as stated in its communiqué. The thematic pillars of their demands are clear: human rights violations by the state, access to health, education, work, and pensions, investment in recreation and culture, as well as in the construction of memorial spaces for the victims of police and paramilitary brutality. They also promote two levels of negotiation, one national and one local, inviting various social, economic, political, and institutional actors, which is a starting point for a real dialogue, not a simulated one like the one Iván Duque intends.

The young people on the front lines are showing great clarity amidst the apparent chaos. The national conversation and the decisions the country needs cannot happen solely in Bogotá. The strike must be resolved in the medium term at the local level, with the people who are mobilizing, and at least around two key issues: an end to state violence and social justice, which is nothing less than peace, something the Colombian people have been demanding for decades. At the national level, in the short term and as a minimum condition for negotiation, it is essential that the Duque government demilitarize the country and dismantle the criminal machine embodied by the National Police's Mobile Anti-Disturbance Squadron, in order to prevent further additions to the painful toll of 40 people killed by state forces in 14 days of protest. Likewise, the government must commit to guaranteeing COVID-19 vaccines and a universal basic income, and decline the purchase of aircraft and other equipment for the war it persists in fueling.

National organizations of social movements and more traditional leaders, rather than appointing themselves as general spokespeople, can instead help forge common ground between sectoral demands, the demands of the 2019 strike, and the programmatic proposals developed over the last twenty years, incorporating the demands of the current mobilization. From this juncture, it is necessary to embark on a broad process of popular legislation, programs built from the ground up by the people with the full force of the mobilization, to create a different country and to ensure that anyone aspiring to elected office next year is compelled to "lead by obeying," as the Zapatistas in Mexico would say. And beyond the electoral aspect, the fundamental point is that the popular discontent resisting violence is clearing the path of hope for the country. Thank you to all those who are mobilizing for this!

[1] University lecturer, member of the CLACSO Working Group “States in Dispute”.
Article published in “Revolutions”