Statement regarding the critical situation our Colombian brothers and sisters are experiencing
Given the critical situation our Colombian brothers and sisters are experiencing, the CLACSO Working Group on Religion, Neoliberalism and Post-Decoloniality It expresses its solidarity with the Colombian people, the victims of the attack, their families, and their fellow searchers. It also joins the regional and global expressions of outrage and condemnation of these violations and calls for respect for the rule of law, the guarantee of freedom of expression, and the enjoyment of human rights for all.
This Latin American research group is aware that the demands that have brought Colombians to the streets in recent days, despite the peak of COVID-19 infections and deaths, respond to intolerable situations of inequality, impoverishment, non-compliance with the Peace Agreement, and official violence that were already being expressed by social movements in mass demonstrations before the pandemic.
The participation of Colombians in the just protests has been massive and widespread throughout the country. The vast majority of Colombians have expressed their demands and disagreements in a completely peaceful manner, but their demands have been met with aggression from the security forces, sabotage by violent agents of dubious origin, and disinformation spread by the major networks and media outlets.
During the months of the pandemic, hundreds of social leaders, human rights defenders, and demobilized signatories of the peace accords have been systematically murdered. Dozens of members of Indigenous communities defending their territorial autonomy and fighting against illicit crops have been massacred, including two female governors. In recent days, during the national strike, flagrant acts of violence have occurred, including murders, torture, the criminal use of weapons against protesters, massacres, disappearances, raids, arbitrary detentions, gender-based violence, destruction of property, and other violations of dignity and human rights perpetrated by the security forces.
In response to this situation, some religious or spiritual bodies have expressed their rejection and called for reconciliation and justice, although in many cases there is a complicit silence or no action of sufficient clarity and commitment, even though sometimes the institutions themselves have been caught in the middle of this violence.
Therefore, we request the representatives of our governments, as well as the OAS and UN agencies, and international diplomacy and cooperation in general, to initiate or continue actions with the Colombian government to end the repression and discrediting of social mobilization and to generate changes that guarantee democracy, free expression, and the consensual search for policies and measures that respond to the difficult existing socio-economic situation.
We respectfully urge President Iván Duque and his government to acknowledge the suffering of the people, to create the necessary mechanisms for an open dialogue that leads to the design of public policies and measures that guarantee both overcoming the socio-economic crisis and the exercise of democracy.
We invite all members of the public force to recognize in the marchers Colombian citizens, compatriots whom they swore to defend, who are in conditions of marginalization and who claim their rights to life, peace and stability.
10 of may 2021
CLACSO Working Group
Religion, neoliberalism and post/decoloniality
This statement expresses the position of the Working Group Religion, neoliberalism and post/decoloniality and not necessarily that of the centers and institutions that make up the CLACSO international network, its Steering Committee or its Executive Secretariat.
