We were not born for war. A statement to the youth and people of Colombia

To our Colombian brothers and sisters
In memory of the young people murdered in Colombia
To the mothers and fathers of the young people murdered in Colombia
To the young people who resist and create a new world in the countryside and cities

The Colombian State and the neoliberal necropolitics of the government of Iván Duque Márquez, which feeds on war and the bodies of young workers, peasants, blacks, indigenous people and students. We denounce the systematic extermination of young people in Colombia, evidenced by the thousands of cases of extrajudicial killings, massacres, hundreds of disappearances, and the daily occurrence of death in neighborhoods, plazas, fields, rivers, and mountains. We denounce the more than 30 young people murdered since April 28, 2021, by police and paramilitary forces at the service of the State. We denounce the attacks on life documented in at least 2110 cases of violence by the security forces, 362 victims of physical violence, 1055 arbitrary arrests of protesters, 442 violent interventions during peaceful protests, 30 victims of eye injuries, 133 cases of gunshot wounds, 16 victims of sexual violence, and 3 victims of gender-based violence. It is painful to understand that with each passing hour, the number of victims of police brutality increases.

We denounce the presence of plainclothes agents within the demonstrations, the attacks with firearms by illegal armed groups, the use of public transportation facilities to detain protesters, among other things. We denounce the criminalization of social protest, the censorship of information, the countless human rights violations, and the systematic nature of these events, which reveal the fascist structure of the Colombian government. We express our concern regarding the statements made by social sectors aligned with the ruling party that incite the use of firearms under the fallacy of self-defense, the declaration of a state of internal disturbance, and other arguments to justify physical, psychological, cultural, and symbolic violence within the context of the Colombian national strike.

We stand in solidarity with our sisters, brothers, and sisters in Colombia because, as Latin Americans, we share history, culture, pain, and struggles, and as young people, we share hopes, multifaceted visions, and a will to change everything. We are with you; we too know what it is to live and persevere in a hostile environment. We stand in solidarity with the mothers and fathers, families, and friends of the young people murdered by the State in Colombia, with the victims of torture, rape, and eye injuries. Millions of people around the world have taken to the streets, raising their voices and bodies in solidarity. We will heal together and rise again.

What is happening in Colombia resonates throughout Abya Yala, stirring our ancestors and all the spirits of the beings that inhabit us. In the midst of poverty, precarity, death, misrule, and the commodification of nature, it becomes necessary to defend and fight for life. What is happening in Colombia mobilizes our sensibilities, signaling that this struggle for a different reality is underway, and that it is only from this place of uprising, resistance, and popular organization against corrupt governments that we can envision emancipatory processes of change. Other worlds will continue to be possible in every young person who raises a shield in defense of life, in every young person who takes art to the streets, in every young person who organizes in the neighborhoods, in every young person who builds science with and for the people, in every young person who defends the age-old legacy of caring for the land, in every young person who preserves seeds, in every young person who returns to the countryside, and in each of our expressions of mutual support and solidarity. This historic moment for Colombia and for Abya Yala opens the door to our future. The strength of the continent and of our ancestors sustains us. We know that this outrage will fuel the necessary change for us and for future generations. There is no forgetting; these struggles will resonate within us. Memory will be our anchor to write other histories, for those who are here and for those who will come.

For our fallen youth, they will not take away our hope, our joy, our righteous anger to fight for justice, peace, and freedom. We will carry these flags high and thousands of us will be reborn for every Jeisson, Michael, Cristian, Pol, Charlie, Jesus, Brian, Marcelo, Miguel, Dadimir, Daniel, Eimer, María, Edwin, José, Julia, Rosemberg, Kevin, Brayan, Yinson, Santiago, Jefferson, Santiago, Yofri, Jhonatan, Nicolas, Kevin, José, Cristian, Harold, Wenceslao, Mauricio, Hector, Elvis, Dylan, Lucas, Daniel, Alison and for every disappeared person we keep alive in the power of our memory. Today they are light, today they are present, today they are the seed of the new world to come.

We join the Colombian people's outcry for the dismantling of the ESMAD and the resignation of Iván Duque Márquez from the government. No more death, no more repression, no more criminalization of legitimate and necessary protest.

Our mothers didn't give birth to us for war!

Long live the front line!
Long live the Indigenous Minga!
Go Colombia!
Strength to Us!

Latin America, May 17, 2021
CLACSO Working Group
Political agroecology

Signatories

This statement expresses the position of the Working Group Political agroecology  and not necessarily that of the centers and institutions that make up the CLACSO international network, its Steering Committee or its Executive Secretariat.