Statement regarding the recent events against black youth in Cartagena, Colombia
“We desire paths of freedom, justice, love and dignity for youth, but above all for Black youth who have been historically marginalized, ignored, discredited and forgotten.”
From the CLACSO Working Group “Afro-descendants and counter-hegemonic proposals” We make the following statement in solidarity with the families of the victims and in rejection of the events that occurred with the youth and with the black bodies of the periphery of the city of Cartagena de Indias in Colombia.
By order of the Colombian state, from the beginning of the quarantine imposed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, many working-class neighborhoods on the outskirts of Colombian Caribbean cities were locked down and militarized as a strategy to "minimize" the high number of coronavirus cases in the impoverished areas of the capital cities. Thus, in the case of Cartagena de Indias, countless human rights violations and attacks against the lives of young people from these neighborhoods, particularly Black youth, began to increase at the hands of the city's military, repressive, and police forces.
These abuses, mistreatment, and intimidation culminated in five unsolved murders of Black people between June 2020 and January 2021, most of them young, impoverished Black people. Therefore, through this statement, we want to express that THEIR LIVES MATTER TO US, and we urgently demand the clarification of the deaths of: Andrés Arturo Chiquillo Reyes (27 years old, El Pozón neighborhood, June 09, 2020), Carlos Moré Calvo (26 years old, Manuela Vergara neighborhood of Curi, July 19, 2020), Harold David Morales Pallares (17 years old, San Francisco neighborhood, August 24, 2020), Angel Enrique Arrieta Matos (42 years old, República de Venezuela neighborhood, December 26, 2020), and Martín Elías Morales (17 years old, Villa Estrella neighborhood, February 7, 2021).
We know that neoliberal capitalism resorts to these forms of death and that these outbursts of dreams, hopes, and emotions are not disconnected from the strategies of dispossession and criminalization of the lives of Black people as part of the colonial structure of a country that views our bodies as disposable, killable, and bound to constant verification and permanent control.We know that these deaths operate under the complicity of an institutionalized racism that de-citizenizes us, invalidates us, and discredits our ways of existing!
We want to reiterate that our political and academic commitment is also aimed at defending the lives of Black youth in working-class neighborhoods, who, through their own expressions of ancestral resistance, continue a path of struggle between life and death. For this reason, we demand that the State provide full transparency regarding these systematic killings of impoverished Black people by the State. National Police of Cartagena.
We stand with grassroots community organizations, collectives, and social movements that, through creativity and collective strength, are calling for justice and the structural reform of a racist and violent police system. We join our call of support with the strength of each of the activists and social leaders who, driven by the unstoppable dream of social justice, continue their work amidst these atrocious circumstances. We embrace them and are encouraged to continue this regional unity in defense of the lives of Black youth in Latin America and the Caribbean, with hope.
We stand with the families of the victims, and we share the collective outrage of marginalized and abused communities. We don't want another young Black person murdered, humiliated, or mistreated! We want a youth who can enjoy public spaces peacefully, serenely, and safely. A youth who rejoices in their time with all the guarantees to live, love, dream and resist.
Not a minute of silence, a lifetime of struggle!
February 19th 2021
CLACSO Working Group
Afro-descendants and counter-hegemonic proposals
This statement expresses the position of the aforementioned Working Group Afro-descendants and counter-hegemonic proposals and not necessarily that of the centers and institutions that make up the CLACSO international network, its Steering Committee or its Executive Secretariat.
