RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The protests in Colombia on Wednesday, April 28, which brought to the streets tens of thousands of people unhappy with the tax reform bill presented by the Government to Congress, left two dead, 26 people arrested and 44 police officers injured, as well as considerable material damage due to vandalism, according to the authorities.
The tensest episodes took place in Cali (southwest), where the day began with a heated start after a group of Misak Indians knocked down the statue of the founder of the city, the Spanish conquistador Sebastián de Belalcázar.
The mayor of Cali, Jorge Iván Ospina, highlighted the “right to demonstrate against national government policies”, but regretted that while some were protesting, “other people in a premeditated, irresponsible and criminal manner (…) acted to vandalize our beloved Cali.”
According to the mayor, the “vandals divided the city into different areas and acted in the east, where unfortunately one person died in unclarified facts linked to the demonstration”.
Another person died in Neiva, the capital of the department of Huila while participating in the demonstration. His death was apparently caused by an epileptic seizure and, according to the hospital to which his body was taken, he had no ‘perforations or firearm wounds’.
Vandalism and violence
“Today we have seen that the worst enemy of social protest is vandalism and violence. There is no justification for acts of violence against citizens, private property, public property, and transport infrastructure,” said the Minister of the Interior, Daniel Palacios, when making a balance of the day.
For his part, the Minister of Defense, Diego Molano, advised that 44 policemen were injured, 30 of them in Cali, and added that 26 people were arrested in six cities, 19 of whom in Bogotá.
The Police and the Government did not yet report the number of civilians wounded, but social organizations such as the Defend Freedom Campaign, which raises the number of dead to four (three of them in Cali and the other in Neiva), speak of almost fifty wounded in several parts of the country.
In Bogotá, a group of individuals attacked the facilities of the television channel RCN and its international channel NTN24, an action that was rejected by the company in a communiqué.
‘From Noticias RCN and NTN24, we reject the attack suffered against the facilities of Canal RCN, promoted and executed by a group of violent individuals, that occurred today at three o’clock in the afternoon and that left material damages and put at risk the integrity of journalists and workers that we are part of this media.” denounced the directors of both channels.
Indignation against the reform
With ‘No to the tax reform’ incorporated into chants, banners, t-shirts, and posters, Colombians mobilized in the main cities claiming that the reform promoted by the Government of President Iván Duque means “‘unger and misery for the people.”
In Bogotá, there were mobilizations in several places, where, displaying flags, banners, T-shirts, and balloons, and to the rhythm of drumbeat batucadas, the demonstrators asked to reject the tax reform and clamored against the Government, also demanding a basic income.
“We are mobilizing against the tax reform that is being discussed in Congress and demanding basic income for the communities and for the people of the neighborhoods that have suffered the most from the consequences of the pandemic,” Maribel Salamanca, from the social organizations of Ciudad Bolivar, one of the poorest neighborhoods of Bogota, told Efe.
The increase in taxes on basic products of the family basket or the progressive increase in income tax for those who earn 2.4 million pesos a month (about 660 US dollars) may affect these populations, which have been the hardest hit economically by the pandemic.
The government claims that it needs to close the gap created by the pandemic in the State’s treasury, and with the tax reform it expects to collect 25 billion pesos (US$6.85 million).
Protest in the middle of the pandemic
The national protest was a source of controversy because Colombia is going through its third and worst peak of the pandemic, with ten consecutive days accumulating more than 400 deaths due to Covid-19, and even this Wednesday a record of 490 deaths was reached.
Despite the fact that on Tuesday a court decided to suspend “until achieving herd immunity” any protest in the country, the labor unions maintained the call for today’s mobilization, which they consider “a universal right enshrined in the political Constitution and which cannot be restricted by any authority,” according to what the president of the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores (CUT), Francisco Maltés, told Efe.
The biggest disturbances occurred in Cali, where stores and offices were attacked, some of which were set on fire by hooded men, as well as a public service bus.
In Bogotá, the demonstrations, which began with some minor altercations in the south of the city, were peaceful and almost festive, but ended with disturbances with the police in the Plaza de Bolivar, where several of the marches converged.
Late at night in different neighborhoods of Bogotá, pots, and pans were banged in support of the protest and in rejection of the Government’s unpopular tax reform which now seems likely to sink in Congress.