Colombia has joined an ever-increasing number of countries in South America to be engulfed by incendiary protests, as people lash out at a seemingly helpless situation. The combination of a turbulent economic climate and political instability, coupled with the horrific impact of the coronavirus on the continent, has fuelled a sense of exasperation which has transformed into violent clashes over the past weeks. Since they began in April, over 50 people have lost their lives and purportedly 77 have gone missing, which has increased pressure on the government of Iván Duque Márquez to find a resolution. However an obstacle to that aim is the nature of Colombia’s protests: they are a stand against the general and varied problems of the country, not united by a single objective and not able to be remedied simply.
Speaking to the Financial Times, former mayor of Cali, Maurice Armitage prophesied that, “In the coming years Colombia will undergo a social convulsion which if we are not prepared for it . . . will see this country go to hell. We know very well how to kill each other . . . but what we don’t understand is how to distribute income”.
Starting on the 28th of April in reaction to proposed tax reforms by the government, which would have eliminated current tax exemptions on individuals and an increase of taxes on certain businesses, Trade Unions and other amalgamations of groups protested all across Colombia. The movement grew, and the expansion of police detention areas on to football pitches and other informal points in cities such as Cali and Periera testifies to the scale of these events.
Similarly, the UN’s response to the protesters gives a sense of the international implications of such tumultuous events in an already unstable country. The UN Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachalet expressed deep concern at recent altercations in the city of Cali, which saw 14 people die from the 28th of May, and a further 98 injured. In an official statement, she was optimistic for the long-term handling of the situation, offering encouragement for a calm resolution, “I welcome the commitment voiced by several actors, in Cali, and at the national level, to find a negotiated and peaceful solution to the social unrest through talks.”
It is likely that the UN are anxious that events in Colombia will inflame tensions in the rest of South America, which has experienced both high death rates and an overly dour vaccine role-out, with the majority of countries having a full-vaccine rate of less than 15%, with the exceptions of Chile and Uruguay. This raises the probability of further lockdowns, or at the very least the elongation of existing mitigation methods. However, if the UN are serious about tackling the turbulence in Colombia, they may need to go further than encouraging the Colombian government to progress ‘through talks’. The insidious nature of the motivation of the Colombian protests may require intervention on the part of the Colombian government to open old and painful wounds; very old wounds.
Christopher Columbus did not found Colombia, despite giving his name to the country. He played no direct role in the formation or development of the nation, and even his last name was not bestowed upon modern Colombia specifically; it was a general term for the new world which gradually shrank to only encompass the north-westerly corner. And yet, Christopher Columbus’ statue being torn down has encapsulated Colombia’s deeper protest against their inherited past of oppression and colonialisation.
The fate of Columbus’ statue has sealed the reactions to others too: Isabelle of Castille and Sebastián de Belalcázar fell during heated exchanges in the protests. Whilst Castille was the Spanish queen in the late 15th century, Belalcázar was an infamous conquistador who ‘discovered’ the cities of Cali, Pasto and Popayán. A fundamental problem exists in history in that it is difficult to know if figures from the past should be measured to the standards of the present, but for Belalcázar, even his contemporaries were critical of his cruel and exacting methods. Arriving at a village named Quinche, Belalcázar discovered all of the men were away, fighting the national army. To punish them in a way they would never forget, he ordered the deaths of all of the women and children present, later recalled as a ‘cruelty unworthy of a Castilian’.
The legacy of tyranny left by the colonisers of the continent against the indigenous people seems to be enduring, and what is perhaps even more concerning than the actions of the conquistadors is the fact that Belalcázar’s statue was only erected in the 1930s, by a liberal Colombian government. This makes Colombia’s reaction to its past vital in its reformation in the future, as the backlash against what some Colombians have deemed to be symbols of oppression strengthens the indigenous movement in the country, and their desire for greater respect and representation. It was only in 1991 that indigenous groups were given recognition in the Colombian constitution, and this moment is in a large part devoted to the toppling of those historic prejudices.
Tata Pedro Velasco, leader of the Misak tribe, spoke out against the government’s actions, as reported by the Guardian.
“The indigenous communities of Colombia are marching in the face of historic problems. Armed conflict continues in our territories while the peace accord with the Farc is not implemented. We want the war in Colombia to end but the government of Iván Duque doesn’t… Indigenous people have long paid the price for Colombia’s war. We have lived through the colonial wars and now we are living through Duque’s war. The spirit of the government is the same as that of the colonizers.”
If the extent to these problems is as Velasco says, and if the momentum behind these protests is sustained, the Colombian government will not be able to sweep away its problems by upholding criminal charges against the people who took down the statues. It will require tireless and frustrating reflection, and make it necessary to have a new answer to the question, ‘what does it mean to be Colombian?’
