- by Pedro Kisan
- The Guardian
- Issue #2202
Popular leaders in Colombia have convened a demonstration and a day of peaceful civil disobedience to challenge the legitimacy of the incoming far-right President.
The site for the protest was Puerto Rellena, is a key point of the 2021 social outbreak, when mass demonstrations confronted the neoliberal policies and tax increases of Iván Duque’s government.
The leadership warned that the rise of the far-right President represents a dangerous advance towards fascism in Colombia. They also warned that the administration of Abelardo de la Espriella is connected to a US push for dominance over Latin America.
The new administration also fuels fears among the peasantry over a possible environmental collapse under the policies announced by the incoming Executive.
The demonstration included indigenous Minga participants.
Territorial spokespersons recalled that De la Espriella provided legal defence for police officers involved in attacks against young protesters during the 2021 demonstrations. Leaders also repudiated the incoming president’s recent warnings about demolishing the Monument to Resistance, erected in memory of victims of state repression.
De la Espriella represents a profound ideological turn for Colombia, as the new administration systematically dismantles the social, peace, and environmental strategies of the previous progressive executive.
De la Espriella moved his investiture to an area outside Bogotá. Community leaders denounced the decision as a symbolic manoeuvre to confront Colombia’s southwest where the progressive candidate Iván Cepeda obtained more than 60% of the votes.
The new administration has lost no time in making Colombia less equal, with a measure to freeze public spending alongside a tax reform aimed at eliminating the country’s wealth tax.
De la Espriella has vowed to join the US ‘Shield of the Americas’ agreement, a US mechanism to share intelligence against organised crime as well as against what the US calls “interference” in the Western Hemisphere, referring to countries in Latin America having relations with China.
