The failed social and economic policies of the Colombian government are some of the main reasons for the strikes and social unrest in the country in 2020 and 2021, as well as the detriment of people's possibilities and capabilities to have a dignified life.
Colombian human rights defender Walter Agredo Muñoz said in an interview with Global Exchange and Península 360 Press that "society was taken by surprise when the anger accumulated over sensitive issues such as inequality, exclusion and corruption by the country's right wing led to strikes by the population."
And during 2020, the activist said, inequality "cost many lives", especially among young people in Santiago de Cali, where the social outbreak led to people becoming aware, which generated demonstrations of solidarity among those protesting on the part of society, supporting the cause with humanitarian accompaniment.
Interviewed by reporter Alina Duarte, Agredo Muñoz mentioned that young people are the creators of the first lines of protest against the state because they represent a stigmatized youth that continually seeks to belong to an economic and social system that constantly, for reasons of preparation and prejudices, rejects them.
This, he continues, "leads to the exhaustion of the young people who decided to organize and meet in different parts of Cali, Puerto Resistencia and Siloé, and who were unjustly linked to the National Liberation Army as a way of stigmatizing them, which was justification by the government to kill them."
In response to the protests, the government sent General Eduardo Enrique Zapateiro Altamiranda, who said he would restore order in less than two weeks. However, the problem took up to three months to resolve, but not before implementing "terrorist" policies among the population, as the human rights defender mentions.
One of the sectors most affected by the policies of order implemented by the government following the strikes of 2020 and 2021, in addition to organizations, is the countryside. This is because the peasant sector has experienced most of the attacks by a terrorist state disguised as a democracy, he said.
Agredo Muñoz, who also considers himself part of the Historic Pact, mentions that he fears that the results of the elections to be held on June 19 will not be experienced as an election, but as an imposition, in response to which, the different sectors that make up the "Pact", such as women, Afro-Colombians, indigenous people and the LGBTI community, would be willing to use legal means and channels to carry out peaceful social protests.
The draft of the Historic Pact has been seen to be distorted by the opposition
Agredo Muñoz talks about the distortion that the concept of the "Historic Pact" headed by candidate Gustavo Petro and Francia Márquez has suffered in Colombia, and states that there has been a distortion since properties will be expropriated, when in reality the pact says: it is focused on ensuring that people with limited resources have guaranteed basic services and are attended to with quality services.
"Living well, as they call it in Colombia, refers to that, to enjoying the basic rights of health, education and housing."
This article was produced with the support of a group of journalists covering the first round of elections in Colombia, sponsored by the organization Global Exchange, in collaboration with Península 360 Press.
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