The images of the assassination of Javier Ordoñez by two police officers who immobilized him, beat him and electrocuted him to death, as torture, ran through the social networks and media, generating a broad repudiation in mass movements and centrally among the youth.
We recall the historic November 21, 2019, when the people rose up against Duque’s coup, but also against the systematic assassination of social leaders, for the dismantling of the ESMAD, and against the murderous doctrine of military and parastatal forces. Now, during the COVID-19 pandemic, austerity policies has deepened, together with militarization and repression by the regime represented by the Duque-Uribe government, whose party, the Democratic Center, centralizes legislative, executive and judicial power, in addition to making the living conditions of the working class more precarious, while saving companies like Avianca and ensuring the impunity of the systematic massacres that have crossed the fibers of all the Colombian people.
Thus, the indignation that exploded on the night of September 9 is a clear expression of repudiation of the regime, the criminal institutions of the state, and the advance of paramilitarism that is an accomplice of the Duque-Uribe government, which today has shown an amount of more than 50 massacres in the course of the year, 219 people murdered by the policy of repression and death that reigns in the sidewalks, town halls, communes, peripheries and other places in the country where the regime sees the need to silence the rise of social and popular struggle that is spreading with strong conviction and rebellion in our country.
The anger and pain could not be contained any longer. The spontaneous mobilization in the streets was full of shouts and struggle against Javier’s murderers, who are on the loose with the permission of the government and institutions, since they are covering them up and protecting them. Instead of imprisoning the guilty, as they have all the pertinent evidence to do so, the case is being investigated by the prosecutor’s office, an institution imbued with Uribism that, through Duque’s words, exalts the gallantry of the police after the murders perpetrated by that institution with firearms during the protests. Under these conditions, thousands of people are murdered in apparent silence, but the people do not forget the historic genocide in our country. In these days where torture and murder is the rule, the uprising is the only answer!
In Bogota, the police killed more than 7 people with gunshots on National Human Rights Day, one of them a minor with 3 shots in his body. The brutal repression by the police that perpetrated this massacre and left hundreds of people wounded during their legitimate exercise of their right to protest makes it clear that the people’s executioners are slipping through the streets, but once again they are met with the radical and positioned response of the youth and the people, who are not willing to back down from their repression, and that reaffirm at every moment the need to combat fiercely against any institution that wants to perpetuate the historic genocide that the reactionary Duque government is deepening together with the Ministry of Defense that imposed the militarization of the city, thus supporting the crimes of the police and setting forward the massacre with impunity. The police in Colombia have the characteristic of not being a civilian force, therefore, they are directed by the Ministry of Defense and the government, a situation that gives them a framework of independence from the orientation of the mayor’s office in Bogotá. This has led Claudia López to separate herself as the person politically responsible for the acts of repression. However, she actually presides over the city’s security council, that is, she can give orders to repress and disperse the mobilizations; however, the last word is given by Commander Óscar Gómez Heredia, who is directly elected by the national government. A whole anti-democratic and authoritarian structure! Today, Claudia López talks about a reform of the police force with the aim of calming the mobilization, an issue that is functional to the government, since in order to achieve changes like those that she is even proposing, it is necessary to radicalize the struggle, not to moderate it under the false idea that it is possible to reform the state and in her own words “to recover confidence in the police.” It is already clear that one should not have any confidence in the institutions of the state. Let us not forget that the movement has historically called for the dismantling of the ESMAD and the supposed alternative policy of Claudia López and Daniel Quintero proposed protocols, in order to continue using this force to placate the people’s struggles. Therefore, the only way to defeat state terrorism and end the current regime once and for all is through organization and mobilization.
Channeling anger, indignation and struggle into organization
All this struggle must be channeled into forms of organization of the working class and popular sectors in order to achieve victories and to be able to advance against the genocidal regime. The confrontations must be increasingly firm, conscious and organized. For that reason, it is urgent to demand that the workers’ centres that are part of the CNP reactivate the regional assemblies, the national meetings and promote the workers’ assemblies by sector, to be able to define in unity the agenda of struggle and prepare in an organised way the confrontation against the regime in the streets and the fields. We must fight from below, within all the revolutionary organizations, the social organizations and the anti-bureaucratic trade unions to be able to establish these spaces of democracy and to be able to advance.
We agree with the Block for the Indefinite General Strike in the task of democratically organizing a strike and increasing the mobilization in all the regions of the country. To that extent, we propose that shock, first aid and food groups or committees be structured, with the objective of resisting and taking care of ourselves collectively in the face of the response of the military, police and parastatal forces.
State terrorism has been exposed and therefore it is necessary to guide this fight in order to deepen it against the genocidal regime and the capitalist system as a whole. Therefore, we are putting forward an anti-repressive program to guide our struggle:
- That there be a trial and jail for those responsible for the murder of Javier Ordoñez and the police who perpetrated the massacre on the night of September 9.
- For the dismantling of all the repressive forces of the state, the destruction of the paramilitary apparatus and the destruction of the counter-insurgency doctrine, which is what makes it possible for the repressive forces to act now.
- Immediate dissolution of the ESMAD.
- Trial and punishment of those directly and politically responsible for the crimes and massacres that have occurred above all within the repressive forces and the political apparatus of repression, murder, massacre, genocide and gender violence.
- For the immediate dismissal of mayors, judges and prosecutors who order, cover up and protect repressors and genocidaires.
For this reason we invite and encourage participation in the mobilizations that will be called from now on and always! The struggle is now, because there is a war against the people. Let us respond with struggle, for the construction of a different world from neighborhood, factory and territorial assemblies, and let confrontation and mobilization in the streets be what constantly pushes us towards a radically different society!
Impulso Socialista
International Socialist League