Colombia: In face of the surrender of the national strike committee. For a way forward from below. Free and sovereign national constituent assembly to discuss everything!

By Impulso Socialista – ISL Colombia

It has already been two months since the great outburst of the Colombian people. This historical process put the Duque government against the ropes and opened important cracks in the Uribe regime. It is part of a left turn in the continent as a result of the processes of struggle that have taken place since 2018 against the policies of austerity put forward by the governments, that seek to unload the capitalist crisis deepened by the pandemic on the shoulders of the working class and the popular sectors. 

Duque´s government and the Uribista regime have suffered great blows as a result of the current social crisis. The brutal repression combined with the paramilitary offensive deployed to contain the outburst has not been able to defeat the movement. The people in the streets and, mainly the youth, have stopped the implementation of their program and have forced them to give in some concessions, which are still small, but that have opened up the possibility of going further, demanding structural change.

However, despite the fact that the energy to fight and the resistance against State terrorism remains, some exhaustion in the process is beggining to show, with the last peak of massive and national mobilization dating back to May 28. The dismantling of the mobilization promoted by the National Strike Committee has had an effect on the intensity of the struggle, but the process is still alive. There is so much political and social instability that at any moment the energy of struggle with which it began can be resumed. Despite State terrorism (human rights violations by the police and the Armed Forces have caused 48 murders, 448 forced disappearances, 3,155 cases of police violence and 106 cases of gender-based violence), the people continue fighting and rejecting the genocidal actions and the austerity of the government.

The bureaucratic role of the National Strike Committee (CNP) prevents the deepening of the struggle, since as a leadership it managed to decompress the mobilization in the street in four ways: first, by not calling for a true general strike to stop production with workers’ assemblies by sector; second, by negotiating with the government behind the back of the mobilized masses and the popular assemblies; third, at the head of FECODE, lifting the teachers strike; and finally announcing that it would no longer call for mobilizations in the country. In all this, it fulfills the role of convener and passive spectator without being a vital force in the movement.

This action is part of the line of the reformist sectors of the center-left within the Pacto Histórico and the center-right of the Coalición de la Esperanza, which act within the union bureaucracy and social movements. They seek to channel everything towards the presidential elections of 2022 preventing the struggle in the street from defeating the Duque government by revolutionary means, pushing everything towards an orderly solution for the bourgeoisie that does not touch the regime, and ultimately, the capitalist-imperialist plans for structural adjustment and precariousness spearheaded by the IMF, the World Bank and the OECD.

This situation has led to a generalized rejection of the CNP by the most radicalized sectors of the youth and the people, since they do not feel represented in any of its policies of surrender and class conciliation. Therefore, a new genuine leadership must be built that can truly overcome the bureaucracy. It is very important for the movement to remove the obstacles that do not allow the advancement and development of the outburst. The National People’s Assembly (ANP) emerged as a possible alternative, but it was called very late and in the midst of the decline in mobilization, which is why it did not really bring together the vanguard that has been at the forefront and all sectors in struggle. It is necessary to strengthen the intervention of the working class, since not only the popular sectors and the youth, together with the social movements can sustain the mobilization, it is urgent to nurture the ANP of unions and anti-bureaucratic union leaders to advance to a true mass general strike. We need the participation of the indigenous and peasant movement, of the social movements and of the youth of the first line, in order to organize a great force that pulls the government and allows us to push for a program where it is the majority who govern and decide our future. This implies that the ANP cannot fall prey to reformism that wants to accumulate force for the elections.


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A new ANP is approaching in the city of Cali, center of the resistance at the national level. That is why we must push for all sectors in struggle and the organized working class to participate and elect a new Popular National Coordination to help organize from below and with class independence, to advance and move aside the CNP union bureaucracy that works as a buffer against this enormous combative energy.

For a free and sovereign National Constituent Assembly to discuss everything!

As revolutionaries we propose a perspective for the movement to continue the struggle that began to throw Duque out, and not allow everything to go to elections without real structural changes, as it is not a question of changing from one government to another that end up managing the misery that imperialist capitalism wants to impose in the midst of the world economic crisis. That is why we propose to advance in the struggle for a free and sovereign National Constituent Assembly, which allows the people to discuss all the demands that are needed so that the crisis is not paid by the working class and the popular sectors, and on the contrary, it lays the foundations for the people to continue mobilizing until profound changes are achieved.

Let’s build a revolutionary leadership

This historic moment of the class struggle in the world, and today in Colombia, presents revolutionaries with great opportunities to build the tool that is required to defeat the capitalist system that condemns the working class and popular sectors to misery. This implies forming a strong revolutionary party that can sweep aside the reformist and social democratic leaderships that make pacts with the right and the regime to stop the struggle.

We call for the regroupment of the revolutionary sectors that are part of this strong struggle to build an alternative, with the aim of hitting with the same fist and building a path so that it is the working class and the popular sectors who really govern.

Impulso Socialista and the International Socialist League propose the defense of the tasks that allow us to retake and advance the struggle that was opened to throw out Duque and the Uribista regime and bring about fundamental changes. We invite you to be part of this alternative that is needed to turn everything around.

Duque and all his government out! Let’s promote the Popular Assemblies!

General strike and popular assemblies until the working class and the people rule.

Against the genocidal and paramilitary Uribe regime, the elections are not the way out, let’s demand a National Constituent Assembly to discuss everything.