The flames of the popular rebellion continue to spread throughout the continent, in 2018 the uprisings in Nicaragua, Argentina and Colombia, in 2019 Chile, Ecuador and Bolivia, in 2020 Costa Rica, Peru and Guatemala, today again Colombia in full force, rekindling unsettled conflicts in other countries, and tracing paths of organization and resistance against capitalist violence and state terrorism.
By Alternative Anticapitalista
On April 18, 2018, we, the Nicaraguan people, took to the streets en masse to reject the economic reforms to social security implemented by the government of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) and imposed by the IMF. These reforms aimed to increase the contribution quotas for workers by 7% instead of 6.25% per year and for employers 21% compared to 19%, likewise it would have reduced pensions 5% in terms of medical coverage. These neoliberal measures meant a setback in terms of rights and the possibility of living a dignified life.
In this context, we mobilized and demanded the annulment of said reform, at the same time that we repudiated the brutal repression of a group of elderly people in the city of León. Faced with this, the bourgeois and neoliberal state responded with weapons and bullets to our heads and chests. By June 2018, 325 people had been murdered, including 24 children and adolescents, more than 2,000 people had been injured, and more than 800 people detained and arbitrarily tried according to a report issued by the IACHR.
The mobilizations continued demanding the resignation of the dictator and the dismantling of his repressive legal and unofficial forces. Now in 2021, a flawed “electoral” process is being imposed on us, led by the de facto powers, the dictatorship, businessmen and the “international community”, leaving a margin of impunity for the crimes against humanity committed by the State. In view of this, we continue to call for a process of independent organization committed to justice with a program of transition against impunity, and along with democratization, we aim for the re-founding of the country on new, anti-capitalist, feminist and eco-socialist bases via a Plurinational Constituent Assembly.
Today, three years later, on April 28, 2021, the Colombian people shouted from every corner of Colombia their rejection of the neoliberal package implemented by the government of Ivan Duque. It consists of a set of reforms that subordinate the country to the interests of the IMF and the World Bank, specifically the reform´s increases of VAT on food, public services and the internet service that is essential to develop education and work in this pandemic. In addition, it plans to expand the base to declare income at salaries of more than 2,400,000 and 1,624,000 COP (approximately $ 624-422 dollars, respectively).
In simple words, these measures, just as in Nicaragua, mean a setback in terms of rights and widening inequality gaps, thus impacting on the possibility of a decent life for the working class and the popular sectors. From April 28 to May 5, the Colombian national police killed 37 people, injured 222, illegally detained 831, shot out the eyes of 22 people and committed 10 sexual abuses that were registered.
Faced with this situation and with the experience of the brutal repression at the hands of the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship in Nicaragua, we send a deep embrace of solidarity and strength to the Colombian people. Together with them, and our sister organization Impulso Socialista we shout in rejection of the subjugation of the State Bourgeoisie, the IMF and the World Bank in Colombia, Nicaragua, throughout Latin America and the world. At the same time, we categorically reject the position of indifference that the Nicaraguan opposition and the State itself have assumed. They make it clear, once again in whose service their words and actions are in. However, the accumulation of violence, experiences of inequality in the face of this system, make us grow strength and hope every year, every day, every night, for that reason we support the people who take to the streets in any part of Latin America and the world.
Therefore, from Alternativa Anticapitalista we emphasize the breakdown of legitimacy that the capitalist system has in its phase of total decline today, and we call for popular, massive and permanent mobilization; for the construction of organizations independent of the powerful and to promote a transition program in the service of turning the entire world economic system upside down. To defeat the package, the tax reform, the repression, the health crisis and the Uribista government of Duque, we echo the demands of our brothers and sisters of Impulso Socialista in Colombia, and from Alternativa Anticapitalista, Nicaraguan section of the International Socialist League, we stand in solidarity with the mobilized Colombian people; we repudiate the brutal repression of the Duque government, we demand an independent investigation and trial and punishment of those responsible for it; we join the claim for the fall of the Duque package and the immediate resignation of his government; and we support the proposals of Impulso Socialista for the non-payment of the foreign debt, the nationalization of banking and foreign trade, the implementation of progressive taxes on large fortunes, the elimination of VAT from the basic food basket, a general increase in wages, a basic income to the unemployed and the need for the democratic self-organization of the working people and sectors in struggle, in the perspective of a workers´ government.
#SOSColombia
#FueraDuque #AnticapitalistasNic