Notes

>What the fuck is happening?
On April 28th, Colombians all over the country started protesting against a tax reform and a health reform placed by Ivan Duque Marquez (who many Colombians see as a puppet to Alvaro Uribe Velez, the former far-right president). One of the things the tax reform would have done was raised the sales tax on things like food and utilities, plus internet and the health reform would have made healthcare in Colombia even harder for people to receive proper healthcare treatment. All of this even when 2.4 million Colombians can't even afford three meals per day, extreme poverty in Colombia is growing, the amount of
unemployed Colombians are growing, and not to mention the

fucking pandemic going on and Colombia is one of the countries

in Latin America that has been hardest by the pandemic.

The protests have stopped being about the tax reform since early

May, which is why even when Duque withdrew the controversial

portions of the tax reform and health reform, the protests

continued. Now the protests represent a deeper problem that has

been happening in the country for DECADES. Things like

corruption in the government, police brutality, paramilitarism,

racism, shit education system, shit healthcare system, Duque's

resignation, the removal of Uribismo and Alvaro Uribe in general

from any sort of governmental power, AND SO ON are reasons to

why people are continuing to protest against the state.

To get back to police brutality, the ESMAD (Mobile Anti-

Disturbance Squadron) is the riot police over in Colombia but

they are essentially no different than a paramilitary death

squad with all the killings, rapes, disappearances, and harm

they've caused. The regular police officers have also

contributed to the death count and police brutality cases. So in

the beginning of the protests, there was a new group in Colombia

that call themselves the Primera Linea. They essentially wear

masks and grab rocks or shields and start fighting against the

police and the ESMAD. They tend to consist of younger, poorer

individuals who have nothing to lose. Their main domain is in

the Puerto Resistencia, located in Cali, the main battleground

of Colombia. These roadblocks have caused goods like food to not

be transfered to Cali, so it keeps garnering attention every day

from protesters supporting the Primera Linea to Uribistas who

just want to send in the military to Cali and clear out the

roadblocks and establish order. As matter of fact, Duque has

already ordered "maximum deployment" of the military to Cali

very recently.

Okay, let's get to the media. Caracol and RCN, the most popular

mainstream news outlets in the country, have been criticized for

showing a lot of lootings and riots and less of the police

brutality. They will either do that or they will paint the

situation to a BOTH SIDES issue and that ends up producing the

"ANTI-POLICE ANTI-PROTEST" people, which tend to be boomers

anyway so whatever. Dead protesters would have be labeled as a

"vandal", "delinquent", "or even "terrorists" every once in a

while.

Anything else I'm missing..? Oh right. Alvaro Uribe Velez, the

"matarife" himself. He served his presidential term from 2002-

2010. He's known by most Colombians by his biggest atrocity and

scandal, the false positives scandal, where the military

essentially killed innocent, poor Colombians in some remote

place in the country and just used them to inflate the body

count so they can receive more benefits and basically lie to the

Colombian people about winning against those pesky leftist

guerillas. The people who were killed were often labeled as

"terrorists". See the parallel here? In the beginning of the protests, Uribe has also tweeted about violence against those "terrorists". HMM... He's also presented a Neo-Nazi conspiracy theory, la "revolucion molecular disipada", about what is essentially how "le social justice communists" are trying to destroy the state through protests and in order to stop this from happening, the protests must be destroyed.

And that should keep you up to date for the most part. Didn't cover everything of course but that's what this thread his for.
Tax reform info: https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-america-latina-56966451
Health reform info: https://colombia.as.com/colombia/2021/05/06/actualidad/1620258033_062723.html
2.4 million Colombians can't afford 3 meals per day: https://www.portafolio.co/economia/dane-2-4-millones-de-hogares-ya-no-comen-tres-veces-al-dia-en-colombia-550416
Extreme poverty and unemployment rising in Colombia: https://news.trust.org/item/20210507143438-igzd2/
Death toll (May 11th, need to find a more recent source): https://apnews.com/article/colombia-health-coronavirus-pandemic-e43eb87ac930ac9c0c26c1941661263c
Everything else is free on the web to read and I'll probably post police vs. protesters videos later.