Since March 11, more than 15 thousand indigenous people started La Minga Social Suroccidente, a mobilization of indigenous peoples on the Pan-American Highway that tries to discuss with the Government the problems that threaten the existence of these communities. But the government of Iván Duque remains in the same position it had during the National University Strike, sending second level officials to establish an agreement and appear at the end for the signature.
By PST-Colombia
In return, the Uribista government has sent more than 1,500 ESMAD agents who have attacked the communities and who have already claimed their first victims: seven indigenous people wounded by firearms and a policeman killed by armed groups near the La Agustina sector.
For the government, the demands of La Minga are not negotiable, because they are not willing to discuss structural issues demanded by the communities: to put an end to paramilitarism and the assassinations of their leaders, to stop oil exploitation by the fracking method in their territories, discuss the National Development Plan that deepens the extractivist model and diminishes the already precarious social investment, the fraud in the implementation of peace agreements that has not made an investment in this region affected by the armed conflict and the non-compliance by the State of agreements that have been signed before.
This is the second great mobilization in less than a year against Iván Duque’s government . This mobilization, added to the National Teachers’ Stoppage, shapes the need to advance to the National Strike, since the Government of Iván Duque insists on taking the discussion to the Venezuelan problem and the objections to the JEP, while the living conditions of the working class and popular sectors in the country deteriorate rapidly, while the nefarious National Development Plan is in the process of being approved, with which it intends to deepen labor precariousness and the elimination of subsidies for the poorest, among other measures.
From the Socialist Workers Party we support La Minga Social Suroccidente, and the just demands of the communities, we repudiate the brutal repression and the war methods of the government against social protest, which as in the student strike already has several people injured; we demand from the Colombian government the immediate withdrawal of ESMAD and the presence of Iván Duque at the negotiating table, in the same way we call on the trade union, political and social organizations to commit themselves to the realization of the National Strike voted in the National Worker,Union and Popular Assembly, organized and developed from the bases, because this is the only way to provide effective support to La Minga Social Sudoccidente.
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