August 23, 2020.
Despite the signing of the Peace Agreement in 2016, violence has never ceased in Colombia. Crimes against social, rural, black community, indigenous and ex-combatant leaders continue in greater numbers.
Two weeks have passed since the arrest of former President Álvaro Uribe Vélez in a case investigating him for alleged witness tampering of paramilitaries he was connected with. In the course of this last week alone, more than 17 young people have been murdered and assassinated in different regions of the country. These crimes revive years of daily and systematic cruelty. Today Colombia counts deaths from the pandemic and from massacres.
On Wednesday, August 19, the black community together with different social organizations mobilized in front of the Cali prosecutor’s office to ask for justice for the murder of five young people on August 12.
Francia Márquez, representative of the black community and was internationally recognized by being awarded the Goldman Prize for her socio-environmental struggle, was part of the mobilization. “I believe that what happened with the 5 young people here who were murdered in the canyon is what happens every day with young people in this eastern part of Cali. Every day here life is extinguished, hope is killed, because young people are that, hope for the future, for the country. What country awaits us when it kills its young people or when it allows its young people to die?,” she questioned.
August 7 was the second anniversary of the Government of Iván Duque. During this time the humanitarian emergency has deepened. According to the Colombia Informa website, Colombia is the eighth country in the world with the most confirmed cases of Covid-19 and has a total of 970 murders of social leaders.
Márquez also raised the need for people to demonstrate even in the context of a pandemic and stated that, “as a people we have to forcefully raise our voices. Stay at home is no longer an option for us because they are killing us. Even staying home is killing us. The violence did not stay locked up. The violence is not quarantined, ot continues to stalk and kill life every day in this country.”
The activist also referred to the role of the government and said that “we would like to say that we have a government that takes care of life. But no, we have a government that is complicit by omission, by not assuming its constitutional responsibility to protect all Colombians. We have already lived the history of the massacres of many of these territories, and today history repeats itself against the same bodies, against the same communities, the same territories. Today we are once again bathed in blood.”
This year France Marquez was elected as president of the National Committee of the Council for Peace, Reconciliation and Coexistence. A few days ago the activist communicated on her social networks her intention to run for the presidency of Colombia. When asked about her initiative, Márquez stated that “I believe that we must unleash fear and dare to think of a country that builds unity. A unity to take care of life. It is time to transform the politics of death to thinking of ourselves collectively as a people”.
Source: Resumen Latinoamericano, translation North America bureau