Colombia Archives | puntorojo

June 30, 2022

Victory for Colombia’s Left, but the Fight is Just Beginning

In a historic outcome, Gustavo Petro, a self-declared socialist and former guerrilla, has been elected president of Colombia. After decades of bloody repression against the left, Petro is considered to be Colombia’s “first leftist president.” While the mainstream press is rushing to stoke fears of Petro as a threat to democracy in Colombia, some on the Left are eager to hail the victory as a model for an electoral path to power for “left populism” and a vindication of the politics of “pink tide” social democracy.

May 13, 2021

by Zack Frailey Escobar

The Colombian Working Class Against Neoliberalism and Imperialism

In the aftermath of the pandemic, Colombians are striking and demonstrating against austerity and police repression in a historic rebellion. The uprising highlights the power workers hold – and if the rising is successful, it could spell the end of decades of right-wing rule.

May 10, 2021

by Susanna de Guio y Gianpaolo Contestabile

El estallido colombiano: segundo acto

37 asesinatos de manifestantes perpetrados por la policía, 234 casos de agresiones violentas, incluidos 26 con lesiones oculares, 15 casos de violencia sexual y de género, 66 agresiones a defensores de derechos humanos y periodistas y 1728 detenciones arbitrarias es el saldo alarmante de los nueve días de Paro Nacional convocado por los sindicatos colombianos, según reportan la campaña Defender la Libertad y TembloresONG.
La masacre que están perpetrando las fuerzas policiales en Colombia ya alcanzó la atención internacional, desde los medios independientes y las redes sociales se solicita la difusión de los cientos de abusos registrados, mientras que en distintas ciudades se denuncia la censura a través de la interrupción de la señal de internet. Además el martes 4 de mayo un portavoz de las Naciones Unidas expresó una fuerte condena con respecto a la conducta de las fuerzas públicas colombianas: “Estamos profundamente preocupados por cómo evolucionó la situación en Cali durante la noche, donde la policía abrió fuego contra los manifestantes y varias personas murieron o resultaron heridas”.

December 20, 2019

by Lupita Romero

Bernie Sanders’s immigration plan: a response from the front-lines of struggle

I live in Queens, New York, one of the most diverse areas in the country. I arrived from Mexico as a child in the post 9/11 period of social militarization, carried out under the veil of “national security”. This era has been marked by scapegoating and repression. Between Republican’s nauseatingly racist attacks on our civil rights and the shallow support of establishment Democrats, the voice of undocumented immigrants is ignored in elections if it does not fall in line behind the Democratic Party, or if we go beyond merely focusing our efforts to register our documented community to vote “blue”.

Despite being taxpayers, we are not allowed to vote, run for office or donate to, fund-raise, or directly campaign for candidates in most local elections and in no state or federal elections. For this reason, civil society and immigrant rights organizations are constrained to waging limited legal challenges and legislative reforms that rely on building alliance with Democrats at the cost of independent action and accountability to the larger community. This marginalization in the electoral arena