Protests in Colombia

 On May 21, the Interamerican Dialogue organized a panel on social protests in Colombia. There were four Colombian panelists: Catalina Botero, Dean of the Universidad de los Andes School of Law; Paula Moreno, president of Manos Invisibles and former minister of culture; Alejandro Santos, Director of Radio Caracol, and Maurice Armitage, former mayor of Cali. Each of them presented their analysis of the situation, including  the possible causes of such a strident eruption, and alluded to  potential strategic directions that could be tried to overcome the pitfalls. What follows is an analytical summary, from a regional perspective.

From the beginning, the panel linked the reactions to the protest with what they identified as one of the pillars  of the "Colombian imaginary"; one that conceives the country's problems from the perspective of a friend-enemy binary scheme. A narrative influenced by the long history of hard and fierce conflicts that have marked national life. They referred to the fight against drug trafficking, the conflict with the FARC, the self-defense groups, and the paramilitaries, all of them  as antecedents that inevitably taint the way people react to current events. 

Although none of the panelists denied that there are indeed "enemies of  the public order," they also stressed that if such a reading is made from a reductionist position that only sees that, one can incur in very serious errors of interpretation. There is vandalism, there are disruptive forces, there are crimes, but there is also a society that sees and feels problems firsthand, but does not see solutions and cries out in despair. The increasing poverty, the decline of the new middle classes, which had barely managed to overcome the poverty threshold, the pandemic that does not give way and elites that do not seem entirely willing to listen or even know how to listen. 

Although the Colombian protest is multi-actor, and expresses itself with multiple voices, demanding greater responsibility from the Government, there was consensus in the panel that one of the predominant features is that of the situation of young people. An age group hard hit by the pandemic, totally unprotected and often referred to as  'ninis', who neither study nor work. An age group with which national leaders find it extremely difficult to establish a constructive dialogue. The former mayor of Cali spoke of the end of programs that had  consisted of soup kitchens to put a meal in the poorest homes, so that mothers did not have to wake up and ask their young son to go out and get himself a little money to feed the little brothers. A program that was accompanied by another youth employment program that would give opportunities to those boys and girls. 

In terms of possible ways out of the turmoil  it was commented that attempts to quell protests through dialogue are welcome, but it should not be forgotten that a very serious mistake was made in 2019, when similar protests were faced and a dialogue was established and  certain points were agreed to, but the problem was that the Government did not follow up properly and, therefore, now, the credibility of the negotiating committees has been severely weakened. This is a point on which Catalina Botero insisted a lot. 

The negotiation should not be seen as a tactic to calm the spirits, but as a mechanism to set up a platform of measures to be reciprocated. The problem is that once that trust is lost, the government enters a spiral in which nothing it proposes is valid. They withdraw the tax reform, the health reform is overthrown, or specific measures are proposed, but the discontent continues. Nor is it that political parties can mediate. As the panel says, in these cases the crisis of representation is deep and the paradigm has to be renewed.

One of the ways out is active listening with the youth, and probably an independent commission to investigate police brutality.   Answering the question of whether or not it is a question of systemic violence by the public force or if it is, as the President claims, a question  of "some bad apples". 

Finally, the comparison with the Chilean case is easy to draw, and the results of the elections to the national constituent assembly in that country may foreshadow the kind of giant shift in political leadership that could occur in Colombia. However, the Colombian institutional framework differs from the Chilean one in that the Colombian National Constitution still enjoys broad legitimacy. The panelists insisted on this and, in fact, pointed out that in the Constitution there are mechanisms for popular consultation and citizen participation that are not being used to overcome this deep and historical crisis.