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Colombia’s anti-government protests: Bogota gives indigenous guards warm welcome

by Adriaan Alsema

Bogota students warmly welcomed indigenous guards on Friday, as they arrived in the capital to join ongoing protests against President Ivan Duque.

The first indigenous representatives had already arrived on Thursday  to join the massive anti-government protests that had been in swing since the students’ first national strike a week before.

Native Colombians join anti-government protests in Bogota

The ancestral guards’ arrival

On Friday, a larger group of ancestral indigenous guards arrived at the National University, in the center of the capital, where they hope to be heard about the mass killing of their leaders.

Residents of Bogota welcomed the native Colombians as the “chivas”, traditional buses, entered the city.

The native Colombians’ were received even more enthusiastically by students, who have been organizing the strike since early October and received the support from native Colombian organization ONIC early this month.

The indigenous guards from the southwestern Cauca province joined the initiative because of a sharp increase in ethnic violence that followed the election of Duque, who is supported by the far-right.

Paying tribute to student killed by police

Following their arrival, the indigenous guards and student protesters marched to the place where police killed a student protester last week to jointly pay tribute.

A joint manifestation at Bogota’s central square was impeded, this time not by riot police but by one of the capital’s infamous rainstorms.

Meanwhile in the rest of Bogota and Colombia

The protests that entered their 10th day on Saturday also continued in other parts of Bogota and Colombia.

Despite the heavy rains, also in the Parque de los Hippies, protests continued.

In Bogota and Cali, football fans chanted insults to Duque’s political patron, former President Alvaro Uribe, who was told, “paramilitary, the people are fed up.”

Also outside Cali’s football stadium, protests continue unabated.

In Medellin, football fans embarked on a musical protest, singing a variation of Italian folk song “Bella Ciao”, which became the anti-fascist hymn during the reign of dictator Benito Mussolini before and during World War II and has become an “anti-uribista” hymn in Colombia.

Also elsewhere in Medellin, the stomping ground of Uribe, marches continued.

The persistent protests appear to be creating serious cracks in the minority coalition of the broadly rejected Duque administration, which has refused to negotiate with the strike leaders who demand that the president withdraw controversial economic policies and implement peace policies.

Meanwhile, local committees throughout Colombia have begun organizing a new national strike for Monday, in an attempt to force the government to listen to the people.