The Colombian political situation, preceded by the big scandals as a result of the persecution against opponents, teachers and journalists, as well as the backwards agrarian, labor and social security policies for the central administration, led several social sectors to protest against these policies and to demand new working conditions and new social policies.

This was also an important day for the government, since the operation of the police forces was premeditated, systematic and highly planned.

In order to crush the protests and to avoid social concentrations the authorities intimidated, abused force and carried out illegal and temporary disappearances.

The outcome: hundreds of people were assaulted, journalists and human rights activists were arrested and harassed, students, women and children were beaten up; and a social movement was informed of the firm decision of not allowing the social protest.

Real World Radio was present in the Cali demonstration and interviewed a trade union leader and a grassroots worker about this day and the general situation of the Colombian working class.

Trade unionist Tulio Murillo analyzed the serious situation of poverty and marginalization that the Colombian informal workers’ sector is going through.

“In Colombia there are nearly 22 million people living in poverty, we can say that forty per cent of the workers are not in the pay roll, and they are the ones suffering the most”, Murillo said.

Murillo also talked about the repression against the workers leading the unionization process. The figures are terrifying: “a trade union leader is killed every two days”, he said.

“Over two thousand and five hundred trade union leaders were killed in the past ten years. Ninety nine per cent of these crimes remain unpunished”.

Meanwhile, William, a grassroots trade unionist in Cali, explained why under the current economic system in Colombia “the chances of finding new work spaces, new enterprises, are low”,

About dismantling the state corporations, William points out that “these big traditional corporations that brought work stability to many families over the years, this government has sold them to the best bidder, even below their fair price”.

Besides this, “with the new technologies many of the new owners reduce the number of staff in eighty or ninety per cent, so all these families depend on this work form. This is why we found that
a large percentage of working families in Colombia are in the streets, trying to earn a living, trying to survive in any possible way, even through piracy”, he said.

According to several news outlets, over 12,400 officers of the National Police deployed in Bogota, repressed the social protest in several parts of the capital city.

In Cali, the Mobile Anti-riot Squad was deployed, leaving eighty demonstrators injured, and six temporarily disappeared.
William said “the law enforcement forces were the ones causing chaos.

This was the largest May Day march in Colombia in the past fifteen years, and they crushed it through all the possible means”.

Photo: Rosa Luza