By Alice Loaiza, Task Force Board member

It’s hard to describe a country that has so many levels of critical problems as does Colombia. Then you place the Covid-19 virus on top of it all and one wonders how people manage to survive…or maybe they don’t. One thing for sure is that most of the suffering, poverty, violence and corruption could be solved in a relatively short time if those in charge were willing to do so.

Colombia has been in the US eye for many years as a strategic area on the Pacific and the Caribbean at the top of South America with a government willing to sell out in exchange for business favors, money and fun. There is no doubt of the military, political, economic and intelligence significance of Colombia for the US in its desire to dominate the Americas and the Caribbean.

Billions of dollars have been invested over the years to insure the great Colombian “friendship”. The US Congress approved $448 million for Colombia this year, $30 million more than last year, which was even more than Trump requested. It is the Latin American country that receives the most “aid”. This, of course, is the money that we see up front. The hidden money that finances the paramilitary rightwing armies and the military preparation for a coup in Venezuela through Colombia isn’t really visible to us.

These times have opened the doors for repressive governments in Latin America to crack down under the guise of “the COVID crisis”.  The unpopular Colombian government continues its violent attack on the poor and hungry communities and it is challenging to call for mass protests or legal actions, since the country is on lock down.

The COVID-19 virus has come to Colombia on top of an already decadent political system run by many corrupt politicians, judges, and military. that are busy accusing each other. The most recent scandal is the discovery of the illegal spying by the military on any person or organization who is critical of the government. The Peace Accord signed with the FARC guerillas in 2016 has been tossed aside by the Ivan Duque government and violence and poverty have again become dominant in Colombia. The failing health system, which has been privatized, is barely present in the cities and non-existent in the small towns and rural areas.

Almost 50% of the workforce is informal with no job security. It isn’t easy to stay home and just not eat even though you can get a fine of several hundred dollars if you are illegally out on the street. There is panic among all communities with the thought of becoming ill with the virus. But the working class, peasant, afro and indigenous communities are panicked about more than that. Community leaders as well as ex-FARC combatants are being hunted down and killed every day. The paramilitary and military know exactly where they are: in their homes where the government has told them to remain during the pandemic.

On April 9, El Espectador published a long list of recent murders. First on the list was Amado Torres, who was 49 years old and a social leader in the village of La Miranda, in San José de Apartadó (Antioquia). “His body was moved in a hammock due to the refusal of the Judicial Police to carry him out. On 29 February, heavily armed men wearing military uniforms entered his house in the village and killed him.”

In a report in the Guardian on March 23, Héctor Marino Carabali, a human rights leader in Cauca who usually travels in an armored car stated, “We are being killed, like always, while the government has taken drastic measures to fight the virus but done nothing to protect us or tell us about how we can do our work. Curfews and lockdowns always affect the most vulnerable.”

The fact that people are being killed is not a secret since major media is reporting on it around the world. The Institute for Development and Peace Studies counts 96 killings of social leaders in Colombia between January 1 and May 5.

FARC party members are also being killed. According to the magazine Semana the young 27 year-old father, Robert Hertado was assassinated in his home next to his wife and one year-old child on May 20th by heavily armed men. He was the 197th ex-combatant of the FARC killed since the signing of the Peace Accord and the 25th this year.

The situation in the communities is one of complete terror. There is no place to go, no place to hide, you just wait for the next assassination to come. There is no doubt that the state is behind these murders and the US, the Colombian government’s best friend, of course, is silent about the killings. The response of the US is to send more military aid.

In Colombia the US has worked hard to maintain a willing population that supports US aggression in the region. The latest US aggression in Latin America through Colombia is the war against the Bolivarian government of Venezuela. The right-wing media storm created so much anti-Venezuelan sentiment in Colombia that many citizens were ready to march to the border to support Guaido and overthrow President Maduro. Even a huge concert with some of the most renowned Colombia musicians was organized at the border of Venezuela to support a coup against Maduro in 2019. The recent coup attempt against Venezuela, organized by Silvercorp, a US mercenary company, that took place after months of training in Colombia was an idea hatched in the US with at least complicit support from the Colombian government and military.

Venezuelan refugees coming to Colombia have been made to be seen as personal enemies of the Colombian people. They have been spit on, attacked and insulted, even when living on the street with young children. It seems that many Colombians haven’t thought about the fact that their own country is one of the poorest and most violent in the Americas.

Our support and participation in making this situation public is important. This is another US war that is largely unknown in the world but it is definitely a war against those in Latin America who even raise the right to food, healthcare and education or question the involvement of the US in their country.

Source: Task Force on the Americas, on May 23, 2020