Anti-Austerity Strike, Campesino Protests Rock Colombia

The decision to privatize the public telecommunications company Empresa Telecomunicaciones de Bogotá (ETB) led to continued tensions in Bogota on Tuesday, with various groups marching against the decision of the City Council.

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Despite it being a holiday in Colombia, ETB’s union staged a protest outside the headquarters of the District Council. A day before, District University of Bogota students joined ETB workers, as ETB partly funds the public university.

The privatization of the telecommunications company was debated and approved by a majority of the city council last week.

But the anti-austerity protests in the capital are occurring simultaneously with nationwide agricultural strikes, as campesino and Indigenous groups add to the pressure on the Juan Manuel Santos government.

Organizing under the banner "Agrarian, Ethnic, Rural and Popular Minga," on the first day of the mobilizations more than 70,000 people from 27 departments took part in the protests.

Among their demands are calls for improvements in health, education, access to land and a moratorium on extractive projects. This latest mobilization also aims to protest the current model of economic development, which social movements argue is posing a threat to their livelihoods.

The national strike, under the banner of the "Agrarian, Ethnic, Rural and Popular Minga," also called on Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos to give them a seat at the negotiating table in the Colombian peace talks.

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Protest spokesperson Jimmy Morales has promised that mobilizations will continue indefinitely until the government listens to communities and provides concrete solutions to their problems.

But Interior Minister Juan Fernando Cristo said the strikes and mobilizations are "unjustified" because, in his opinion, the government "has maintained an ongoing dialogue with communities."

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