DAY OF INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY WITH THE WORKERS AND THE PEOPLE'S UPRISING OF COLOMBIA
From Cali, Colombia
Speech by "Los Comuneros" (The Communards) Group
“The four city assemblies ratified the strike...
security issues are being organized...
and a plan on how to enter food and fuel for the mobilization”
Comrades, all of us wanted to tell you how this process has been developing since April 28. From that day on, here in Cali the 4 main and most important points of the city were taken, which were taken as the point of the mobilizations that were initially carried out and later ended up becoming a general strike.
In these areas the different concentrations and mobilizations began to be organized that always tried to reach the center of the city, which is where the center of power is. In those 4 points is where people starts to stay constantly, barricades are building up and food operation centers are organized.
On the 4th and 5th day of the struggle, the very violent confrontations with the repressive forces began. The regime begins to shoot. The police and ESMAD, which is an anti-riot squad that the police have here, begin to attack the communities and attack them at all points. At night began the military attacks by the plain-clothes police and from helicopters they gass and shoot on entire neighborhoods. This fact drives people to go out with more strength to the streets to confront the regime. You begin to see the dead, wounded and also disappearances. Vans start to circulate that pick up people and disappear them. Here in the city we have around 6 disappeared, around 35 dead, more than 150 injured and around 400 detained until today.
On the other hand, from the 4th and 5th day of the struggle, committees began to be built on each block in the neighborhoods. For example, yesterday a committee in the area arose here. In these committees a record is drawn up of what is resolved and delegates are elected. These delegates can’t make decisions by themselves in the negotiations or in the boards that are to be formed, but every consultation must be submitted to the referendum of the communities to decide whether or not to accept any proposal that exists, be it from the regime or from any sector.
This led to the emergence of other committees and other councils to coordinate us, as happened in Puerto Rellena and Sameco. Today in Sameco there was an assembly too. Minutes were drawn up and delegates were elected. The same is being done in another sector of the city, in the southern area. At this moment there is an assembly where workers, peasants, students and popular sectors participate. Right now they are in session and are making a trial against the two policemen who were captured with weapons inside the mobilization, who got involved to provoke the concentration.
The four assemblies that were held in the city confirmed that the strike continues. For this they are organizing security issues, food supply and a humanitarian work plan in terms of how to enter food and fuel for the mobilization. That is the panorama of what we are experiencing here and also in other nearby cities such as Yumbo, Palmira and Amundí.
We are trying to coordinate all the committees in the different parts of the city. At the moment we are waiting for the largest assembly to end, which is the one currently in session at the University del Valle, where thousands of workers, indigenous people and students are present. They have already defined that they are going to continue the strike, but they are going to make a work plan and a coordination plan to guarantee the supply, the security of the neighborhoods and a plan of struggle and mobilization.
The other thing that was being defined was for the Governor of El Valle and the Mayor of Cali to resign. Those were the proposals that we had made initially and that they had taken to propose it and submit it to the assembly's decision.
The day was crossed by a savage repression in Cali, and from the events themselves the "Comuneros" denounced
A group of indigenous people from the Minga who come from Cauca were preparing to make a blockage in the middle of the protest, at the height of a sector called La María. Automatically the paramilitary groups of a privileged sector of the city, called Ciudad Jardín, went out to prevent the blockage. There were shots fired by those paramilitary forces in that sector, attacking the group of indigenous people, supported by ESMAD, which immediately reacted and appeared with their vandal motorcycles attacking this group of indigenous people with tear gas. There are at least 9 gunshot wounded from the firearms of a group of civilians from the bourgeois sector of Cali who attacked one of the indigenous buses. After that operation that they carried out with civilians, the police entered the University del Valle with tankettes and began to launch gases from the helicopters. Inside there were about 10,000 people, between those who were concentrated in the coliseum and the people who were outside. The police have cordoned off the sector.
People are full of anger and want to continue the strike. There is nothing to talk about, there is nothing to discuss. Nobody wants to know anything with the government.
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