(en) Press Release: Before the national strike and the wave of popular disobedience in Colombia by V?a Libre Group (ca,pt)

The government of Juan Manuel Santos, worn in his third year in office and affected by a 
growing crisis of legitimacy, is rocked by a storm of social unrest resulting from the 
superposition of different crises such as the agricultural sector, transport, health, 
education, among others, amid slowing GDP growth and the first signs of national economic 
crisis . Affected by a long depression originating from agricultural and industrial 
economic liberalization two decades ago, the unequal and exclusive recovery of raw 
material prices that occurred in some peripheral countries in the current capitalist 
crisis, and the effect of shock, produced by the first year of implementation of the Free 
Trade agreement with the United States, which this government has added 20 new free trade 
agreements, important sectors peasants, artisanal miners and transport workers have popped 
his indignation, and have organized a national strike mostly rural characteristics and 
expressions still fragmentary, that has plunged the country into a situation of popular 
disobedience, continuing and deepening the upturn in class struggle that we live in the 
country since 2008, as well as raising the level of protest cycle 2011 - 2012.
 
Championing the political project of a section of the national bourgeoisie, which aims to 
turn the country into a regional power but autonomous committed against American 
Imperialism and open to Asia, seeks to modernize backward State and deepen the penetration 
of capitalism in the country, the government Santos has established a peace process with 
the FARC -EP and limited liberal policy of opening some ancient and oligarchic social 
structure over the entire field, which has unleashed a wave of expectation and hope of 
large sectors of the population, hopes that by its very nature the regime can not satisfy, 
and whose frustration and anger aroused postponement of millions . All this in the midst 
of a pre-election period where the government seeks to ensure his own reelection, the 
parliamentary left doomed to political moderation and electioneering, is disjointed, and 
the need to increase their social presence against the threat of losing their 
institutional participation develops a complex dynamic of peace dialogue that has taken 
the only way the government considered effective, a closed negotiation, outside and above 
all made ??in the midst of war, which has led to a revival of the conflict in its military 
dimension remains irregular warfare continued superiority of the state but with the 
inability of this to defeat the guerrillas but especially social dimension that gives us 
the key pressure and participation from below, for a authoritarian and militarist state 
guarantees peace yield .
 
Questioning together exclusionary policies of the current government and the neoliberal 
model with some, even obscure, but important anti-capitalist elements, mobilize for 
immediate demands such as subsidies and investment plans articulated strategic demands as 
the defense of territory, and peasant economy and craft, the sectors in struggle have 
become collective protagonists of national policy and public spotlight for about three 
weeks. Overflowing not only the government and the security forces, but at the same left 
and social organizations, the Unemployment extensive but dispersed, multifaceted and 
uneven, intermittent but strong, has managed to bring together in a single protest four 
major waves of rebellion : that of the ancestral artisanal miners and Choco, Antioquia and 
Cundiboyancense region, all in poverty and informality, struggling to maintain his job 
threatened by a government that criminalizes looking after them and clear the field for 
exploiting large mining and energy multinationals and had started their own strike for 
over a month, the truck drivers and small vehicle owners especially the west of the 
country who resent liberal modernization plans proletarianize government seeking the guild 
and build corporate monopolies and political as higher gasoline and usurious rates of 
tolls coming accumulating since 2010 ; lade the campesinosempobrecidos and near 
bankruptcy, which constitute the largest wave of all, most farmers in the Andean region 
and the Pacific Santanderesde and products such as potatoes, rice cebollay and brown sugar 
and milk, affected by the growth of the agro industry, the massive influx of subsidized 
agricultural products and a large network of intermediaries and speculators, who continue 
in the wake of the strikes of coffee farmers and growers settlers first half of that year, 
and civic protests in towns and neighborhoods have seen in this situation the right time 
to manifest, from classical demands such as health, housing and employment, and subject as 
the motorcycle taxi drivers, the populations affected by the winter, transporters or youth 
inter neighborhoods.
 
Appeased the second strike and protests coffee cocoa, divided the field of conveyors, 
failed attempt invisibility of Agricultural Unemployment and regional dialogues strategy 
in the most troubled areas in the middle of the rupture of the negotiations by national 
government, Santos government that all this movement has been marked by a strong but 
uneven enforcement policy that has already claimed eight lives of unarmed protesters, are 
faced with a situation hitherto unknown in our generation, in which a national strike 
called by the popular movement really hits a country that had witnessed the quiet and 
dramatic failure of the days of 2006 and 2008 called by the CUT and the COMOSOCOL 2012, 
and a protest movement that achieves surrounding the cities from the countryside and 
through of departmental roadblocks, the main form of struggle of the current situation, 
generates a standstill on many of the central lines of the country and a growing food 
shortages .
 
Here are deserved analogies with the national strike of September 14, 1977, the largest 
mass struggle day in our recent history, happened during the liberal government of 
President Alfonso Lopez Michelsen, and wryly frustrated hist?ricacuyo management has been 
commemorated in Saints these days and sadly also by liberal opposition to his rule as 
president of PDA Clara Lopez and Piedad Cordoba leader of Patriotic March, which points 
out limitations of these political projects . The appeal to the experience of the 1977 
Unemployment and particularly claim that our organization has strived to position with 
significant success within the current social struggles, allows us to analyze the 
similarities between the two contexts as reform hopes dashed, overlapping social crisis 
and the onset of economic crisis, as well as its important role as urban differences and 
face huge labor union that marked the experience of the seventies. They are also important 
similarities of this movement with strong regional civil strikes the second half of the 
1980s, with the case currently a masivoy deploy less warlike, though more and more 
nationally coordinated multisectoral presence . Thus we believe that the current movement 
is both the continuation of our popular tradition of local and national civic Paros as 
unprecedented expression of discontent in our historical present .
 
The picture of this movement is complex but encouraging : firstly force even worn 
mobilization continues, more civic sectors join the protest and its impact grows in the 
country, being clear about the proper functioning but lax federal Table of Dialogue and 
Agreement MIA and within it the role of independent non- organized sectors, as well as the 
leadership of a Fensuagro linked to Patriotic March and dignities of the Peasant ( mumps, 
rice, Onion, coffee ) influenced by MOIR . On the other hand, is very unevenly developed 
partial unemployment health workers grouped in ANTHOC national strike without halt oil 
production 24 hours raised by the USO at Ecopetrol, while looming mobilizing teachers in 
public schools grouped in the FECODE, the largest trade union federation in the country, 
with a second national strike called by this time for the September 10, with bases 
concertacionista unhappy with the direction and the national unemployment call college 
students in defense of Alternative Higher Education Act organized by the MANE October. 
However, also the government hardens its position breaking the dialogues, militarizing the 
conflict zones of conflict criminalizing sectors as judicializing Patriotic March and the 
leaders of the protest as Hubert Ballesteros, and clearly shows a severe limitation of the 
popular movement current as organic participation of urban working in neighborhoods and 
jobs, highly unorganized sector, but decisive for their demographic and productive for any 
weight change in the country. In this respect it is clear that this movement but 
unrecoverable for Uribe, for their anti neoliberal and militarist slogans, if it can be 
used by the former president neocon industry to capitalize on the discontent generated 
among certain segments of the population isolation, shortages and focuses misdirected 
violence and the fear of a new upsurge of the class struggle in the country and the 
possibility of social change .
 
At this juncture the Bogot? organized anarchists have participated in the measure of our 
limited but growing forces in some of the calls for agitation, solidarity and protest held 
in the city and the department of Cundinamarca, mainly as a popular neighboring Monday's 
march 19 August in the city of Facatativ? and popular as students and educators in the 
national day of struggle of the past 29 month. For group movement lessons are clear: We 
must promote a campaign of solidarity with all fighters, seeking unity conscious and 
programmatic conflicts town and country, paving the way for an imminent unit day national 
strike promote the strengthening of organizations and their fighting in areas where bursts 
of anger and protest spreading to new territories . Likewise we must defend the legitimacy 
of Paro, especialmenteel road cut as their main mode of struggle and popular political 
violence as a tool of self-defense, while we seek the active participation of local 
communities, promoting the organization and collective control force actions decided by 
the grassroots organization and was limited by its adverse effects, while contributing to 
diversify the repertoire of actions for possible reflux. In this way we believe that we 
should seek to convert the practical laboratory Unemployment in our own power, self 
managing and fighting our necesidadesy aspirations for social change, increasing the work 
of agitation and organization among urban workers and beginning our association with more 
dynamic rural areas, fighting the government Santista and the neoliberal model, while 
deeper and open new fields for libertarian fight against Capitalism and State domination .
 
A stop to move, live the National Strike ! Now to lift, great Unemployment Unit, the 
countryside and the city ! With sticks, machetes, another 77!
Libertarian group for Free Bogota