What started at the end of last month as a protest gathering hundreds of thousands of Colombians across the country against a new tax reform introduced by the government has quickly turned into death, violence, and deep social unrest in many cities and towns of the South American nation.
At the core of the conflict are high taxation rates and preexistent fragile economic conditions, which have left many Colombians on the brink of poverty and hunger. These factors are among the main reasons why protesters rejected the reform, despite official governmental attempts to underscore the importance of the reform for the rehabilitation of Colombia's economy, which has been severely impacted by the COVID-19 crisis.
Following four days of riots in several Colombian cities, which saw from the beginning a considerable presence of armed police forces, President Ivan Duque declared the revocation of the reform. Nevertheless, protesters did not stop marching, increasingly moved by passion and rage while expressing their demands for a long-awaited change in Colombian society, economy, and politics.
REACTIONS AT THE NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL LEVELS
To date, at least 42 people, all civilians except for one police officer, have lost their lives mainly because of police and military brutality during protests. Local human rights organisations, as well as the UN, have denounced the use of coercive repression against citizens. Members of the Indigenous community have been falsely accused of carrying arms at peaceful protests and have therefore also been victims of police violence and of social and racial stigmatisation.
The UN has also called on Colombia to launch an impartial and rigorous investigation into alleged cases of murders; sexual violence and rapes; torture; arbitrary detention; and enforced disappearance of protesters, human rights defenders, and journalists carried out by the national police and the military. The country has also been accused of violating the UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials, which state that force can be used exclusively within the parameters necessity, proportionality, and imminent threat. The inquiry should identify all the actors responsible for violations, set out appropriate reparations and compensation for victims and families, as well as disclose the locations of detainees.
VIOLATIONS UNDER INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LAW
The social conflict in Colombia has seen widespread violations by governmental authorities and police and military forces of peoples’ fundamental human rights, which are protected by international human rights treaties.
First, the right to peaceful assembly and association, protected under article 20 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and article 21 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), has been violated by the governmental decision to resort to military assistance and the use of force against protesters.
Second, the right to freedom of opinion and expression, as enshrined under article 19 of the UDHR and article 19 of the ICCPR, is being violated by governmental interference with media and journalists’ capacity to deliver transparent and accurate news in safety to the citizens all over the country.
Finally, the rights to life, liberty, and security, consecrated under article 3 of UDHR and articles 6, 9, and 10 of the ICCPR, are not being respected due to the arbitrary incarcerations, life deprivation, and forced disappearances carried out by the military.
Such human rights violations constitute a considerable breach of Colombia’s obligations under international human rights law. Although the unrest is far from over, the Colombian government must urgently take all necessary measures to uphold, protect, and promote such rights, cease the violence, and provide for the urgent restoration of democracy in a politically and socioeconomically vulnerable country.
Andrea is from Milan and holds a LL.M. in International Environmental and Climate Change Law from the University of Edinburgh. His LL.M. research focused on the violation of indigenous peoples’ rights to lands, natural resources, and culture, in the context of forest-based climate mitigation policies in Latin America. Andrea is also part of Defensa Ambiental, a Chilean NGO that provides legal advice to indigenous peoples in socio-environmental conflicts and is a fellow at Dignity Rights International, working on issues related to environmental pollution and its impacts on fundamental rights.