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Colombian ‘national dialogue’ fails to halt protests

COLOMBIAN trade unionists and activists staged new protests today despite the opening of a “national dialogue” by embattled President Ivan Duque.

Mr Duque said the “dialogue” will run until March 15 and cover economic growth and equality, corruption, education, the environment, strengthening government institutions and “improving life” in areas affected by the country’s long civil war, which supposedly ended with a peace treaty with the Farc in 2016. He began with a meeting with regional governors and mayors on Sunday.

“This is a conversation of all, with all,” Mr Duque said.

But the Central Union of Workers said his government “hasn’t concretely resolved any of the motives for the protest” and said there was no reason to call off demonstrations, which have battled against inequality, attacks on pensions and wages and staggering levels of state and paramilitary violence against trade unionists and social activists leading to the murder of hundreds since the 2016 peace treaty.

Protest organisers said that if Mr Duque wants dialogue he should meet the National Strike Committee, composed of trade union and student leaders, to discuss the terms of any such process.

And Bogota Mayor Claudia Lopez, the first woman and first lesbian to hold the office, said she was unimpressed with Sunday’s meeting.

She said Mr Duque appeared to want to “explain government policies in more depth and communicate them better” when he ought to “humbly recognise mistakes, make changes and make concessions.”

The protest movement in Colombia is just one of many across Latin America, as people have risen up against neoliberal governments in Ecuador and Chile, mounted giant protests against a US-backed military coup that has overthrown elected president Evo Morales of Bolivia and have elected left-wing candidate Alberto Fernandez in Argentina.

The continent’s leading far-right politician, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, postponed plans to freeze pensions and wages and cut tens of thousands of public-sector jobs at the weekend, with allies saying advisers had warned the move could have sparked protests on the scale of those in neighbouring countries — which Mr Bolsonaro has denounced as “acts of terrorism.”

Newly freed former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva had already addressed campaign rallies aimed at stopping “the dream-destroying [Finance] Minister, the destroyer of jobs and public companies Paulo Guedes” from proceeding with the cuts programme.

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