 For more videos on people's struggles, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. The night of May 3rd will go down in history as one of terror in Colombia. In cities across the country, members of the National Police and Army carried out unprecedented levels of violent repression against the civilian population. Human rights organizations and social movements have declared that massacres were carried out, and due to the number of reports they received, numbers of dead and injured are still unclear. In Cali alone, reports estimate that at least six were killed, one of the victims was an 11-year-old boy. Videos circulated across social media of defenseless civilians being fired at by heavily armed anti-riot police on tanks, police patrolling streets with machine guns, and houses being set on fire by members of security forces. In one video from Florida Blanca Santander, police drove by a lone student walking on the street and shot at him. Members of a human rights verification mission in Cali, who were accompanying the United Nations, were physically and verbally assaulted and shot at by the police. The horrific violence is a continuation of days of repression by Colombian state agencies against the people who have come out onto the streets in large numbers. So why are the people of Colombia protesting? For the past week, hundreds of thousands of Colombians have been on the streets across the country, protesting as part of a national strike. The national strike, which began on April 28th, was organized by trade unions, social movements, and left political parties following the presentation of the Sustainable Solidarity Bill by Finance Minister Alberto Carrasquilla. Far from having to do with solidarity, it was a tax reform bill, attempting to make Colombia's working class pay for the government's fiscal deficit. The Solidarity Bill would have increased the vat on staple goods, fuel, and various public services, expanded the tax collection base, increased the tax on agricultural inputs, increased the tax on pensions, frozen the wages in the public sector until 2026, eliminated subsidies on various public services, imposed toll tax on roads connecting countryside and cities, among other measures. After five days of massive protests and at least 600 municipalities of the 1103 in the country, Ivan Duque announced that his government was withdrawing the bill and would present a fresh tax reform bill drafted between different parties. Organizations warned that the withdrawal is only a partial victory and that their demands go much further. What are some of the other demands being raised by protesters? In the immediate term, organizations have demanded the withdrawal of the army, the end of repressive actions against protesters by the police and the army, the guarantee to the fundamental rights of the population, and a full and thorough investigation into the violations of human rights carried out by security forces over the last week. In addition to the more than 26 people killed in protests, human rights organizations have also reported more than 761 arbitrary detentions, more than 50 disappeared, nine cases of sexual assault, 17 people with eye-related injuries, and altogether more than 1,000 cases of police violence. Other demands have to do with an end to the systematic and violent repression of dissent and social protests that has been going on in Colombia for decades. The protesters have demanded that the government respect the peace agreements and the genocide of social movements and dismantle paramilitary structures in the country. What is the history of this violence against social movements in Colombia? Throughout the 60-year-long internal armed conflict, Colombian social movements and political organizations have been declared objectives of war by successive conservative governments. During the 60 years of the conflict, more than 80,000 people have been forcibly disappeared. The reign of ex-president Álvaro Uribe Vélez from 2002 to 2010 was one of the bloodiest periods in Colombian history. The president enjoyed full support from the United States and one of the biggest military aid and training packages called Plan Colombia to allegedly help the country fight the war on drugs and terror. During Uribe's term, it is estimated that at least 20,000 people were disappeared. 6,402 Colombian civilians were also killed and illegitimately presented as guerrilla fighters killed in combat from 2002 to 2008, known as the false positive scandal. His government oversaw the persecution and assassination of human rights defenders, trade unionists and left political activists. Colombia's current president Iván Duque held some Uribe's Democratic Center party and has continued the legacy of Uribeismo. Since Duque took office in August 2018, his government has waged a war on the people of Colombia. It has pushed for harsh neoliberal economic policies such as the current tax reform, cuts the public health and education sectors, labor legislation reform and others. It has also intensified the persecution and violence against social movements and political organizations. Since 2016, over 1,100 social leaders, human rights defenders and ex-combatants have been assassinated and over 700 of those occurred under the rule of Duque. His government has also systematically undermined and abandoned all obligations the Colombian state has with Havana peace accords and the peace process that began with the National Liberation Army. The government's neoliberal reforms, violence against the population and attacks on peace have been met with consistent mobilization and resistance from diverse sections across Colombia. This was seen with the student strike in September 2018, the social minga in March 2019, the national strike in April 2019, another national strike in November 2019 and the massive protests against police brutality in 2020. As is the case with this latest national strike, all of these protests were met with a militarized and disproportionate response by the state, causing dozens of injuries and several dead. What is likely to happen now? After nearly a week of protests and violent repression, international human rights organizations and bodies such as the United Nations, the European Union and others have started to condemn the actions of the Colombian state and security forces. Former President Uribe has been harshly condemned for his tweets that encourage the use of firearms against protesters. Notwithstanding, the government has made no moves to decrease repressive actions or demilitarize the cities. In spite of the unrestrained violence against them, the people of Colombia continue to take to the streets to make their voices heard, to demand an end to the policies of death and destruction, an end to the genocide of social leaders, human rights defenders and ex-combatants, and justice for the victims, an end to the war against the people and for those resources to be used for the guarantee of basic rights, such as education, housing, food, basic services, and employment.