 The situation in Columbia continues to deteriorate and the death toll continues to climb. And when I say death toll, I'm talking about the state sanctioned violence that we're seeing against protesters who are on the streets protesting against government austerity and increasing authoritarianism. But we haven't talked about this yet. So before I give you the update to the story, I want to give you some additional context here and some background. And there's a phenomenal article that I'm going to point to in Jacobin written by Stefania Martinez. And I'm just going to go over some of the article to give you the basics. So we have some understanding about the situation. But I would encourage you to read the entire article because she really goes into the details and breaks it down in a really nuanced way. And it's definitely worth reading. But nonetheless, she writes in Columbia, a proposed deeply regressive tax reform bill was the straw that broke the camel's back. Thousands of Colombians have joined protests since April 28th when a massive general strike against the bill became the flashpoint for mounting unrest with President Ivan Duque's authoritarian neoliberal regime. Even though Duque has recently announced he would scrap the tax reform, protesters remain in the streets amid concerns that the Colombian government is simply repackaging a similar bill. Ever since November 2019's massive demonstrations against Duque's proposed austerity measures against labor tax and pensions, Columbia has been approaching a tipping point. Federal indicators paint a stark picture. Over 72,000 COVID-related deaths, more than half of the labor force in the informal sector, and 4 million unemployed, nearly 10% of the population. The peasant sector has been largely left to fend for its own amid the pandemic. Meanwhile, the peace process between the Colombian state and the revolutionary armed forces of Colombia is at risk of being undermined by increased state-sponsoring paramilitarization. The reform bill proposed by Duque, which seeks to shore up Colombia's finances in response to the pandemic-induced financial crisis, is anti-worker. The centerpiece of the original bill is increased taxes on wages and consumption. Colombia's capitalist oligarchy and other dominant classes are largely exempt. Worse still, the bill seeks to maintain the country's sizable military budget, ensuring that any challenge to Colombia's neoliberal model, based on concentrated land ownership and forced dispossession, will be met with increased violence. Colombia's current strike wave is also a response to the increasingly militaristic and authoritarian turn the country has taken under Duque. In addition to the assassination of the indigenous governor, Liliana Peña, from the coca-producing department of CACA, protesters are denouncing the murder of more than 1,100 peasants, union leaders, Afro-Columbians, and women since the beginning of the Havana peace agreement between the state and the FARC guerrilla group in 2016. Not only has Duque ignored that agreement, he has pursued a policy of extrajudicial killings under the false positives model implemented by Alvaro Uribe's government in 2006, wherein murdered civilians are disguised as guerrillas and presented as combat casualties. So that's, I think, the basic breakdown, but I mean, we're barely scratching the surface. Again, I really want to encourage you to read Estefania Martínez's article because it really is comprehensive. Having said that though, I think that we have enough information to understand why they're in the streets. They're protesting against austerity induced by their neoliberal government, as well as increasing authoritarianism. Now, the response to the protesters has been to be brutal and crackdown on them. And as a result of this crackdown, the death count is racking up. So as Manuel Ruda of AP reports, 42 people have died during anti-government protests that began two weeks ago amid discontent fueled by growing poverty and inequality during the pandemic. Columbia's human rights ombudsman said Tuesday, the government agency added that 168 people had been reported missing during the protests, which were set to continue Wednesday. On May 5th, the human rights ombudsman said 24 people had been killed in the protests and 89 were missing. The new figures from the ombudsman are similar to those recorded by Tim Blores, a non-governmental group that tracks police violence. Tim Blores said Tuesday that 40 people had been killed during the protests and incidents related to police violence while one policeman was stabbed to death while trying to stop a riot. So the death count keeps ticking up. Cases of police brutality are increasing. Now, estimated to be at around 2000. And people who are protesting are just getting disappeared. This is deeply, deeply undemocratic. It's just outright authoritarian, plain and simple. Now, I want to share a video from AJ Plus because they kind of detail the violence against the protesters. And it's a bit outdated. It's from May 7th, but still it does give you like a good overall look at what's happening and just how brutal the police is against the protesters. It's honestly gut-wrenching and if you've watched any of the reporting from Twitter or people on the ground, grassroots activists sharing cell phone footage, it's honestly gut-wrenching. And the details, you know, they speak for themselves. They're opening fire on protesters and there are reports of semi-automatic weapons being used. I just, what do you even say to that? This is very obviously state sanctioned violence. And the murders are all state sanctioned murders. Think about how disgusting this is. The government is introducing policies, enacting policies that harms the people and when they finally say enough is enough, they get brutalized. And it's not something that is a unique phenomenon that we're only seeing in Colombia. I mean, we're seeing this to an extent in the United States and other countries who protest austerity induced by their government. And it's just, it's despicable. And I think we have to call it out when we see it and we have to stand in solidarity with our comrades in Colombia fighting for a better world, a better future for themselves and not just a better future, a better present where they're not starving due to austerity being left to fend for themselves as they lose their jobs during a pandemic. Now, during the last portion of that video, you saw something that's really familiar, the accusation that these protesters are just, they're astroturfits being funded by criminal organizations, they're not legitimately angered by the government's policies, they're just, they're there because they're getting paid. It's the same thing that we see in the United States, whenever you see a lot of people take to the streets, there's always this accusation from right-wingers. Well, I mean, are these paid protesters that George Soros give you money to stand out in the streets with a sign? The idea that people would be dissatisfied with their government's austerity and authoritarianism and militarism, it's inconceivable to so many people, but it's so common. Whenever enough people take to the streets, there's going to be a concerted effort to discredit and delegitimize them, not actually address their concerns, but make it seem as if their concerns are invalid because they're not actually there because they care about the policies, they care about making money for themselves because they're being paid to be there. I mean, to a lesser extent, we saw this with Occupy Wall Street, where for the first time, in a very long time, we had this nationwide grassroots movement emerge and we saw the entire media just collectively try to discredit this organization and talk about how, oh my God, this movement, it doesn't even make sense. Like, what is the message? They don't have any leadership. It's horizontally structured, so I don't even know what they want. There's not even a leader that we can meet with and also they're spreading trash everywhere and occupying, making these cities look terrible. This is always what we're going to see. This is nothing new, but that doesn't mean that we should not condemn it, not speak out. So this is a developing situation, but really, I want all of us to stand in solidarity with our comrades in Colombia because what's being done to them is disgusting and the response to them responding to the oppression that their government is imposing on them is even more grotesque and I can't not feel just distraught looking at some of the images, most of which I didn't play because YouTube would take down the video because they're that violent, but nonetheless, that's a bit of an update to the situation but I'll try to keep you posted as more details emerge. Little by little, the situation is getting worse and it's very worrying to see.