GEO Statement of Solidarity with Colombian Protestors
The Graduate Employees’ Organization (IFT/AFT Local 6300) stands in solidarity with workers and communities in Colombia protesting against police brutality and the inequality-perpetuating measures of the Ivan Duque administration.
Since April 28th, 2021 Colombian citizens began a series of protests against a tax reform proposed by the government amidst the third peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. The reform placed the burden of economic recuperation on sectors most affected by unemployment and impoverishment. The National Strike achieved the resignation of the Minister of Finance and the withdrawal of the tax reform. However, people are still on the streets, outraged by the brutality of police forces during the protests and the accumulated abuses of the Colombian government against its people, who responded to the social unrest by militarizing the country.
We extend our solidarity to the families of the victims of police and armed forces during the recent protest, and to the victims of overall state sanctioned and overlooked violence in Colombia, which has disproportionately affected Indigenous, Afro-descendant and campesino communities over the last decades, as well as union workers, activists, Human Rights defenders and environmental leaders.
We condemn the government's use of deadly force, as well as all violations to Human Rights during the National Strike. We stand by the people’s democratic right to protest. We reject all public statements inciting violence against demonstrators or stigmatizing social protest to condone such violence, including those made on Twitter by former president of Colombia, Alvaro Uribe Velez. We applaud the efforts of NYU’s Graduate Student Organizing Committee, Columbia’s GWC-UAW Local 2110, and fellow protesters who achieved the cancellation of an event at NYU’s Wagner Graduate School of Public Service that would have featured the virtual visit of the former president.
The burdens of economic recovery should never fall on workers and the less privileged, especially not on those affected by centuries of colonialism and by the neoliberal politics of inequality and extractivist logics imposed on the global south. We support the people of Colombia’s struggle for life and dignity.
The Graduate Employees’ Organization, AFT/IFT Local 6300, AFL-CIO, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, represents approximately 2,700 Teaching and Graduate Assistants on the UIUC Campus. In November 2009 and in February 2018, over 1,000 GEO members and allies participated in a strike to secure a fair contract and more accessible UIUC campus. With an active presence in the community, the GEO continues to work for high-quality and accessible public education in Illinois.
For more information, please contact geo@uigeo.org. More information can also be found on GEO’s website at www.uiucgeo.org.
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