Individuals participate in a pot-banging protest in Cali on November 22, 2019, a day after a nationwide strike by college students, unions and indigenous teams in opposition to the federal government of Colombia President Ivan Duque
BOGOTA – Colombian President Ivan Duque on Friday promised a “nationwide dialog” on social insurance policies, in the future after huge demonstrations in opposition to his right-wing authorities left three lifeless and dozens wounded.
“Beginning subsequent week, I’ll launch a nationwide dialog to strengthen the present social coverage agenda, working in a united means with medium- and long-term imaginative and prescient, which can permit us to shut the social gaps,” he mentioned in a televised speech.
“This dialog will happen regionally with all of the social and political sectors. I’ll use digital media and participatory mechanisms… in order that we are able to all construct a significant path of reform.”
The recognition of Duque’s right-wing authorities — a key ally of the USA — has been on the wane since his election 18 months in the past, because it offers with internet hosting 1.four million refugees from neighboring Venezuela’s financial meltdown in addition to the advanced fallout of a 2016 peace cope with FARC rebels and rampant drug trafficking.
A whole bunch of hundreds of Colombians took to the streets in Bogota and different cities on Thursday to protest Duque’s financial, social and safety insurance policies, as a part of a nationwide basic strike.
There have been arrests and clashes as commerce unions, college students, opposition events and the South American nation’s indigenous organizations vented their anger.
Duque’s assertion Friday got here shortly after Bogota Mayor Enrique Penalosa declared a nighttime curfew within the capital, following clashes between protesters and police within the southern a part of town of seven million earlier within the day.
The president mentioned he was stepping up the police presence and ordering the “deployment of joint patrols of police and armed forces in essentially the most important locations.”
Earlier Friday, tons of of demonstrators have been protesting in cities throughout the nation, banging pots and pans in a type of protest that’s widespread in components of Latin America, although not in Colombia.
The three deaths had taken place throughout protests Thursday within the western Valle del Cauca division, Protection Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo informed reporters.
There have been additionally 122 civilians wounded, 151 safety forces harm and 146 individuals detained, the federal government mentioned.
The protests come amid social upheaval throughout South America, as a wave of unrest over the previous two months has battered governments in Chile, Bolivia and Ecuador.
