Bogotá Mayor Claudia Nayibe López Hernández has urged calm amid violent protests in Colombia’s capital city that have left 13 civilians dead and hundreds injured. Demonstrations erupted last week following the death of a 46-year-old lawyer, Javier Ordóñez, in police custody.
Ordóñez is seen in a video, begging, “Please, no more, I’m suffocating,” as police shoot him with a stun gun and restrain him with their knees on his back for over two minutes. He died soon after being rushed to the hospital.
Colombia has been beset by cases of police brutality for years, with Ordóñez’s sister-in-law, Eliana Garzón, saying that his death was merely “the straw that broke the camel’s back” following the “accumulation of years of anger”. In fact, there have been 170 documented instances of excessive force by the police this year alone. Critics say that this figure vastly underestimates the severity of the issue.
In fact, former President Álvaro Uribe, who was in power from 2002 to 2010, is currently being investigated for his ties to paramilitary groups who fought a brutal US-backed war against leftist guerillas, led by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). It is widely accepted that the state was complicit in kidnapping and extortion and numerous human rights violations against Colombian citizens, during a period when thousands of civilians were killed.
More recently, it was estimated that close to 400 human rights activists and community leaders have been assassinated since current President Iván Duque came to power in August 2018.
López, for her part, has struck a conciliatory tone and called the deaths of protestors a “massacre of our young people”. She said, in a televised press conference, “We are here today to ask forgiveness of all victims of police brutality.” She said that what happened to the slain lawyer “didn’t’ even happen during combat in the worst moments of the Colombian armed conflict” and that “what happened […] was an indiscriminate, disproportionate, absolutely unjustified attack” by the police.
On the other hand, conservative President Duque was more reluctant to criticize the security forces. While he condemned the killings, he praised the country’s law enforcement officers for being “heroic” and “hard-working”.
Protests Over Police Brutality in Colombia Leave 13 Dead, Hundreds Injured
Bogotá Mayor Claudia López has apologized and pleaded for restraint and peace.
September 15, 2020
Bogotá Mayor Claudia López SOURCE: AP