Colombia: The pardon for the youth of the Front Line
Gearóid Ó Loingsigh
26 October 2022
A protest during the National Strike of
2021.
The proposal put forward by Senator Ariel Ávila to pardon the youth of the Front Line(1) sentenced for acts committed in the context of the protests during the National Strike of 2021 has fallen. There will be no pardon. The 165 detainees from the strike will have to serve out their time in the country’s prisons.
Before we look at the cowardice of Petro, Iván Cepeda and others, it is worth pointing out that the pardon contained a huge problem: it would have been applied to the cops as well and it would be on a case-by-case basis. But the pardoning of the cops wasn’t the problem. What the Colombian Right were worried about were the pardons for the youth, as the idea is to always punish the youth so as they do nothing.
One of the first people to make a statement was the now Senator Humberto de la Calle. He was the state’s negotiator with the FARC where he managed to get them to surrender and accept that they wouldn’t be treated as rebels but rather as criminals before the Special Jurisdiction for Peace.
I applaud the decision by the government to withdraw the controversial articles on powers for the president to bring to justice and pardon the front line. It is a sensible attitude that creates a good atmosphere in which to continue discussing the public order bill.(2)The word pardon does not exist in his vocabulary, as if you don’t punish the poor for their audacity, they may rebel again. As the old fox of Colombian politics that he is, he knows well that there is never a shortage of reasons to rebel. The articles were withdrawn at the request of sectors of the national government, i.e. the Historic Pact. Iván Cepeda, one of the movers of the legislative proposal announced on twitter that:
Our government knows how to listen. In the face of various critical voices, we have removed from Bill 418/97 articles on presidential powers related to bringing to justice and the freeing of people unjustly processed for participating in social protests.(3)Who did they listen to? Who are those voices? We don’t know who they are. But we can be absolutely clear about who they are not. They are not the imprisoned youths of the Front Line. Neither are they their relatives, nor their comrades in struggle in the Front Line. Neither are they those who were inspired by their struggle and ended up voting for Petro and the PH. They know how to listen to the Right, to the oligarchy and those who fear a rebellious youth more than a repressive state.
Following the withdrawal of the legislation, they said they would look at how to do it further down the road. It is not true. They won’t do it, you only have to look at what happened in Chile with Boric’s government. Now three years later there still prisoners from the people’s revolt. There the leader described the protestors as delinquents and defended the Police. We should remember that in Petro’s ceremony of possession, Boric received the greatest applause from the gullible gathered there in Bolivar Square. They saw in him the result of the popular protests, without realising that he did not see himself as such.
In his electoral campaign he spoke openly of pardoning the political prisoners from the rebellion in Chile. He did not wait long to go lukewarm in his position and now he believes the youth were violent. Boric announced during the anniversary of the rebellion that had been human rights violations by the cops, but not by the institution itself.
It is indispensable to a democracy that police abuses are investigated and punished. It is not just an act of justice with the victims, but also an act of justice with the police institution whose work should never be confused with acts that were very serious and should be condemned, as they don’t represent the daily work of more than 60,000 carabineros [Gendarmes] carried out every day the length and breadth of our country. That is why when we ask for abuse by the police to be punished, not for one second do we cease to value the work the police do every day to protect the people and put an end to crime.(4)Then he immediately went on to accuse the youth of being violent and compared them to the cops.
The Social Explosion was fertile ground for an increase in violent destructive behaviour that has also left behind victims and consequences and from all political positions we have to clearly state it.
From the left we have to be more unequivocal than anyone else and put a barrier up to that behaviour, face them without fear, denounce and punish them. The social protest should not be synonymous with violence, it cannot give succour to it nor justify it, because it goes against its principles and aims and against the wishes of the majority to change reality…
The human rights violations such as eye injuries, sexual assaults, serious injury, even deaths are not acceptable. At the same time, the carabineros have our full support to combat crime and ensure public order within the framework of the rule of law. There is no dichotomy between these positions and we are going to defend that.(5)He means that the youth who took up a stone against the murderous forces of the state is as much a criminal, but it is the Police he wants to protect.
Petro said similar things during the revolt in Colombia. By April 28th 2023 [the anniversary of the revolt] it is almost guaranteed that Petro will say the same things as Boric and that there will still be political prisoners from the revolt. During the electoral campaign and before his possession as president, he asked the Prosecutor to go easy on the Front Line, passing the baton to him and hoping the Prosecutor would resolve an issue that he wouldn’t dare to.
So, a proposal for a pardon fell, one that put the Front Line on the same plane as the state forces. But there is a dichotomy. The police use violence in the name of the state and it is more than clear that all of its criminal actions had the support of the then president, Duque, just like in the 2019 revolt the murderers counted on the support of the Mayoress of Bogotá, Claudia López. No one put the brakes on the cops, no state body, no functionary.
Their actions are not comparable. The youths came out onto the streets to protest and they were attacked. They armed themselves with homemade shields, helmets that were not designed to resist blows and gas masks. The state unleashed its fury, murdering, raping women, torturing and disappearing left, right and centre. The Front Line’s violence was different in nature. A lot of their violence was purely defensive, but even that part where they took the initiative cannot be condemned. It was the violence of a rebellious youth, tired of the murderous state and a left that did little to defend them. It was worth bearing in mind that once upon a time to talk in terms of a murderous state was the position of congresspeople like Iván Cepeda and Gloria Flórez, amongst others. It was the clear explicit position of various functionaries co-opted by that state now to carry out functions in the area of human rights, social justice etc.
To rebel against a murderous state is not a crime. There are many forms of courage and also of cowardice. The Front Line had to be courageous in facing an armed actor that used batons, gas and also firearms. They saw how their comrades fell, how they came limping out of hospitals or in wheelchairs or without an eye. They saw blood flow in the streets and they came back time and again to fight with courage.
The politician, the intellectual, the writer is called upon to have another type of courage: that of ideas. The politicians and intellectuals are expected to be courageous when it comes to developing ideas in favour of the masses and pronounce and defend them tooth and nail. The congresspeople and functionaries of the PH, unlike the Front Line showed how cowardly they are. They are not capable of defending the youths who put the Colombian state’s back to the wall in a manner that they have never done: the same youths that are partly responsible for their electoral victory. Cowards and reprobates one and all, without exception.
Long live the vandals!
Long live the Front Line!
Long live the youth willing
to rebel!
To rebel is to be coherent
with life itself!
Notes
(1) This is the name given to the self organisation of the youths during the revolt in 2021 which resulted in 80 people murdered by the police, sexual assaults and disappearances.
(2) Patiño, J.P. (23/10/2022) Gobierno retira indulto a “primera línea” y facultades a Petro para hacer solo ley de narcobandas. El Colombiano. https://www.elcolombiano.com/colombia/gobierno-retira-micos-de-la-ley-de-orden-publico-ND18939370
(3) See https://twitter.com/IvanCepedaCast/status/1584178108562698241
(4) See https://twitter.com/Presidencia_cl/status/1582347455257280512
(5) Ibíd.,