🚨 You usually receive Latin America Weekly on Wednesdays — but we decided to send out this special edition as the crisis in Colombia reaches untenable levels, with citizens staging daily protests and clashing with law enforcement.
Deep Dive: Colombian unrest a cautionary tale to Latin America
A police van mowing down dozens of protesters in Manizales; cops firing flare guns at citizens in Bogota; a 37-year-old student shot eight times by law enforcement in Pereira. These grisly scenes are becoming more and more common in Colombia as the population revolts against the government. In our May 5 issue of this newsletter, we explained that protests were triggered by the government’s controversial tax reform proposal — but even after the administration nixed the bill, demonstrations are only becoming more frequent and violent.
Why it matters. It would appear that the tax reform debacle was simply the straw that broke the camel’s back, unleashing widespread discontent amid a relentless pandemic, growing economic anxieties, and nosediving government revenue.
A recipe for crisis
Public disillusion in Colombia is nothing new, with the country witnessing a wave of major protests back in 2019. But the pandemic has magnified existing gripes, pushing the country to the...