COVID-19, Inequality and Protests in Colombia

This week on Hold Your Fire!, Richard Atwood and Naz Modirzadeh talk to Renata Segura, deputy program director for Latin America and the Carribean, and Beth Dickinson, senior analyst for Colombia, about the anti-government protests across Colombia. They discuss what the deadly unrest looks like, a controversial tax reform proposed in April that triggered protests and the blockades that have sprung up across the country’s cities, towns and villages. They unpack protesters’ demands, notably the role of the COVID-19 pandemic in aggravating already rife inequality, and how police crackdowns have further fuelled people’s anger. They also talk about how Colombian society views the protests, whether protesters’ demands are widely shared and how likely it is that President Ivan Duque’s government will take measures to address their grievances. They discuss the likelihood of similar protests elsewhere in Latin America, given that many other countries in the region suffer the same inequality, worsened by COVID, that has taken people to the streets in Colombia.

For more information, explore Crisis Group’s analysis on our Colombia page.

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