…an ill-timed tax reform in Colombia
Colombia's government digs itself into a hole as protestors take to the streets across the country for a fourth day of demonstrations.
On Thursday, Colombia reached a grim new record of deaths from Covid-19 (505), and for the second day, hundreds if not thousands of citizens poured out into the avenues and principal thoroughfares of their municipalites to protest the proposed Reforma Tributaria (tax reform) of President Ivan Duque's government.
By Saturday 1 May, the demonstrations were in their fourth day and had consolidated in not only, a protest against the tax reforms, but also a return to the general discontent voiced in November 2019 when there was a daily outcry to the politics of the ruling Centro Democrático party (see the reasons here).
Colombia Protests
The marches, which began on 28 April, are a resurrection of the malaise and resentment of a polarized society, in addition to the recent trigger of the tax reform. Amongst other demands, protestors want the 2016 peace accord with the FARC guerrillas (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) to be adhered to, a real investigation into and cessation of the continued assassinations of social and community leaders (59 social leaders and 22 ex FARC combatants have been killed since 1 January 2021: source Indepaz), a Colombia free from fracking, against the potential recommencing of aerial funigation of Coca crops and the continuation of an increasingly useful Jurisdicción Especial para la Paz (in which former FARC members admitted on 30 April that kidnapping was in fact a brutal and official policy and this vital acknowledgement is a massive step toward reconciliation (JEP)), not to mention the increasingly urgent appeal for a crack-down on police brutality.
Police Brutality
On 23 November 2019, Dilan Cruz was participating in a demonstration in downtown Bogotá when a member of an anti-riot police force (Escuadrón Móvil Antidisturbios, ESMAD) shot him in the head. Cruz later died from that wound. Colombian authorities determined that he had been shot with bean bag rounds, which consist of a small fabric pillow filled with pellets, most commonly made of lead. They are intended to be fired at extremities to reduce injuries.
Abuses by police officers continued in 2020. In September, Javier Ordoñez, a lawyer, died at the hands of police who repeatedly shocked him with a stun gun. The killing prompted hundreds of Colombians to take to the streets in largely peaceful demonstrations. The police responded with force that often appeared excessive, leaving 13 people dead and hundreds injured.
Heavy-handed policing continues to this day and there are presently unconfirmed reports of 14 deaths in the city of Cali where the recent demonstrations have been at their most vigorous. Social media has captured ubiquitous, unnecessary and unforgivable crowd violence, rioting and looting but also, members of the police force shooting their weapons indisciminately.
Then there's the issue of that tweet.
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In February 2020, the JEP personnel investigating 'false positive' killings extracted about 54 bodies of possible Army victims from a mass grave in the town cemetery of Dabeiba, Antioquia. In this historically conflictive municipality, the practice of killing civilians and claiming them as combat deaths may have gone on for 25 years and this is but one region of the country. The Colombian army stands accused of allegedly murdering at least 6,402 innocent civilians under what is called ‘false positives’ — counting them as guerrilla fighters to give the impression they were winning the war against the FARC. People want answers and heads to roll.
Covid-19 response and Poverty
Civil liberties have been repressed and authority concentrated in the name of Covid-19 mitigation and the government's response to the pandemic has been to run an increasingly propagandist evening television show lauding their dubious successes. The international press has identified that the virus has evolved into a South-South disaster and that the tragedy stems in part from limited vaccine supplies and slow delivery, non-existant health systems and economies dependent on informal labour. While the population waits for vaccines and the Brazilian strain rampages through the country the DANE (Departamento Administrativo Nacional de Estadística) released startling yet not unsuprising data showing that poverty levels in the country in 2020 increased to 42.5% or an estimated 21 million people. Extreme poverty increased to 15.1%.
And as people struggle to make ends meet, the government's ambitious answer is to propose a tax increase on individuals earning more than 2.4 million COP per month or the equivalent of US$663 and from 2023 this will extend to those earning 1.7 million COP or US$470. This would make life untenable for millions of people.
Colombia needs a tax reform…
Nobody questions the fact that funds are needed but questions are being asked of the proposed reform and as yet, there has been no coherent response. There has been no guarantee that funds destined for social projects will reach those intended, the macroeconomic calculations by the Treasury are based on figures from 2019 and fail to account for the additional 3.4 million Colombians who fell into poverty in 2020 and there's precious little transparency in a country where corruption is rampant.
A reasonable place to start would be for the Treasury to enforce existing tax laws and act on the collection of taxes. The government needs to boost internal consumption by increasing household income and and reducing VAT to drive growth. Some cost-cutting initiatives could be employed such as reducing wasteful expenses on new military aircraft, ineffectual policing activities and then addressing corruption.
and a President who leads…
Just as in December 2019, when President Duque insisted on creating a Gran Conversación Nacional to placate the irate masses, the Colombian premier is speaking now of seeking a "consensus." The Gran Conversación Nacional consisted of more rhetoric than substance and was aimed at stalling the process. The president was spared any further blushes on this front due to the pandemic. This "consensus" will lead to nothing as we are well into the machinations and mobilizations for the 2022 presidential elections and the president himself cannot seek a second term under the conditions of the Constitution.
After the Minister for Defence made declarations that protestors are "terrorists," and the Minister for Health did the unthinkable and denied the delivery of any further Covid-19 vaccines to the city of Cali, given the civil unrest there, it would be the ideal moment for a president to visit the southern city, listen to the inhabitants and show some…leadership. Instead, Duque has remained at home in Bogotá and given a televised speech on 1 May celebrating Colombia's unlikely membership in the OECD, before announcing later that day perhaps euphemistically that "military assistance" would remain in the streets to protect the integrity of the population. Never before has a militarization of city centres sounded so demure.
That people have thrown caution to one side to protest extensively during a pandemic is indicative of the desperation and resentment felt by much of the population. President Duque and his government would do well to recognize this. But, Colombia has a president in place who can neither lead nor unite and has no time left on his ticket to get anything of any worth done. It's too late for Duque and for his ill-timed tax reform.
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