Already the national strike of 21 November 2019 and the 2020 protests put pressure on the government. It had to withdraw the tax reform, trying to raise taxes on the people, workers and middle class sectors to make them pay for the effects of the economic crisis, exacerbated by the pandemic.

 

The strike is massive and has been going on for 15 days and the working class and popular organisations also raised other demands such as health and popular education, basic income, the right to social protest. About 7,000,000 people participated in the marches and blockades of roads and streets mainly in Bogotá, Medellín, Cali, Barranquilla, Montería, Ibagué, Neiva, Bucaramanga, Manizales, Pereira, Pasto Popayán, Tunja and finally in big, medium and small towns in the countryside and in the city. Despite militarisation and police brutality and the corona virus restrictions, more workers and other sections of the people than ever before did not miss the opportunity to demonstrate in the streets on 1 May as a day of struggle.

 

Workers, peasants, indigenous people, health workers, transport workers, truck and taxi drivers, motorcyclists, artists, intellectuals, teachers, students, small and medium enterprises and industrialists, street vendors and LGBT people, especially many women and youth, heroically led this struggle.

 

These mobilisations have not stopped and are responding militantly, despite the barbaric repression by the police and the army, especially against the youth, which has already left 40 murdered, hundreds arrested and disappeared, hundreds wounded, many of them with eye injuries.

 

In front of this heroic uprising of the fraternal Colombian people, who are rightly rising up not to pay for the effects of the crisis of the imperialist capitalist system, to confront the fascist government policies and their barbaric repression and to open a perspective for profound social changes, it is time to express the greatest solidarity of the international working class and militant mass movements and to support them by 

redoubling efforts in the class struggle in each country and for international coordination.

 

Signatories (as of 16 May 2021), up-to-date list of signatories on www.icor.info):

1. CPK Communist Party of Kenya

2. MMLPL Moroccan Marxist-Leninist Proletarian Line

3. CPSA (ML) Communist Party of South Africa (Marxist-Leninist)

4. PPDS Parti Patriotique Démocratique Socialiste (Patriotic Democratic Socialist Party), Tunisia

5. MLOA Marxist-Leninist Organization of Afghanistan

6. SPB Socialist Party of Bangladesh

7. CPI (ML) Red Star Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Red Star

8. Ranjbaran Hezb-e Ranjbaran-e Iran (Proletarian Party of Iran)

9. PPRF Patriotic Peoples Republican Front of Nepal

10. NDMLP New-Democratic Marxist-Leninist Party, Sri Lanka

11. CPA/ML Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist)

12. БКП Българска Комунистическа Партия (Bulgarian Communist Party)

13. БРП(к) Българска Работническа Партия (комунисти) (Bulgarian Workers Party (Communist))

14. PR-ByH Partija Rada - ByH (Party of Labor - Bosnia and Herzegovina)

15. MLPD Marxistisch-Leninistische Partei Deutschlands (Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany)

16. UC Unité Communiste (Communist United ), France

17. UPML Union Prolétarienne Marxiste-Léniniste (Marxist-Leninist Proletarian Union), France

18. BP (NK-T) Bolşevik Parti (Kuzey Kürdistan-Türkiye) (Bolshevik Party (North Kurdistan-Turkey))

19. KOL Kommunistische Organisation Luxemburg (Communist Organization of Luxemburg)

20. RM Rode Morgen (Red Dawn), Netherlands

21. UMLP União Marxista-Leninista Portuguesa (Portuguese Marxist-Leninist Union)

22. MLGS Marxistisch-Leninistische Gruppe Schweiz (Marxist-Leninist Group of Switzerland)

23. MLKP Marksist Leninist Komünist Parti Türkiye / Kürdistan (Marxist Leninist Communist Party Turkey / Kurdistan)

24. KSRD Koordinazionnyj Sowjet Rabotschewo Dvizhenija (Coordination Council of the Workers Class Movement), Ukraine

25. UoC Union of Cypriots, Cyprus

26. PCC-M Partido Comunista de Colombia – Maoista (Communist Party of Colombia - Maoist)

27. PCP (independiente) Partido Comunista Paraguayo (independiente) (Paraguayan Communist Party (independent))

28. BDP Bloque Democratico Popular (Popular Democratic Bloc), Peru

29. PC (ML) Partido Comunista (Marxista Leninista) (Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist)), Dominican Republic

30. PCR-U Partido Comunista Revolucionario del Uruguay (Revolutionary Communist Party of Uruguay)

31. PS-GdT Plataforma Socialista - Golpe de Timón (Socialist Platform – Change of Course), Venezuela