COLOMBIA: PROTESTS ESCALATE, GOV’T CRACKS DOWN

It’s a repeat of what was going in Columbia back in 2019 before the COVID War was launched and protests were banned: the “New World Disorder” trend. Tens of thousands of Colombians have again taken to the streets in protests over inequality, poverty, and corruption and have been met with a violent crackdown by the government.
Indeed, the unrest in Bogotá is a sign of things to come in the entire region due to the worsening economic conditions faced by the citizens. 
The week-long Columbian protests have resulted in at least 24 deaths, with an additional 87 people missing and about 800 injured. The latest round of protests was sparked by President Iván Duque’s announcement of a new tax to make up for the outbreak’s effect on the economy, which he had harshly locked down last year. (See our 15 September 2020 article, “COLUMBIA: BREAK THE COVID LAW, COPS KILL YOU.”) 
The tax hike was seen as an attack on the middle class and was meant to close a $6.3 billion economic shortfall. 
While Duque backed away from the plan, it did little to assuage the public’s resentment. As The New York Times reported, the protests have been comprised of a wide range of citizens, many of who never took to the streets before in protest. 
“This is not just about the tax reform,” Mayra Lemus, a schoolteacher, told the paper. “This is about corruption, inequality, and poverty. And all of us young people are tired of it.”
The Associated Press reported the protests were mostly peaceful, but they took a violent turn when security forces, heavily armed from battling drug traffickers, began opening fire. Amnesty International issued a report that claimed these officers used high-power assault rifles in the city of Cali, which is southwest of Bogotá. These forces have also been accused of “arbitrary detentions, acts of torture, and sexual violence,” according to the Financial Times.
The U.N. also reported that on 1 May, an armored vehicle rattled off live ammunition at protesters. 
“Many of these officers kind of came of age as a result of that culture, but also they have the weaponry. So, their go-to response is always to sort of like go hard line and then ask questions later,” Gladys McCormick, an associate professor of history at Syracuse University, told the AP.
The Washington Post published an editorial on 7 May that called Colombia one of the region’s “most stable democracies in Latin America” and said the recent flare-up is evidence that no country in the region may emerge from the outbreak unscathed. The paper pointed out the poverty rate in the country jumped to above 40 percent.
TOP TREND FOR 2021: “YOUTH REVOLUTION”: As we had forecast in December 2020, in 2021, the uprisings and revolutions that were sweeping the world before the COVID War will accelerate dramatically, as billions of people sink deeper into economic despair. 
In response, governments will again attempt to use the COVID War as a “legal” justification to prohibit protests. But, as Gerald Celente says, “When people lose everything and have nothing left to lose, they lose it.” And lose it, they will. Thus, we maintain our forecast that protests will escalate into civil wars, and civil wars will spread to regional wars. 
TREND FORECAST: As reported extensively in the Trends Journal, last year, Columbia, along with other Latin American countries including Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Chile saw major protests as tens of millions demonstrated against government corruption, crime, violence, and lack of basic living standards. 
The protests, as with the rages in Lebanon, France, South Africa, India, Algeria, Hong Kong, etc., were instantly tamped down in 2020 as governments ordered strong lockdowns to fight the COVID War.
As economies sink deeper into the “Greatest Depression,” protests, riots, demonstrations, and civil wars will erupt throughout the world, escalating the refugee crisis, which, in turn, will strengthen populist movements in nations where war-weary and desperate people seek to enter.