Colombian protesters confront security forces amidst tear gas and water cannons. Photo: Colombia Informa.
By Alfonso Insuasty Rodríguez – May 7, 2025
Social organizations in Columbia demand a Truth Commission to investigate the crimes committed by the Colombian State, to compensate the victims, and to guarantee that repression will not be repeated. Four years after the social uprising in Colombia, impunity reigns.
Four years after the social outburst that shook Colombia between 2019 and 2021, which turned particularly intense 2021, a deep open wound persists that has not yet been addressed with the seriousness that it deserves. The massive mobilization days, largely led by excluded youth and historically marginalized sectors, represented a turning point in the country’s recent history: not only due to the magnitude of social protest but also because of the severity of the state’s response.
The mobilizations initially emerged as a reaction to a regressive tax reform of the government of Iván Duque, in the context of a health and economic crisis exacerbated by the pandemic.
However, they quickly transformed into an accumulated expression of popular discontent against decades of structural exclusion, precarious living conditions, repression, and lack of effective representation. The slogans in the streets were not limited to short-term demands, but directly challenged the foundations of the developmental model, the distribution of political power, and the foundations of Colombian democracy.
In response to these demands, the state’s reaction was predominantly repressive, treating the popular uprising as a war. Various national and international organizations documented serious human rights violations, including disproportionate use of force, arbitrary detentions, sexual violence, forced disappearance, and homicides perpetrated by members of the security forces and armed civilians in collusion with the National Police, particularly the Mobile Anti-Riot Squad (ESMAD).
This repressive pattern was not an isolated event. Previously, in 2019 and 2020, events such as the murder of lawyer Javier Ordóñez exposed a systematic trend of police abuse. At the height of the uprising, in 2021, the repression deepened with a painful toll: at least 169 young men and women were killed by the security forces and armed civilians.
In total, there have been 970 documented cases of state violence, according to data collected by social organizations as part of a national campaign to demand justice and truth. This figure, although significant, does not represent the totality of the facts, since information from many municipalities and territories is yet to be collected, as the campaign has just begun.
Despite the magnitude of the social crisis and the abuses committed, the Colombian State, now headed by Gustavo Petro, has not yet fulfilled its promise to advance mechanisms for clarification and reparation. One of the most serious omissions has been the lack of creation of a Truth Commission specifically designed for the investigation of the social uprising. This is despite the fact that the current president, during his electoral campaign as well as at a public event on May 10, 2024, promised to create a Truth mechanism.
This failure not only reflects possible institutional disinterest but beyond that, perpetuates the cycle of impunity, delegitimizes the suffering of victims, and reinforces the official narrative based on silencing and criminalizing social protest.
Facing this omission, multiple social organizations, victims, university organizations, youth collectives, and human rights defenders have promoted a national campaign to demand justice, truth and reparation, whose central objective is the creation of an autonomous, independent Truth Commission with the active participation of the victims.
This commission must have sufficient legitimacy to investigate the crimes committed during the uprising, establish institutional responsibilities, and recommend concrete measures for comprehensive reparation and guarantees of non-repetition.
The demand for a commission is not simply a symbolic act; it constitutes a fundamental tool for the construction of historical memory, the recovery of the fractured social fabric, and the consolidation of a truly participatory democracy.
In this regard, experiences such as the Siloé Popular Tribunal (Cali, 2023), or initiatives such as the #JusticiaYVerdadEnAcción campaign (2025) show an active citizenry that not only resists, but also proposes paths of reconstruction from below, from the territories and from the living memory of those who survived the repression.
These civil society proposals are, in turn, an ethical challenge to the Colombian state, which until now has demonstrated a concerning lack of political will to recognize its institutional responsibility.
The failure to implement substantive reforms in the security doctrine, the persistence of repressive structures such as the ESMAD, and the systematic use of criminal law to silence dissent, reinforce a model of social control incompatible with democratic principles.
Consequently, it is urgent to create a Truth Commission for the social outbreak in addition to the immediate dismantling of the ESMAD, whose history of human rights violations has been repeatedly documented. At the same time, the participation of multilateral human rights organizations is required, as well as constant monitoring by the international community, in order to ensure that Colombia fulfills its international commitments to truth, justice and reparation.
Four years later, the social uprising remains an open wound that challenges the Colombian society as a whole. The victims and their families have not ceased in their search for truth and justice. Impunity, on the other hand, remains an institutional constant. Without decisive action by the State, without moving from discourse to structural transformation, the root causes of the protest will continue to exist.
Colombia finds itself today at a historical crossroads: advance toward a substantive democracy with social justice or perpetuate the structure of an authoritarian model that normalizes repression as a form of governance.
At this juncture, organized memory, the ethical claims of the victims and social mobilization stand as the real possibility for change. Justice is not vengeance, it is reparations. And memory, when articulated from below, can open the way to a different history that in turn would pave the way to real peace with structural transformations.
Alfonso Insuasty Rodríguez is a professor of the San Buenaventura University, Medellín, Colombia, specializing in education and the social impact of conflicts.
(Telesur)
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/SC/DZ
