AL JAZEERA: Colombia protests continue after government withdraws tax reform →

Violent protests continue around Colombia as unions make more demands of the right-wing government of President Ivan Duque following his withdrawal of a proposed tax reform that sparked widespread public anger.

The government said the tax reform aimed to stabilise a country economically ravished by the coronavirus pandemic, but the working and middle classes said the plan favoured the rich while placing more pressure on them.

AL JAZEERA: Colombia’s ex-FARC leaders admit kidnapping and other crimes →

Eight ex-commanders of Colombia’s now-defunct rebel group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), have formally admitted to accusations of kidnappings as a policy within their ranks and other crimes against humanity in a transitional justice court on Friday.

A woman hangs a Colombian flag next to a FARC flag at a reintegration camp in Pondores, Colombia on 1 August 2019. Four years on from a historic peace accord, the agreement is fraying and the violence has not gone away. (Luisa Gonzalez/REUTERS)

Al JAZEERA: Thousands march in Colombia over tax proposals, rising insecurity →

Tens of thousands of protesters answered the call of Colombia’s biggest unions to take to the streets over the government’s proposed tax proposals despite a court order to postpone the strike over concerns of an overstretched health system amid a third wave of coronavirus.

Teachers, university students, trade unions, Afro-Colombian and Indigenous groups and many others took part in the protests on Wednesday against tax changes put forward by right-wing President Ivan Duque’s government.

Teacher Ivan Pulido, taking a break by the side of the road, refers to the Duque administration as a ‘mafia’ [Steven Grattan]

PRI'S THE WORLD: ‘The way they silence us is by killing us’: Armed conflict returns to Colombia’s port city of Buenaventura →

Leonard Rentiera, a pint-sized rapper and social activist, is often escorted by two bodyguards in a bulletproof car around his city.
The 29-year-old artist from Buenaventura, a port city on Colombia’s Pacific coast, has been under threat for years due to his outspokenness about the violence that engulfs his hometown.
In the last four months, a wave of violence has taken over much of the city, as two criminal groups, Los Chotas and Los Espartanos, vie for control. These groups are splinter groups from the now-defunct La Local.

Leonard Renteria, 29, rapper and activist, posed at his recording studio in Buenaventura. Photo: Steven Grattan

THE WASHINGTON POST: Venezuelan military offensive sends thousands fleeing, recharging one of the world’s worst refugee crises →

A new campaign by the Venezuelan military near the country’s lawless western border is sparking a surge of refugees, with thousands defying the spiking pandemic to pack into makeshift shelters and tent settlements in this Colombian town.
The sudden outflow is amplifying a renewed wave of Venezuelan refugees and migrants — the world’s second-largest group of internationally displaced people — from the broken socialist state. Concern is also rising about mounting tensions between the left-wing Venezuelan and right-wing Colombian governments, which are blaming each other for the uptick in violence in Venezuela’s western Apure state.

Ana Maria Vásquez, 30, has taken refuge with her five children at the sports field in Arauquita. Photo: Steven Grattan

AL JAZEERA: Venezuelan offensive sends thousands of civilians into Colombia →

When the Venezuelan military helicopters started firing shots and the bombing began, Yanet Garcia fled her home. With her family in tow, she made it safely across the border to Colombia in just a few hours.

Garcia, 40, from the outskirts of a small Venezuelan border town called La Victoria, had to force her 82-year-old father off their small farm to come with them. “Let them kill me,” he shouted at her, but eventually relented.

Intense and continual armed clashes between the elite Venezuela military unit, known as FANB, and Colombian rebel dissident groups have taken place in various small border towns of Apure state since March 21 [Steven Grattan/Al Jazeera]

VICE NEWS: Biden Criticized for Supporting a ‘Misguided’ Plan to Poison Colombia’s Coca Fields →

Colombia wants to restart the toxic aerial spraying of coca, the base ingredient for cocaine, as early as next month—drawing support from U.S. President Joe Biden and sharp criticism from experts.

Earlier this month, Biden’s administration celebrated Colombia’s decision to restart aerial eradication of coca in its annual International Narcotics Control Strategy Report.

Colombian President Ivan Duque insists it’s the best option in the country’s war on drugs.

An aircraft dumps herbicide on an illicit coca crop under the Plan Colombia programme in 2000 © Reuters

AL JAZEERA: In Colombian port town, LGBTQ community faces increasing threats →

Gisela Diaz, 40, bursts into tears as she recalls the years of violence and discrimination she and her LGBTQ friends have endured in their troubled city.

“The situation is very difficult [for LGBTQ people] here in Buenaventura,” says Diaz, who identifies as a lesbian.

Cristina Montenegro, 21, has received death threats for being a trans woman. She has had to pay money to armed actors to be allowed to work in peace. Photo: Steven Grattan

BBC NEWS: The midwives braving armed gangs in Colombia →

In the stifling heat of Buenaventura, Feliciana Hurtado walks around with a big smile on her face in the neighbourhood where she has delivered many babies over the last 30 years.

The 68-year-old greets the mothers whom she has helped, and their children.

Ms Hurtado lives in a relatively safe area of the mainly Afro-Colombian port city on Colombia's impoverished and conflict-ridden western coast, but her work as a midwife often takes her to dangerous and troubled neighbourhoods.

Ms Hurtado visits a two-month-old baby she delivered. Photo: Steven Grattan

THE GUARDIAN: Colombia's 'capital of horror' despairs amid new wave of gang violence →

Clenching a fist, Tatiana Angulo talked about the killings of her neighbours’ two teenage sons.
“They got mixed up in it,” said Angulo, 34, who runs a peace theatre group, reenacting the stories of local victims. “We used to be able to hang out and have a laugh on the street corners, but now that’s where the killings happen.”
The port city of Buenaventura, on Colombia’s Pacific coast, has long been infamous as the “capital of horror”, with a history of brutal killings and “casas de pique”, or chop houses, where bodies were dismembered and dumped in the sea.

Tatiana Angulo: ‘We used to be able to hang out and have a laugh on the street corners, but now that’s where the killings happen.’ Photograph: Steven Grattan