
Colombia: Neighbors of José A. Galán reaffirm their will to Struggle for their Homes
The newspaper Nueva Democracia has reported on the meeting of the neighborhood José Antonio Galán residents. We already published some months ago a song by the Cultural Combat Front (FCC) and a note to the residents’ struggle of the neighborhood, which is in the municipality of Bello, metropolitan area of Medellin:
This meeting took place on January 12 and in there the residents evaluated the struggle during the year 2024 and the lessons they learned from it. Moreover they reaffirmed their commitment to continue the struggle during 2025. Youth and women collectives which support the residents struggle also attended this meeting. Nueva Democracia reports that currently this neighborhood is under eviction threat.
Nueva Democracia has written on this struggle:



The neighbors denounced the tactics used by the State, which currently is evicting the neighborhood part by part, and currently there are 27 families under the threat of eviction. By doing so, the State can divide the struggle of the people. At the same time the institutions are attempting to deceive the people and pretend to be on its side.
Moreover is usual that the local institutions offer miserable amounts of money to the residents so that they abandon voluntarily their homes. However, the residents state that they cannot even pay the rent for 1 year with this money. The activist comrades of the neighborhood draw a clear conclusion: “cast away illusions in the laws and institutions of the State, because there won’t be a miraculous lawyer or law that will save you from this situation”, and at the same time, “the main lesson is the necessity to strengthen our organization in the neighborhood to prevent the eviction by protesting, making public denounces, mobilizations and uniting with other people’s sectors such as students, unions and other neighborhoods in a similar situation.”



Pictures and videos on the activities during 2024 were shown. The activities, among others, were: the participation in the 1st of May march, support neighbors with specific problems and mobilize the residents and youth to do this, propagandize the struggle of the residents at the universities, protests of different types, etc. Among them, stood out “the sit-in before the Town Hall of Bello, in which the eviction threat was denounced, and the mobilization was carried out despite the repression by police and officials.” Nueva Democracia published an article on this action:
The activists explained that all these actions have strengthened the organization in the neighborhood, to persist in the unity of the neighborhood for the struggle, to be prepared for the eviction being imminent and even has served to create more ties of mutual aid with other neighborhoods.



After this exposition of the lessons of 2024, musical presentations were carried out and one resident of the neighborhood participated, who denounced the electoral farce. The FCC played several songs, three of them recently composed and inspired by the struggle for housing carried out by the José Antonio Galán neighborhood residents. We hereby share these songs:
The sources for all the pictures of this article is the Colombian newspaper Nueva Democracia.