Colombia: Events lead by the Minga Cali in Medellín
Feature image: Events lead by Minga Cali between the 29 of march and 3 of April. Source: Nueva Democracia
Between the 29th of March and 2nd of April, members of Minga Cali stayed in the city of Medellín, participating in various events. Nueva Democracia has informed about this recently. These days, 29th, 30th and 31th of March the events were realized in popular neighborhoods which confront displacement threats and in which is evolving the struggle of residents, for example in Barrio José Antonio Galán, a struggle frequently reported by Nueva Democracia:
Nueva Democracia gives us an insight and explains that Minga Cali: “is a unification of more than 20 social organizations, defenders of human rights, collectives, foundations, communitarian councils. We are here to fight for the access to land in Cali. […] Many of us came to Cali because we’ve been displaced from our land. We came to Cali and there we suffered displacement. The land has been in the hands of the economic elites … we the common people have to seek unification, unite our forces for this struggle to look forward to receive the right to own a slice of land, territory, to live in dignity. […] The access to housing is a privilege. The State is offering the available land for housing to the building companies. It is the model of a town and progress inherent to the rich.”
The fact that the land in Cali is being concentrated by the “big capital together with the big landlords, like the sugar refineries and the construction companies, that control the state institutions to prevent the land to become property of the people’s masses”. Thousands of popular families in the city are confronting orders of displacement and other thousands already have been displaced by the Plan Jarillón and the Tren de Cercanías. Nueva Democracia has realized vast reports of this struggle:
The displacement of popular families by the megaprojects leaving them without any alternative, habitation or means of sustain has been denounced. Against this background, Minga Cali have organized more then 1,000 families, “a part of them displaced by these megaprojects without any type of compensation; other part of the families haven’t been displaced yet, and keep struggling to detain the displacements and for the right to live in peace, or in the worst case scenario, that they receive decent housing; and finally there are other families that want to conquest housing due to peoples struggle, cause after years of hard work, couldn’t access to housing.” Minga Cali has realized a lot of different activities like “marches, demonstrations, protests on events of institutions, informative campaigns, popular assemblies, and others”. Minga Cali managed to grow in popular neighborhoods as well as detain displacement and oblige the institutions to recognize the organized neighbors as their valid counterparts.
The 2nd of April the event has been realized in the University of Antioquia (UdeA). Among other things Minga Cali explained their organizational forms with the means to achieve unity in the midst of the extent inherent to their organization. It also is upholding clearly the necessity to struggle for land in relation to territory and habitation with dignity for the people. Minga Cali is visiting Medellín as a part of a national tour that they are realizing, and in which they also will visit the country’s capital Bogotá. They also want to realize a national forum for land territory and decent housing in the city of Cali.
Source of all images is the Colombian media ‘Nueva Democracia’.
