Joshua Collins Profile picture
May 8, 2021 17 tweets 6 min read Read on X
THREAD: On ongoing protests in Colombia. After a some confusion on my part and a bit of a late start , I'm in Plaza Bolívar, where marchers are now rolling in

Much bigger crowd than I thought this morning, tho far from biggest so far. A walkthrough👇 #ParoNacional8M
Some updates while we wait to see how crowds look. Cali continues in strike, with many highways partially blocked and marches near the main point of protests Puerto resistencia
The Indigenous guard from the Minga, a communal indigenous movement composed of various communities from Cauca, have given an armed plainclothes polieman who they caught trying to infiltrate protests, back to authorities
I imagine he is being yelled at right now for creating a rather embarrassing situation for authorities 🤭
The Minga is a fascinating and recurring movement. Cauca is the deadliest region of Colombia and the indigenous guard are their highly respected unarmed security force. I had the honor of traveling with them for four days last year. More on that here 👇 thenewhumanitarian.org/news/2020/10/2…
I'm gonna head to La Hoja I think. Hear there's some movement there
Current scene at a women's march near la Hoja. Protesters briefly blocked one lane on the highway but are turning right into a residential area. Last time I was at one of these I went hope with a healthy dose of purple glitter 💜 ImageImage
Indepaz reports 379 people missing since protests began. This protester holds a sign asking where they are Image
And we're hit w torrential downpour as has been the case for nearly every afternoon since protests started. I'm going to take advantage of the pause to finish some edits on a piece in process. I hear there's a Bonfire ceremony at Heroes tonight. Thread paused but not over! ImageImage
And we're back! At monumento de los Héroes, where night protests are ongoing

Colombian Spiderman not having it Image
Current mood
I'm told this was a cleansing ceremony. Protesters approached me quick when they saw the press badge. They expressed frustration w how national media has covered them. Were glad I wasn't Image
When I say approached me quickly, I don't mean out of a desire to talk. To be transparent they wanted to make sure I didn't work for Caracol
The art just keeps getting better. You may have noticed I really like street protest art ImageImageImage
Caricatures: left a protesters impression of ex president Uribe. Right: Current president Duque
#protestArt ImageImage
I'm gonna call it though. One observation from today: when there's no police brutality, there's less problems. Even despite major unions taking the day off a lot of grassroots events popped up. For the moment, the momentum seems to be w protesters. (Cont)
These things change fast tho and I'm not making any concrete predictions. I'm also exhausted. 11 days of little sleep, lots of walking, lots of gas and lots of violence. Today was a nice break. And tomorrow will be a better one. Thanks as always if you got this far. ❤️🇨🇴 /END

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More from @InvisiblesMuros

Apr 25, 2023
Yesterday morning, Juan Guaidó arrived to Bogotá uninvited, ahead of a Venezuelan opposition conference organized by 🇨🇴 President Gustavo Petro

Now he is in Miami after being "expelled" according to Colombia's Foreign Ministry

What happened in between is a little confusing:🧵 Image
Yesterday morning, Guaidó announced his presence in Colombia. He crossed the border informally "arriving the way millions have, on foot" according to his statement

Bloomberg reported Petro has known about the trip for 2 weeks according to admin sources
The Colombian government, at least publicly, was les than thrilled. The Foreign Ministry said he would not be able to attend to the conference, and criticized him for entering the country informally

Read 8 tweets
Feb 23, 2023
New "The US military should invade México because Fentanyl" take just dropped in the Republican primaries

I dont even know where to start with the millions of problems with this idea. I doubt Mr Ramaswamy has thought this through

Lets start tho: 🧵
1) So....declare war on México?

Yeah dude. No. Just no

Problem #2

The Colombian governnent tried this for decades. Cocaine production continúes to hit record highs still every year

You cant bomb your way out of production
Because new actors just immediately fill the hole. And those new actors, whose friends, family and loved ones you killed, will hate you, making recruitment for armed groups easier

Problem #3

The "kingpin theory", that killing leasership ends organizations as well is flawed
Read 8 tweets
May 7, 2022
🧵 on the "armed strike" happening in Colombia. I wanted to do an explainer for those abroad to explain the context

Right wing narco group AGC (Gaitan Self Defense forces of Colombia) have prohibited movement and economic activity in most of the northwest of the country (1)
First, "armed strikes" by armed groups here happen a lot, as do "social cleansings" where AGs exile or murder "undesirables": usually that means homeless people, LGBT, street criminals etc etc

Usually the larger Colombian populace doesnt care much cause those zones are poor (2)
This armed strike however is happening near but outside of, Medellín, not just ana area relative security and an economic engine, but also the main power center of Colombia's ruling party, led by Álvaro, who has always had paramilitary contacts (3) nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/…
Read 9 tweets
May 6, 2022
Gunmen opened fire in the main plaza of San Roque, Antioquia to announce the begining of the 'Paro Armado'

Police, reportedly have orders to stay in their bunkers
Town under lockdown and steeets deserted as AGC imposes the armed strike
Scene currently downtown:
Read 5 tweets
Apr 26, 2022
It's time again for my quarterly reminder:

Anyone who thinks forced authentification is a good idea, or that shadow banning anonymous accounts will improve the quality of our information sphere, has never lived, worked, stepped outside the hotel lobby of an authoritarian state
In Colombia for example, which prob isnt high on the list of authoritarian countries most English speakers immediately think of, data harvested from social media led directly to arrrests of protesters, many *months* later, some of whom now face "terrorism" charges
Just last month, an old lady was arrested in Venezuela for making a video where she made fun of Venezuelan politicians by cooking arepas. No thats not a joke
Read 4 tweets
Feb 19, 2022
Alright! Let's get nerdy about the economic effects migrants have on their destination countries! And address some common misunderstandings with data from recent real world examples

THREAD:
Let's start with one of the most common false claims globally- "Immigrants will take our jobs, lower our wages and especially hurt the poor"

To explain why this claim is false, we need to first explain a bit what immigrants do when they arrive to destination countries
We have two real-world examples to study this! Colombia, which absorbed more than 1.7 million Venezuelan migrants between 2015 and 2020

And decades of data from the US, which has seen a rise in migration in recent years.
Read 22 tweets

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