This was stated by the Union Council in a letter addressed to Emilio Archila, presidential adviser for Stabilization and Consolidation.
The National Trade Union Council, which groups together the most representative unions from the industrial, agricultural, financial, commercial and service sectors, asked the National Government not to carry out dialogues with the promoters of the strike while the blockades in the country continue .
Through a letter addressed to Emilio Archila, the counselor for Stabilization and Consolidation and the government’s negotiator with the Unemployment Committee, the unions rejected said closures on roads and ports in the country, some of which have been going on for more than a month.
They recalled that the country’s businessmen and producers have had enormous losses as a result of the blockades and “have made superhuman efforts to sustain their companies,” which, they highlight, are key to job creation and economic reactivation.
Also read: Blockades cost more than $ 1 billion to the automotive industry in Colombia
The union’s request echoes the statements that President Duque gave to the Spanish newspaper El País, in which he assured that although there are peaceful protests “and a clamor from the citizens we hear,” there are also acts of vandalism and blockades “That violate fundamental rights.”
The president said that accepting the humanitarian corridors, as proposed by the Unemployment Committee, is accepting such blockades as a mechanism of pressure on citizens .
He also said that it is required that there be a categorical repudiation of the blockades and that instructions be given to lift them. “If that doesn’t happen, negotiation is very difficult. The country cannot feel asphyxiated or kidnapped, ”he said.
The Unemployment Committee, for its part, has defended what it classifies as “temporary and intermittent road cuts”, noting that peaceful protest “generates trauma.”
You may be interested: “Blockades are part of legitimate possibilities for protests”: Unemployment Committee
On May 28, it was a month of uninterrupted national strike. According to the Ombudsman’s Office, 123 people remain missing and 383 human rights violations have been identified. The organ also indicated that in the last month the protesters interrupted the passage of vehicles 2,615 times.
