Things don’t appear to be easing up in Latin America. As protests in Bolivia, Chile and Haiti continue, Colombia is now confronting protests of its own and Venezuela and Nicaragua are now facing renewed waves of demonstrations.
Inspired by how major protests (and other factors) led to the resignation of former Bolivian President Evo Morales, Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó on Saturday called on his supporters to take to the streets and demand the ousting of President Nicolás Maduro. In Nicaragua, pro-government supporters clashed with the Catholic Church as hunger strikes demanding the release of political prisoners took place in three separate churches. Thirteen activists were arrested as they tried to deliver aid to protestors in the San Miguel church in Managua.
And in Colombia, hundreds of thousands of citizens gathered on Thursday to protest President Iván Duque’s government. The protests covered everything from economic inequality, to the government’s handling of the peace process, to violence against social leaders. In preparation for the protests, the Colombian government announced plans to close its borders and authorized local authorities to adopt exceptional measures to contain demonstrations in the hopes of preventing them from escalating like protests in Bolivia and Chile.
In Bolivia, protests have shifted from calling on the ousting of President Morales to rallies in support of the former President and against new interim President Jeanine Áñez. A clash between supporters of Morales and security forces left eight people dead, raising the death toll since protests began to—according to recent reports—approximately 31. As Human Rights Watch announced on Tuesday, the interim government has adopted alarming measures that grant the military overly broad discretion to use force.
Chile faces the same issue of excessive force by security forces. According to an Amnesty International report published on Thursday, five people have died at the hands of security forces—with other independent and local sources raising that number to 20. Chile’s public prosecutors office has registered more than 1,100 complaints of “torture and other cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment,” by police and military forces, including cases of sexual violence by public officials. On Sunday, Chilean President Sebastián Piñera admitted that security forces had used excessive force and vowed there would be “no impunity.”
