Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro plans to create a truth commission to investigate the violent repression of protest that left many dozens dead and hundreds in jail between 2019 and 2021.

In a decree, Petro ordered the creation of a truth commission in order to verify claims made by human rights organizations and alternative media about the alleged deaths of 170 people, 537 arbitrary detentions and the severe injuries suffered by more than 150 protesters.

The commission would be given a mandate to investigate public policies since 1999 that would allow the clarification of the administrative and judicial justifications of the extraordinary police violence in response to protests between 2019 and 2021.

The uprisings

• National Strike (November 2019 – February 2020)
  Duque’s attempts to push through a broadly opposed tax reform triggered largely peaceful National Strike protests that were violently repressed by police. The protest organizers suspended the protests in February in response to the sudden outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic.
• Bogota Massacre (September 2020)
  The Bogota Massacre that killed at least 11 people was part of a police terror campaign that sought to end violent anti-police protests that were triggered by the apparently random assassination of a Bogota resident by police.
• National Strike II (April 2021 – July 2021)
  Growing social opposition to Duque’s far-right policies converted the second leg of the National Strike into an uprising that effectively banned the police from significant parts of Colombia’s largest cities. Dozens were killed when police and far-right death squads tried to put an end to the peaceful protests and the rebellions.

The draft decree barred all government institutions, including the police, from classifying information related to alleged human rights violations that may be relevant for commission investigators.

The commission will be given a year to investigate the police violence and present its conclusions.

The government will be responsible for the effective dissemination of the Truth Commission’s findings through its State television broadcasys and social media channels.