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Chocó general strike reaps results By Karen Juanita Carrillo A Chocó general strike that took place on February 19, 2009 has reaped results. Following a massive 24-hour general protest the Colombian government of Álvaro Uribe Vélez
has signed an agreement and claims it will begin paving the Quibdó-Medellín road immediately with the funds
it currently has at its disposal. By April, the government also plans to ask for bids from companies who wish to complete
the roads’ pavement. The terms of the agreement can be read online at the website, Chocó 7 días. The Comité Cívico por la Salvación
y la Dignidad del Chocó/Committee for the Salvation and Dignity of Chocó was one of several organizations to
call for the strike. Some twenty thousand people poured onto the streets to take part in the protest. Local restaurants,
businesses and church organizations closed their doors and urged their members to join in on the demonstrations. “Chocó deserves much better, our highways
should not be death traps,” protestors chanted as they marched through the streets. The general strike was in response
to a February 3rd Rápido Ochoa bus tragedy in which 45 people were killed on the Quibdó-Medellín road.
After the February 3rd accident, six
survivors were taken to a hospital in the city of Carmen de Atrato and one survivor was discovered on the riverbank three
days later. Currently, some 45 people are thought to have died on this bus ride, 31 bodies have so far been recovered. Some twenty thousand Chocóanos
took part in a Feb. 19 general strike against the government. The sixty mile long Quibdó-Medellín road is unpaved, filled with potholes, and borders
a cliff that has no railings or supports to obstruct vehicles from tumbling down into the Atrato river, many Afro-Chocóanos
refer to it as “Death’s Highway.” Rápido Ochoa company officials have also blamed the accident
on the hazardous road conditions their bus driver had to endure. (The company has even posted a video depicting an average
ride on the Quibdó-Medellín road on its website, www.rapidoochoa.com) In their call for the civic strike, members of the
Comité Cívico noted that “Chocó is the victim of a truly criminal level of discrimination, its
weak institutional structure has left it bankrupt, and there’s been an alarming increase in its levels of hunger, poverty,
indigence, illiteracy, unemployment, and infantile and maternal mortality. Life expectancy has decreased and members
of our communities live and die without any hope of progress. Our education sector is on the brink of total collapse, with
a financial deficit of more than 40 billion pesos; the health system and our hospitals are in a state of agony [and] the Atrato
river is constantly flooding and threatening the lives of people who live near its banks and ruining the harvests of local
farmers…” Chocóanos have held
general strikes in the past: because the Colombian government has long neglected Chocó, residents have had to
demand services like potable water, the building of bridges, and even the installation of telephone lines so that residents
could be in communication with each other, particularly in times of emergency.
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