Bogotá, Epicenter of Chaos with an Action Movie Flavor (But in Real Life)
Imagine the scene: Bogotá, any given Friday. Suddenly, the perfect plan for a brunch with arepas is interrupted by a demonstration that decided that Molotov cocktails and arrows were the new instruments of protest. Yes, arrows. We are not on the film set of “The Hunger Games” or in an intense game of Dungeons & Dragons; This is real life, people, and Mayor Carlos Fernando Galán confirmed it on
The quick summary, for those who only read the tweets: at least four ESMAD agents (that anti-riot squad that seems to come out of a dystopian series) ended up with arrow wounds in the face, legs and arms. One of them, in a twist worthy of a medieval epic, had to be treated with the projectile still stuck in his arm. The Minister of Defense, Pedro Sánchez, did not remain silent and shared the video on networks, adding the dramatic caption: “This is not a demonstration. It is an attempted homicide.” Someone, please, change the drama, this is not an episode of “Narcos.”
Who Calls a Protest with Ancestral Arsenal? The Congress of the People Explains (More or Less)
Behind this urban chaos is the Congress of the People, a social movement that sounds like something out of a university assembly, but is actually a coalition of indigenous, Afro-descendant, youth and peasant organizations that, since 2010, has been articulating demands ranging from infrastructure to territorial security. Their argument, also published in X, was that their protest was “belligerently peaceful.” An oxymoron so big that even academics scratch their heads. Peaceful with arrows and incendiary devices? It sounds like that excuse we make when we say “I’m only going to watch one season” on Netflix and we end up watching the entire series.
But it doesn’t end there. According to the movement, indigenous communities carried their ancestral bows and arrows as defense mechanisms. That is, in their logic, it was not an attack, it was a cultural exhibition with unforeseen consequences. They also took the opportunity to reject what they call Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza and the US military deployment in the Caribbean. Because, of course, what better way to protest international conflicts than by shooting arrows at an embassy in the Colombian capital? The logic of the protests in 2025 is simply impeccable.
Meanwhile, President Gustavo Petro, our progressive leader, was trying to bring order to the chaos. He ordered “maximum care” for the US embassy and regretted that things had gotten out of control, especially after his government reached an agreement with the People’s Congress to lift the blockades that had paralyzed half of Colombia. Because, in addition to the scene in Bogotá, the movement had blocked tolls and key roads such as the Panamericana, affecting communication between departments. Basically, a Friday of hellish traffic with extras of an anti-capitalist rebellion.
And the Most Unexpected Move Award goes to… the Change of Police Director
But the drama did not end with the arrows and the screams. Hours later, in a presidential address that we were all waiting for with the same interest as the end of “Stranger Things”, Petro announced that he would change the director of the National Police, Major General Carlos Fernando Triana. The reason? “Failures in its management“, which included an attack on a helicopter where 12 police officers died during operations to eradicate illicit crops. Come on, the man accumulated so many problems that even the president, known for his patience with dissent, said “enough is enough.”
Petro also pointed out discrepancies between the homicide figures reported by the police and those of Forensic Medicine, which suggests that, in addition to security problems, there is an issue of transparency that smells uglier than a tweet from a hater. Of course, he did not name the replacement, leaving everyone with the suspense of who will be next to carry the weight of an institution that seems to be in constant survival mode.
In summary, what began as just another social protest on the agenda of the Congress of the People ended as a surreal episode that mixes legitimate demands with tactics that seem taken from a medieval guerrilla manual. As police officers recover from their injuries and the city attempts to return to normal, the question remains whether these types of actions actually help the causes or simply turn the lawsuits into an unintentional meme. Because, let’s be honest, in the age of networks, an arrow in a police arm generates more clicks than a three-hour speech on agrarian reform.
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