ESMAD, Colombia's notorious riot police (previously mentioned in several articles), clashed heavily with student protesters in various parts of the country within the last days. Following the revelations about the corruption of the Universidad Distrital’s (Eng.: “District Universaty”) former director, who lavishly spend the money of the university for his own benefit on cars, television services, hotels, restaurants, etc. while at the same time the conditions for students became increasingly worse, students in Bogota organized protests, that ended in a spreading the fire of rebellion after the state attempted to forcefully subdue it.
Protests on the 26th of September in Bogota
Attack on office issuing loans to students
The Universidad Distrital with 25.000 students is one of the major universities in the country, hence their just mobilization against the illicit spending of funds that should be spent in their service attracted a lot of attention and sympathy all through out Colombia and lead to several other universities – even private ones – expressing their solidarity with the betrayed students in the capitol. The state, hell-bent on subduing the struggle of the usually very combative students, sent its goons of the ESMAD to crack down on the protests – violating its own laws in the process, such as the university grounds not to be entered by the police. Protesters responded fiercely with self-made weaponry, stones and barricades and attacking much hated institutions of the university, such as the bureau for student loans, for many a symbol of the great debts that are being piled onto their shoulders during the few years of university.
The fire of the student’s struggles even leaped to other cities: In Medellin protests mobilized to by the MESP, the League of Revolutionary Students and the Student Union of the People, among others, ended up in blocking major traffic nodes of the city and intense confrontation with the police in which the organized students threw Molotov cocktails and stones against the police in a battle that lasted multiple hours. In Bucaramanga students of the Industrial University of Santander blocked 14th Street denouncing the police violence and electoral propaganda was ripped down and burned for barricades.
