Antioquia Toll-Booth Worker Burned to Death by Colombia’s Extremist ‘Protesters’
Colombia’s national infrastructure agency INVIAS announced July 6 that Antioquia highway toll-booth worker Luis Fernando Álvarez Correa has just died of massive burns suffered as a result of a terrorist “protester” attack on the “Los Llanos” highway toll booth in Antioquia last month.
The 38-year-old Álvarez is just the latest of thousands of victims of the “Comite del Paro” and the “Primera Linea” strikes and blockades, both of which arose in April supposedly in reaction to a proposed tax bill that (ironically) had already been withdrawn by the Colombian government.
Colombia’s Health Minister Fernando Ruiz has estimated that thousands of Covid-19 victims here unnecessarily died as a result of “Comite del Paro” mass-spreader events, road blockades and terrorist attacks on delivery vehicles, ambulances and their drivers, which prevented the timely delivery of crucial oxygen tanks, medical supplies and patients to hospitals and clinics in many parts of Colombia.
Rather than a protest over a non-existent tax bill, the violent protests, road blockades, massive destructions and burnings of buildings, vehicles, public transport infrastructure and injuries to thousands of police and demonstrators can be seen as largely the result of cynical left-wing politicians organizing and manipulating hundreds of thousands of understandably frustrated unemployed youths who have lost their jobs because of the Covid-19 crisis – tricked by an all-too-human frailty of blaming “the government” – a government that ironically has gone deep into debt with massive subsidies to the poor and working classes to help them survive the Covid crisis.
Unfortunately, excessive force by some riot police – rather than justifiable force in reaction to certain rioting and violent blockades by protesters — has prompted Colombia’s Attorney General to investigate and/or bring charges against at least 105 policemen so far for abuse of authority, as well as for possible culpability for 16 civilian deaths during the riots and blockades, according to the National Police.
Beyond the more than 1,000 protesters who have reported injuries during the May-to-June marches, road blockades, Molotov-cocktail attacks, shootings, burnings, lootings and destructions of hundreds of buildings, buses and private vehicles, 1,564 police also have been injured — and three police murdered by rioters — according to the National Police.
In addition, 24 violent protesters so far have been captured for attempted murders of police, including an attempt to burn-to-death several policemen trapped inside just one of the 121 police stations destroyed by protesters during the riots, according to the latest National Police statistics.
What’s more, the National Police have detected and reported at least 94 fake-news reports — mainly disseminated through social media — including cleverly edited videos that only show police attacking “innocent” protesters (and in a few cases, some nearby news reporters).
However, in some (but not all) cases, police counter-attacks often came in response to protesters throwing of rocks, Molotov cocktails, small bombs, bricks and sometimes shooting bullets at police.
But some of these violent protester attacks — followed by police counter-attacks — were cleverly edited-out by the fake-news propagandists, according to 94 documented cases reported by the National Police.
Several extreme left-wing politicians — aiming to manipulate certain voters and especially naïve youth – also have reposted these fake-news videos via Tweets and Facebook pages, aiming to stir-up hatred against Colombia’s moderate-centrist, democratic government.
Fake videos also have aimed to trick some of the international news media into unbalanced “human rights violation” stories that unfortunately failed to investigate or report extreme left-wing political forces — including the narco-communist ELN and reFARC terrorist groups, as well as Venezuelan government agents – who in part are financing and promoting this violence.