This is what Eberto Diaz, leader of Fensuagro Colombia, said in an interview with Real World Radio. He is part of the Latin American Coordination of Countryside Organizations (Cloc) and Vía Campesina International.

Eberto said that the mobilization days also aim to support the peace dialogues and to demand their fulfillment. And he added that if the agreements reached two years ago are not advanced, a new strike will threaten the food supply to the large cities of the country.

The Outrage Days began on August 30 and will take place through September 5, including seminars, mobilizations, land takeovers and cultural activities, said Eberto.

Poverty, according to him, has significantly advanced in the Colombian countryside, worsening living conditions, the access to basic water and health services and also public education services. In order to reverse this, public policies negotiated with the organizations are needed, he said.

The high levels of land concentration makes Colombia one of the Latin American countries most affected by this process: 63% of the surface is in the hands of only 1 per cent of owners.

Moreover, Eberto Diaz analyzed the situation in the Colombian-Venezuelan border after the decree by Venezuelan government led by Nicolas Maduro to close them.
In this way, Diaz said that peasants are emigrating to Venezuela, Ecuador or Brazil, driven by the poverty and violence in Colombia, which the government has done little to nothing to prevent.

In this way, he added, the people displaced many times fall in the hands of smuggling or illegal economy, “exporting it” to the border countries and generating conflicts.
He also assessed that this situation is part of a series of destabilizing actions of Venezuela, which have been intentionally amplified by the corporate communication media to fuel the conflict.