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Weekly Report - 16 April 2014 (WR-14-15)

COLOMBIA: Santos seeks to stop strike

President Juan Manuel Santos is desperately trying to avert a multi-sector agricultural strike on the scale of the rural protest action last August and September, which pummelled his popularity, ahead of his bid for re-election on 25 May. His government managed to stave off a strike by rice farmers last week but only by making a concession which will encourage other sectors to try and cut their own deals. Hastily convened meetings between the government and rural leaders coincided with some incendiary comments by Santos’ former agriculture minister, Juan Camilo Restrepo (2010-2013), related to corruption in state agrarian institutions. These have been seized upon by Marta Lucía Ramírez, the presidential candidate for the Partido Conservador (PC), to blame Santos for creating the root cause of the strike.

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