Audio RANT

Juan Merchan

Today marks the 4th day of massive demonstrations in Colombia’s capital, Bogota. Hundreds have taken
the streets again today to protest for free education and the defense of the peace agreement with the
FARC rebels. Juan Merchan informs reports in the streets.

Script

This is Juan MerchanX reporting from downtown Bogota as we’re hearing detonations behind us, it
seems the police is throwing and launching tear gases at us, and, uh, today it is flooded with hundreds of
people, chanting and holding colorful protest signs. I’ve been following the protest from the side for
about 2 hours now. From where I am I can observe hundreds of high school and college students, but I
can also see young professionals, workers, and even some elderly. The protest so far resembles a
carnival, with people constantly smiling and shouting out rants at the Colombian’s government.

Now, the crowd is now moving down the street. There’s a bunch of guys dressed up in black clothes,
with black clothes covering their faces, there might be 10 or 12 of them, they are running up the street
towards where the police is awaiting, no one knows at this point what might happen, as everyone is
looking at them in awe.

No, it seems the rest of the crowd keeps moving, but, at this moment, wait,

I think I heard a detonation behind us, yes, there’s, there’s a group of people running up from behind, it
seems the police just shot teargases on the crowd, or on the hooded people we saw before, it’s
uncertain to tell at this moment, but it seems we got to move faster as everyone behind is us nervously
grouping, seeking to escape from the tear gas. I’ve been just pushed into the crowd. There’s nowhere
else to go as we’re just trying to reach a nearby corner just to be able to turn right and escape from the
police gathering.

We’ve just heard more detonations and people are just yelling at the police as we walk, everything is
quite confusing now.

I think someone has just fallen down, at this point we don’t, we can’t tell who this was, but people are
asking the police to stop launching tear gas. Some people are approaching this fallen person now… it
seems it’s a protestor, they are asking him to stand up…

We cannot tell at this moment but it seems it is a man, and he seems unconscious from what I can see
from here. Police has just stopped the teargas, and they are grouping in one of the corners, as
protestors throw them rocks at them. I can hear people are blaming police for the person who’s fallen,
at this moment there’s no certainty about what happened… I will try to get closer to see what
happened, as I see an ambulance parking at the place to assist the person. I will get back to you with
further news about this.
For Thunderbird news…I’m Juan Merchan.