Why is Colombia striking for change?

Ongoing protests in Colombia are of a scale not seen since the assassination of Jorge Eliécer Gaitán in 1948. Though they began as a response to specific economic and social reforms, the national strike led by a broad yet diverse coalition of movements and organisations has become a lightning rod for longer-term discontent about the failing peace process, the killing of hundreds of social leaders, unequal access to education and health services, and a low-wage, extractive, neoliberal economic model. Like other parts of Latin America and the wider world, Colombia is finally waking up, write Tobias Franz (SOAS) and Andrei Gómez Suárez (University of Bristol).