The Colombian Congress dealt a blow to bullfighting by approving its ban throughout the country, which would become effective within three years if it obtains the signature of the president, Gustavo Petro, as the last step to become law. .
Colombia has been one of the five Latin American countries to allow bullfighting along with Venezuela, Peru, Mexico and Ecuador, but the latter two partially prohibit bullfighting practices in some states and cities.
This is an initiative that generated resistance in the Colombian Congress, where at least four projects seeking a ban have failed in the last six years.
On Tuesday, 93 House representatives voted to ban bullfighting and two to continue allowing it, in the last of four debates necessary for a bill that dragged on for several weeks.
The text must be reconciled in the Senate and House, a procedure that usually advances easily to adjust small details before going to the presidential sanction.
The approved project seeks the progressive prohibition of practices of “cruel entertainment with animals” that include bullfights, corralejas – in which there is no bullfighter and any assistant faces the bull instead – and shows with calves and steers.
“What we have here is a country that says that there is no form of torture that can be considered culture in this world, Colombia gives an example to the entire world,” celebrated legislator Juan Carlos Losada, from the Liberal and animal rights party, who said through tears. having fought for a decade for the prohibition of bullfighting.
Congress ordered the Ministries of Culture and Environment to regulate, within two months after the law came into force, the conditions under which bullfighting practices would be developed in the three transition years in which they will continue to be allowed under “the highest standards of animal welfare and protection.”
“Colombia, a world power of life, cannot continue allowing bloody entertainment at the expense of animal suffering, much less hide behind torture,” Sergio Manzano, legal advisor for Colombia Sin Toreo, a coalition of animal rights defenders, days before the approval of the project.
For bullfighting it is about ending a tradition that dates back to Colombia since colonial times that would affect the culture and its economy. “I have arrived here with my exclusive light suit for the squares, seeing the situation and the political persecution that seeks to destroy our dreams and our rights,” declared before Congress on May 7, Johan Paloma, bullfighter from Choachí, a town 56 kilometers from Bogotá, who asked that the “fiesta brava” be “respected.”
Ana Rogelia Monsalve, of the Colombian Democratic Party, regretted the majority’s decision, considering that with the ban on bullfighting, families will be left without jobs, for whom the government has not counted.
“The big winner of this bill is not the bulls, nor the anti-bullfighting nor the animal activists, it is the Minister of the Interior,” said Monsalve, referring to the fact that the official would have met with congressmen to convince them to vote for the ban.
The approved project urges the government to seek economic and labor reconversion for people who are dedicated to bullfighting and who demonstrate that it is their main economic support. It will also have to transform stages such as bullrings so that they can be used for cultural and sports activities.
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