Colombia's Socialists Declare Holiday to Get People to Use Less Water

Far-left Colombian President Gustavo Petro declared Friday, April 19, the first day of a yearly “Civic Day of Peace with Nature” in a bid to reduce water and power consumption in the country’s largest cities.

The decree mandates that Petro’s made-up holiday be celebrated on the third Friday of April every year, starting with Friday, April 19, 2024.

“Tomorrow, we want to decree a civic day in Colombia so that people do not use electricity as much as possible, so that we can save energy that we need in the coming days,” Petro, a former guerrilla member and hardline socialist, said during an event on Thursday — “and especially for people to reduce, as much as possible, the consumption of drinking water in big cities.”

“This April 19 is a civic day in Colombia, with the objective of taking care of water, to be able to do it for millions, and to achieve that at this moment, when rains in Colombia are possible, we do not have to deepen any type of rationing in services,” he continued.

A “civic holiday,” as the decree defines it, requires the shutdown of public government offices, schools, and universities for that day. The decree also invites citizens to “rationalize” the use of water while in their households and reuse water if possible.

The far-left Colombian president urged private companies, schools, and institutions to join the civic holiday in a social media post.

“This April 19 is a day of rebellion, of reading, of conversation with family and friends about the danger of climate change, about who produces it, about what should be done,” Petro’s message read.

“Tomorrow is a day of national rebellion; tomorrow, we combine the forces of life, we drive away the summons of death; tomorrow is the day of life on earth, my day and your day,” the message concluded.

Petro also asked the citizens of the capital city of Bogotá — currently placed under a daily rolling water rationing program — to “voluntarily” leave the city and spend the weekend in other locations if possible so their water consumption is temporarily transferred elsewhere, thereby alleviating the pressure on the city’s water-starved reservoirs.

The announcement of a new civic holiday on April 19 generated controversy surrounding the “coincidence” of its date, as April 19 marks both Petro’s sixty-fourth birthday and the fifty-fourth anniversary of the now-extinct Marxist M-19 guerrilla, which Petro was once a part of during his youth.

The civic holiday was met with polarizing responses from some of Colombia’s regional governors and mayors. The mayors of some of Colombia’s main cities — such as Bogotá, Medellín, and Cali — and the governor of Antioquia publicly expressed their rejection of the decree, asserting their local governments would not comply with Petro’s holiday. The governors of the Bolívar, Boyacá, and Atlántico departments (states), on the other hand, expressed their support for the decree.

On April 11, Bogotá began implementing a water rationing program to alleviate a drought caused by El Niño, a weather pattern that has reduced Bogotá’s water reservoir levels.

The program establishes a repeating ten-day cycle where, on each day, one of Bogotá’s nine zones will not have running water service for a 24-hour period. The water rationing scheme is subject to a review every two weeks when local authorities will determine if the rationing schedule is relieved, maintained at its same levels, or increased.

Local authorities also provided Bogotá’s citizens with “tips” on how to save water, such as not taking a bath if they are not going out and suggesting couples bathe together. Representatives from the city’s water company are also pressuring residents to comply with calculations on how much water they should use. According to these estimates, a family of three should use “two 12-liter buckets, two medium-sized pots, and a pitcher” to satisfy its basic needs.

Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.