Communities and social movements in Choco and Colombia's most important port city, Buenaventura, are engaged in an indefinite civil strike over the Colombian state's historic neglect of the city's majority Afro-descendent population, as protests continue to spread across the country's Pacific Ocean coast.
But the response of President Juan Manuel Santos has been vicious. On May 17, he ordered a military-style attack upon the city in an operation involving thousands of police, military and navy units. The city has been placed under a state of emergency with the security forces imposing a curfew.