Colombia, Caracas and Ukraine

Pro-Russian forces illegally occupying Ukraine's Crimea.
A reason for Colombia to worry? 

Believe it or not, the growing crisis in Ukraine has implications for Colombia - and not positive ones.

Russia's occupation of Ukranian territory has, of course, troubling impacts for the whole world, not least because of the episode's multiple parallels to Hitler's first aggressions: Hitler also started off by occupying ethnically friendly parts of Czechoslovakia, as well as Austria, a German-speaking neighbor. Also like Nazi Germany, Russia is fresh from hosting an Olympics. And impossible to ignore are Russia's discriminatory laws against gays, one of the groups persecuted and murdered by the Nazis.

Putin doesn't appear to be another Hitler. But he does have big territorial ambitions, as Hitler did, and those may grow if the West doesn't stop him here. (It's hard not to ask whether Putin might have thot twice before invading Ukraine if the West had taken firm action against the Syrian dictatorship, a Russian ally, after it used poison gas to massacre its own people.)

Russian military jets' route over Colombian territory.
 (Image: Webinfomil)

Last October and November, Russian military jets flying between Nicaragua and Venezuela - two Russian allies with increasingly authoritarian governments - passed thru Colombian airspace, triggering protests from the Colombian government. Russia's goal was apparently to support Nicaragua´s claims to parts of the Caribbean controlled by Colombia.

More troubling, at the end of last month, Russia's defense minister said that Russia planned to establish military bases across Asia and Latin America, including in Venezuela and Nicaragua. To its credit, an official in Venezuela, whose Constitution declares it to be a 'territory of peace' and bans all foreign military bases, said that no Russian base would be allowed. Yet, considering Venezuela's economic crisis and its government's need for allies, I could certainly see it allowing in the Russian military and just not calling their facilities a 'base'. Venezuela, after all, is full of Cuban 'advisers,' whose presence would in a normal country be called a violation of sovereignty. Venezuela and Colombia have old border disputes in the Guajira region.

If Putin gets his way and the Russian bear is permitted to seize neighbors' territory, Colombia should worry that the Russian bullies will help their allies across the globe grab disputed territory from their own neighbors.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

A Visit to the Leo Tolstoy Cultural Center

Tolstoy, the immortal Russian author,
who died 101 years ago this month. 

The Leon Tolstoy Cultural Center in the middle of La Candelaria sits like an institution out of time and of place. Like the nearby French and American cultural centers, the Tolstoy center teaches culture and language, in its case Russian. But unlike those other institutions, the Tolstoy center is small, neither shiny nor glitzy, evidently surviving on a shoestring budget and is filled with an atmosphere of nostalgia rather than contemporary events.

A look at the center's history explains why. The Centro Cultural Leon Tolstoi was founded in 1944 by the Soviet Union, just as the Allied victory over Nazi Germany and its allies was becoming inevitable, to promote communist ideology here. In conjunction with such cultural centers in Colombia and other nations, the Soviet Union gave scholarships to students from all over the world, who it hoped would return home infused with socialist idealism.

Detail of a mural by Fernando Oramas.

But after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 that support disappeared. The Russian state, no longer communist, continues collaborating with the center, but only with occasional visits and donations of books and other items. The Tolstoy cultural center now survives by providing translations and music lessons. Five of the center's officials have been awarded the Lenin Peace Prize, now renamed the Order of Druzhba, the center's cultural director told me.

Today's Russia has a corrupt form of crony capitalism, which has produced a crop of multi-billionares. It is ruled by a few strongmen thru a contolled democracy and intimidated media. But at the Tolstoy Center here in La Candelaria, one might think that the old Soviet Union continued. There are the traditional Russian robes, the heroic mural by the entrance, the busts of Lenin and famous cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. A plaque on the center's front wall celebrates the Soviets' victory over Nazi fascism, forgetting that the Soviet Union then imposed its own form of fascism on half of Europe.

Lenin still presides here. 

I talked to the center's cultural director, who lamented that the Soviet Union's economic system was ruined by 'ambitious men.' I agreed. Ambition is what makes both communism and capitalism such lousy systems - with the difference that capitalism actually rewards and harnesses that ambition. And, when it works right, that ambition can benefit lots of people, as did the ambitions of American billionare Steve Jobs and Colombian billionare Julio Santo Domingo.

Right now, the center is commemorating
poet Pushkin, a giant of Russian literature.

The director also lamented Colombia's terribly unequal income distribution and its its emphasis on war. Those are two very real problems, but the second does ignore the fact that Colombia's armed conflict responds to violence against the Colombian people by armed guerrillas who espouse a Marxist ideology, altho they don't practice it. The cultural director expressed understandable disappointment with many of Colombia's leftist politicians - Bogotá's current mayor, Samuel Moreno, of the leftist Polo Democratico Party, is in prison on corruption allegations and the previous mayor, from the same party, recently allied himself with conservative ex-President Alvaro Uribe.

Traditional Russian robes. 

But Bogotá's Mayor-elect Gustavo Petro got his start as a leader of the M-19 guerrillas, and has maintained a principled leftist ideology. Perhaps his victory will give the lie to the guerrillas' strategy of armed rebellion. She didn't give me a clear response.

 Most likely, the Tolstoy Center in La Candelaria will maintain its ideology from another era, a sort of museum to a nation which espoused an idealism which failed - and got swept out of history.

The Leo Tolstoy Center is located on Calle 12c between Carreras 3 and 4. Besides teaching music and language, the center also holds cultural events including Russian movies and music events. Find them on Facebook under Centro Cultural Leo Tolstoi in La Candelaria.

Commemoration to the Soviet Union's victory over the Nazis. 

Russian matryoshka dolls. 

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Vladimir Putin - the Cali Connection

Now that it looks like Russian strongman Vladimir Putin will have another (and another, and another...) term at the head of Russia, this historical tidbit seems worth noting.

Putin may have gotten his start with a bit of help from the Cali cocaine cartel.

Back in the mid-1990s when Putin was deputy mayor of the city of the city of St. Petersburg, he was on the advisory board of a company named SPAG, meant to encourage foreign investment in Russian real estate.

Cali cartel leaders. 

According to United States and European prosecutors at the time, SPAG was involved in laundering money for the Cali cartel. This story I found doesn't say whether the prosecutions against company officials (Putin was never charged with anything) were succesful.

The 1990s were a time in Russia of wild corruption and savage, unhindered capitalism and in Colombia of powerful drug cartels, so it's no surprise that the two hooked up.

The Colombia-Russia cocaine connection continues, as occasional news reports point out. And, some of the deals still involve important Russian businessmen. 

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Jair Klein - Free?

Scot Free?

Israeli mercenary Yair Klein allegedly trained Colombian (and Lebanese) paramilitaries, as well as cocaine king Pablo Escobar's hitmen, who went on to commit massacres. Colombia convicted him en absentia for his crimes here.

In 2007, Klein was arrested in Russia, and there followed a three-year legal battle by Colombia to extradite him. However, the European Court of Human Rights issued an opinion that Klein's rights would be endangered in Colombia. This October, Russian officials decided to follow the court's recommendation and return Klein to Israel, Klein's lawyer just told the Jerusalem Post.

Bones from a mass grave of paramlitary victims.

The case is packed with ironies - the first being this mercenary who has allegedly collaborated with horrendous human rights violations in Colombia, Africa and likely other areas, appealing for mercy on human rights grounds. Most likely, Klein is right when he says he came here train paramilitaries with the blessing of the Colombian government. But does that justify his collaboration? Wasn't obedience to government the defense used by many Nazi war criminals?

It's even more ironic - and sad - to see parts of the Israeli government defending this man, even if he is 'something of a war hero,' as one Israeli tells me. After all, Israel's creation was in great degree a response to state-sponsored massacres.

In January 2011, Colombia asked Israel to extradite Klein. Klein claims that Colombian government officials had invited him to come here and that he didn't know that he was training bad guys.



By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours