Off-Limits Colombia

Stay out of the dark regions!

The U.S. government approves of its citizens visiting Colombia - but not all of it. Four departments, located on the Venezuelan border and Pacific Coast regions, are supposed to be off limits.

While the U.S. directive generated protests from some of the forbidden regions, it actually generated relief from many more Colombians, who were happy that most of the country was in the 'visit with caution' category. That certainly would not have been true a few years ago.

Of course, the reality is much more subtle and complex. Colombia's Pacific Coast does suffer lots of violence, so why are only two of its departments on the no-go list? The region has been attracting growing numbers of tourists in recent years thanks to its fishing, surfing and spectacular whale watching, and nobody's told me of having had any problems there. Why didn't the U.S. State Department instead advise potential travelers to go there only with an agency which knows the area? After all, you can just as easily fall victim to crime in Bogotá by wandering into the wrong neighborhood.

Even more radical are the rules controlling the movements of embassy employees, who are still prohibited from riding buses and from traveling without permission in all but a few parts of Colombia.

Times have changed, and it's high time that the U.S. government changed its attitudes to match.


By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Visa Blues

Sad and slow: Visa services row beside the U.S. Embassy.

Went to the U.S. Embassy the other week to get a new passport, and the folks there who offer support services for U.S. visa seekers are suffering.

Fewer than before: Visa seekers and their friends and
relatives wait outside the embassy.

The kid who took my passport photo pointed to the mostly empty space in front of his shop. Last year, that was full of visa applicants and their relatives, he said, sadly.

"That man has got us like this," he said, sticking his forefinger into his own neck.

Not difficult guessing who 'that man' is.

Coincidentally, I've read that U.S. tourism and applications by foreign students are down, too.

I'm in the San Francisco Bay Area right now, where the Internet economy is booming. Seems like every other shop and restaurant has a 'help wanted' sign: but Trump's stricter immigration laws are keeping out the immigrants who want to do those jobs, harming the economy.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The U.S. Embassy's Awkward Neighbors

Jorge Alberto Parra, right, with companions by their tent across the street from the U.S. Embassy.

Just a few years ago, Jorge Alberto Parra had a solid job working in General Motors' Bogotá assembly plant as a mechanical engineer and welder. Today, he shares a plastic-walled tent with several other ex-GM employees, without running water, a toilet or electricity, except for a television run off of a cell phone battery.

770 days protesting, and counting.

The story of Parra and his companions might be just another story of poverty and survival, if not for the fact that their campsite is across the street from the U.S. Embassy in Bogotá. From their humble abode, Parra and his friends believe they've forced one of the world's most powerful corporations to change its policies and hope to compel the company to rehire them.

Parra is the president of ASOTRECOL, the Association of Injured Workers and Ex-Workers of General Motors Colombia. The protest began in August 2011 with 68 participants, Parra says, including mechanics, welders and electricians complaining of carpal tunnel, tendonitis hernias, they claimed they developed working at the GM plant. Parra himself says he came down with tendinitis, bursitis and carpal tunnel during his nine years working for GM. But GM did not recognize the workers' ailments as job-related, says Parra.

Parra inside the protesters' tent. 

The group set up across the street from the embassy instead of the GM factory because at that time the US government owned much of GM, having bailed the company out during its bankruptcy. Also, Parra believes that the U.S.-Colombian Free Trade Agreement obligates the U.S. government to improve worker conditions at U.S.-owned factories here.

During their stay here, the protesters have carried out a hunger strike, during which they sewed their lips shut, and also a pseudo-crucifixion.

The protesters' residential arrangement may be rudimentary, but has its comforts. They've got free round-the-clock security thanks to the embassy entrance across the street, free internet from a nearby hotel and bathroom and phone charging services from nearby businesses.

The employees of the heavily fortified embassy seem to tolerate the protesters at their front gate. But sometimes they do a little more. Parra says that P. Michael McKinley, until recently U.S. ambassador, even made several friendly visits to the protesters. (The new ambassador has not yet been appointed.)

The protesters are easy to spot
on this quiet, residential street.

McKinley "is a really friendly guy," says Parra.

But relations with embassy soured when the men symbolically crucified themselves and the embassy responded by calling the police, who closed down the block and sent in an anti-riot squad. Later the personaria, a municipal human rights entity, "who said we were provoking the embassy," Parra recalls.

U.S. unions and churches have supported the protest. The United Auto Workers even flew Parra to the U.S. for a six-month speaking tour. The pressure apparently produced some results. Last year, mediators from the States came down and tried to broker an agreement between the protesters and GM officials. But Parra says the company offered each of them only 10 million pesos - about $5,000 - and a course in opening small businesses, but that the company made clear it didn't want them back. What the workers really want, he says, are new jobs with GM.

GM Colmotores recently issued a statement saying that they had never fired employees because of health problems and that they had tried to resolve disputes via mediation and according to Colombian law.

Still, Parra believes, their protest has accomplished a lot - pushing GM to improve its treatment of workers injured on the job.

"We've accomplished more than ever before," says Parra.

And Parra says his group is determined to keep camping indefinitely.

"We're here until victory!" he says. "We'll welcome the new ambassador."


By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

More from Wikileaks - Colonialism or cooperation?

Continued releases of U.S. Embassy cables by Wikileaks and El Espectador newspaper are still making news here - without any great surprises.

Many Colombians do, of course, feel embarrased and disappointed by recent relevations of the closeness - some would say abjectness - with which their leaders worked with the U.S. Embassy:

Uribe - Who's the boss?

Pres. Alvaro Uribe once visited U.S. Ambassador Brownfield and then from the embassy called a top Colombian official for an update on an investigation into the DAS (Secret police) scandal. That was an internal Colombian investigation into an internal Colombian problem. But Pres. Uribe seemed to relate to the U.S. ambassador as a schoolkid to a school principal. "Yes sir, we really are working on it."

Just ask me what to do.

And then there was Gen. Oscar Naranjo, head of the National Police, going to Ambassador Brownfield and telling him suspicions that high government officials were directing illegal wiretaps by the DAS. Why does that remind me of one schoolkid tattling on another to the principle, or rival siblings appealing to daddy for support? Naranjo may have been correct, but the U.S. Ambassador wasn't the man to deal with the issue.

The Colombian government so lacked confidence in its own institutions that officials asked for the FBI's help in investigating the wiretapping scandal.

I suppose that things like this are probably the inevitable result of a very unequal power relationship between two nations, as well as Colombia's still frail government institutions. To the U.S.'s credit, it seems that the ambassador was wary of inserting himself into Colombia's internal affairs, and did urge investigations into alleged human rights abuses.

In fact, the U.S. even deflected Colombian suggestions that a war was brewing with neighbor Venezuela. Other cables have revealed Uribe's paranoia about Venezuelan Pres. Chavez, whom Uribe even compared to Hitler. Chavez has never hidden his own paranoid ideas about a U.S./Colombian conspiracy to invade his country.

Colombia's dependance on the U.S. suggests that's it's good that the country's becoming more independent. Hopefully, it's own institutions will continue maturing and its internal checks and balances will work, eliminating any reason to go running to the U.S. ambassador.

That is, if the whole Wikileaks affaire hasn't already scared Colombian leaders away from La Embajada.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has also claimed that the U.S. aid for Colombia is motivated by a desire to finance U.S. corporations. Really, Julian? Anybody who's ever paid attention to Washington knows this isn't news. But the issue of motivations is really separate from that of results, and Plan Colombia has helped Colombia. The question is whether or not it'll last.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours