A Gesture for Buenaventura

Yellilng 'Break the silence!' women raise their fists in protest against violence.

These women were rehearsing today for a march protesting violence against women and violence in general in the violence-scourged city of Buenaventura. With a population of 362,000 people, Buenaventura has had 87 murders this year - a rate triple Colombia's much-too-high national homicide rate.

Despite having Colombia's most important seaport, Buenaventura is extremely poor. Because the city is a corridor for the export of cocaine toward North America, gangs, paramilitaries and guerrilla group fight a vicious war to control the area. Several of those murdered this year have been dismembered and their body parts scattered for their families to find and bury. The government recently sent 200 additional soldiers to try to reinforce security in Buenaventura.

Shacks line a shoreline in Buenaventura. The city is overwhelmingly Afro-Colombian and impoverished. (Photo: El Espectador)

Soldiers stand guard on a corner in Buenaventura. The government recently sent more than 200 soldiers to the violene-wracked port city. (Photo: El Espectador)

'Do you want me to tell you something?'

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Victory for Málaga Bay

A whale celebrates in Málaga Bay!

In a surprising move, in what of its last decisions, the extremely pro-business Uribe administration has made Málaga Bay, on Colombia's Pacific coast, a national park. Nobody disputes that the bay, which receives yearly visits from whales, has tremendous environmental value. But the bay is also a convenient site for a cargo port - it's deep enough for huge post-Panama ships, which won't even fit thru the existing Panama Canal. Buenaventura, the Pacific coast port which currently handles most of Colombia's cargo, is too small for those ships.

But environmental authorities concluded correctly that a port, with all of its leaked petroleum and other chemicals, the noise and wakes of ships and the transmission of exotic organisms in bilge water, would do incalculable damage to the region's ecosystem. Still, authorities nevertheless left open the possibility of a port being created there decades in the future, if technology has improved.

Perhaps Colombian officials should also look at the city of Buenaventura, which, despite the wealth moving thru its port, is one of the poorest and most violent cities in Colombia, and probably all of South America. Unfortunately, the city's wealth hasn't helped many of its citizens, who may work for drug traffickers or at dangerous day labor jobs loading and unloading ships. The port's vary success has made it a desired route for drug exporters, who battle violently for control. The city's residents get caught in the crossfire.

Written by Mike Ceaser, of Bogota Bike Tours