Pence (who?) Comes to Colombia?

Yankee go home! Out with Trump/Pence!

United States Vice President Mike Pence visited Bogotá yesterday, causing little polemic - probably because nobody here's heard of him. In contrast to Pence's restraint, U.S. Pres. Trump was meanwhile busy threatening North Korea and Venezuela with military attacks and making news by failing to condemn neo Nazis and white supremecists who staged a violent protest demonstration in the state of Virginia.

Yankee Go Home! (Say the communists)

Pence reportedly talked with Colombian Pres. Santos about the boom in cocaine production and the economic and democratic  in Venezuela, whose violence might spill into Colombia. The U.S. government would like Colombia to resume using aircraft to spray Roundup on coca leaf plantations and to more strongly condemn Venezuela's authoritarian government, which is rewriting its Constitution to its pleasure.

Colombia said that it stopped using the glyphosate herbicide in mid-2015 because of concerns about it causing cancer, although many analysts considered it a conciliatory gesture to the FARC guerrillas, who make a lot of their money off of drug sales. The FARC recently signed a peace deal with the government and are in the process of demobilizing. Whatever the value of aerial spraying, the coca leaf boom was caused by more fundamental factors, such as supply and demand. As for Venezuela, its government is corrupt, incompetent and growing more and more authoritarian. But a military invasion could turn into another Vietnam and would generate tremendous sympathy for the Venezuelan government - and anger toward the U.S. Better to hope that the Maduro government collapses from its own incompetence.

About the only ones criticizing Pence's visit seem to be the communists, who plastered downtown poles with 'Yankee go home!' posters. But the communists are awkward defenders of democracy.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Talking Truth to Turkey

Turkish Pres. Erdoğan and Pres. Santos talk trade yesterday.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Bogotá yesterday to met with Pres. Santos to talk about trade and fighting terrorism.

Those are important matters, naturally. And if Santos really wants to curry the Turkish government's favor, perhaps he should start by changing Colombia's name.

That's because Erdogan recently claimed that Muslims discovered America before Christopher Columbus did in 1492.

A pre-Columbian Muslim map supposedly showing America.

"Contacts between Latin America and Islam date back to the 12th century. Muslims discovered America in 1178, not Christopher Columbus," Erdogan said, according to the Washington Post. "Muslim sailors arrived in America from 1178. Columbus mentioned the existence of a mosque on a hill on the Cuban coast."

While it is certainly possible that Muslim Arabs or Africans reached America before Columbus, there's no solid evidence for it, and they certainly did not spread Islam thru the New World. Supporters of the Islamic discovery theory point to a line in Columbus's log referring to sighting a 'Mosque' on the Cuban coast. But no evidence of a pre-Columbian mosque has ever been found, and serious historians generally believe that Columbus used the word to describe a geographical outcropping.

If people from the Old World had really made sustained contact with New World residents, they would surely have left physical, cultural and even genetic evidence. After all, one of the first things different peoples do upon meeting is have sex.

Of course, one European nation, the Vikings, did visit America before Columbus - and we have archaeological evidence of their short-lived settlement on Newfoundland. Archaeologists do also believe that Polynesians visited South America's western coast before Columbus, based on evidence in languages and chicken DNA. If Arabs, Africans, Greeks, Romans or Chinese had really made trading visits to the Americas, we'd find evidence such as Old World products in pre-Columbian graves. And it would have made no sense for the visitors not to have carried home crops such as corn and potatoes which quickly spread across the world after Columbus's voyage, or not to have left behind technology such as the wheel and compass.

But the strongest evidence of lack of significant pre-Columbian contact is the medical one. After the Spanish arrival in the Americas, indigenous Americans died by the millions from new diseases. Some historians estimate that new diseases killed 90% of indigenous Americans. If the Old World and New World peoples had had previous contact, then the Americans would have had immune protection to things like chicken pox.

Erdogan's historical fantasies might not matter any more than do those of people who deny Darwinian evolution. Unfortunately, however, in both cases those who contradict science and history in these cases are also prone to contradict fact about more important issues. Deniers of evolution also tend to reject evidence of global warming, which happens to be about the biggest threat to Earth's well-being. Erdogan does appear to accept global warming. But he does not appear to value free speech and fair elections, which is why he's taking Turkey away from its tradition of secularism and democracy.

In any case, Erdogan's resentment against the Catholicized version of history is perhaps understandable. After all, the Spaniards had just ousted the last Moslems from Spain and proclaimed that the Americas were their reward for cleansing Spain of Jews and Moslems.



By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

W.W.1 in Colombia: The Battle for the Transmitter

The battle scene today: Cerro de la Popa outside of
Cartagena still has transmitters on it.
(Photo from El Sol newspaper.)

The First World War, which raged one hundred years ago across Europe, never reached Latin America. Unlike the bigger, bloodier Second World War, during the first war no sea battles were fought off of South America and almost all of the Latin nations remained neutral.

The Transocean newspaper supported neutrality and
opposed Colombia entering the war on the Allied side.
Here, an admiring photo of  German military leaders.
(Photo taken in an exhibition in the
Claustro de San Agustin museum.)

However, the epic struggle of the Allied Powers: England, France, Russia and later the United States against the Central Powers: Germany and the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires, did send shock waves across this continent, including Colombia.

At the war's start, Colombia found itself in a tug-of-war between the two sides' sympathizers. But many Colombians apparently favored the Germans, thanks to prominent German-Colombian businessmen, including Leo Kopp, founder of the Cerveceria Bavaria and strong trade ties. Also, in that era England was the world's great lending nation, and, naturally, there's always resentment against bankers. Thirdly, in 1915 Colombia was still smarting from its loss of Panama, engineered by U.S. Pres. Teddy Roosevelt. So, the natural association of the U.S. and Great Britain also pushed sympathies toward the Central Powers.

Normally, wars mean boom years for natural resource suppliers such as Colombia. However, at the start of the First World War (then known as The Great War), Britain used its fleet to blockade Germany, cutting South America off from one of its biggest customers. Also, with the war's start, credit and therefore trade dried up.

'Defending neutrality.' Colombian politicians opposed
entering the war on the Allied side.

Most likely, Germany's invasion of tiny, neutral Belgium and Geman massacres of civilians in Belgium and France, hardened feelings toward the Central Powers. Eventually, the United States' entry into the war on the side of England increased pressure to side with the allies. But Colombia stayed neutral.

But Colombia did experience at least one conflict between Allied and Central Powers forces, altho not a violent one. In 1909, Colombia had given a 50-year lease of 5,000 hectares in Urabá Department to a German colonization company, the Casa Albingia, which promised to build a huge banana growing and exporting operation there. The Germans set to work preparing land and laying down railroad tracks - as well as constructing a wireless telegraph transmitter on the Cerro de la Popa in Cartagena.

The German operations worried the Americans for economic reasons - they were a rival to the American-owned United Fruit Co., which would play its own notorious role in Colombian history - and they worried the English for strategic reasons: The German wireless station could transmit and pick-up messages from all over the world. Also, Germany had a steamship, the Oscar, nearby equipped with wireless gear capable of monitoring messages from the Panama Canal region.

English and U.S. pressure resulted in the Oscar being brought into port and its wireless gear dismantled. An international oversight team was installed in the Cerro de la Popa. And the Casa Albingia packed up its belongings, laid off its approximately 1,000 employees and departed Colombia. The battle of the transmitter was a clear Allied victory, but in Europe the war would drag on until 1918 and kill some 10 million people.

The First World War's economic devastation caused a huge shift in global political and economic influence from Great Britain to the United States, and its slaughter reduced Latin Americans' admiration for Europe, which many had admired as a land of art and culture.

The Allies, of course, won the war, and Colombia eventually patched up relations with the U.S. The German banana planting operation was never resumed.

Source: Duelo entre Alemanes y Gringos

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Disaster Repeats in Venezuela

Coming again soon? 1989 'Caracazo' riots in Caracas, Venezuela.

Venezuelans wait for hours outside a supermarket.

The supermarket shelves are bare - and yet customers sleep overnight outside stores hoping to find something to buy. Inflation is nearing three digits. Civil rights are being suffocated. And things will only get worse.

Government arrogance and incompetence has turned Venezuela into an economic and political disaster area, causing great hardship for Venezuela's 24 million people. And if Venezuela implodes, it'll mean great hardship for Colombia as well.

Last year, Venezuela already boasted the world's highest inflation rate, and widespread shortages of basic goods like coffee, milk, diapers and toilet paper. Then, the price of petroleum, which provides 95% of Venezuela's foreign revenue, nosedived. Today, Venezuela looks increasingly likely to default on payments to both international lenders and to Venezuelans themselves.

Empty shelves in a Venezuelan supermarket.

Pres. Maduro, whose public support is below 28% percent and dropping, has no solutions. His recent begging trip to China and the Middle East produced scant results, and he appears to lack confidence to apply the hard medicine the economy needs to staunch the financial hemorrhaging - devaluing the currency, lifting price controls and eliminating gasoline subsidies, among other measures - because he knows they'd fuel protests. But the alternative - letting things get worse and worse - is setting the stage for a monumental economic implosion and social explosion.

Paralyzed, Maduro has already postponed his annual state-of-the-nation speech twice, because he has nothing to offer.

Maduro, the hand-picked successor of Hugo Chavez, fears making necessary economic adjustments for another reason: Because they would call into question the legitimacy of his so-called 'socialist revolution.' Chavismo traces its roots to the 1989 Caracazo - huge riots triggered by government removal of subsidies on gasoline and other goods. Thousands of people were killed, some by government forces. The discontent fueled the movement which swept Chavez to the presidency a decade later.

Today, Maduro's government is setting the nation up to repeat 1989's catastrophe - but on a larger scale. Gasoline is even more heavily subsidized, and the country is almost completely dependent on oil income, which is dropping precipitously. (Of course, when it all comes crashing down, Maduro & Co. will blame the disaster they created on the United States and neoliberalism.)

When Venezuela implodes, the victims will include Colombia. Venezuela is historically Colombia's second-largest trade partner after the U.S., but a collapsed economy doesn't buy much stuff. And Venezuelan refugees will rush across the border, fleeing lawlessness and desperate for livelihoods. Amid the chaos, narcotrafficking and other crimes will flourish.

Is there a way for Caracas to avoid this calamity? It's hard to see it.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Bogotá Does Caracas's Bidding?

Murdered Venezuelan Deputy
Robert Serra. 

Ambassadors are supposed to defend the rights and dignity of their country and its citizens. And, presumably, they should defend values such as presuming the innocence of their nations' citizens.

So, why is Luis Eladio Pérez, Colombia's ambassador in Caracas, going to resign Dec. 31?

The answer stems from the Oct. 1 murders of Venezuelan parliamentarian Robert Serra and his female assistant, mysteriously killed in Serra's house on the night of Oct. 1.

In today's intensely politicized and polarized Venezuela, the murder of a pro-government member of the National Assembly could not be chalked up to robbery or, perhaps, a love triangle. No: It had to be a political conspiracy, and behind it that arch-enemy of the Venezuelan 'revolution': Colombia's political right.

With Venezuela's economic train wreck only getting worse, its government wants desperately to put the blame elsewhere - and Colombia is a convenient target. Perhaps for the same reason, dozens of Colombians have been arrested in Venezuela for seemingly trivial or apparently trumped-up charges including contraband for buying subsidized products for home use.

Shortly after the double murder, Venezuelan Pres. Nicolas Maduro accused Colombian conservative ex-Pres. Alvaro Uribe, allegedly working with Colombian paramilitaries and protected by the United States government. Maduro didn't offer evidence for this vast international conspiracy.

Accused murderer Leiva Padilla Mendoza.

Since then, Venezuelan authorities have arrested at least ten people for the murders. But in Venezuela, where the police and court system seem to be political instruments, it's hard to judge why they were rounded up.

Maduro also accused a man named Leiva Padilla Mendoza, conveniently nicknamed 'El Colombia', of commanding the band that committed the murder. Padilla was arrested Nov. 2 in Colombia. He denies participating in the killings and says that he is Venezuelan and supports the Venezuelan government.

For his part, Ambassador Pérez said that Mendoza was a Venezuelan citizen born in Venezuela of Colombian parents. And Pérez questioned whether there was evidence of a link between Colombian paramilitaries and the murders.

Those seemingly reasonable comments were enough to rile up top Venezuelan officials. National Assembly Pres. Diosdado Cabello accused Pérez of meddling in Venezuela's internal affairs and 'disrespecting' Venezuela.

The result? Ambassador Pérez resigns, altho it's clear he was pushed. He will be replaced by Colombia's current ambassador to Ecuador, who presumably is used to watching what he says around authoritarian leftist governments.

Ambassadors are supposed to defend the interests of their nations and citizens, which is exactly what Pérez appears to have done. But Pérez's openness to truth rather than ideology made Venezuelan officials uncomfortable, prompting the Colombian government to ask him to resign.

It's a sad day when Colombia yanks a man who was doing his job right in order to truckle before authoritarian Venezuela's twisted version of reality.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

End of the Road for Cuban Refugees?

Cuban refugee Rafael Alejandro Hernández argues with an immigration official on Plaza Bolivar today.

They'd fled from Cuba to Ecuador to escape, they claim, abuse and violence from government authorities.
From Ecuador they crossed into Colombia four months ago, and today planted themselves on Bogotá's Plaza Bolivar and announced a hunger strike until they received refuge in some free nation.

'Cuban political opponents. Colombia denied us refuge,'
says the poster.

"I don't care about getting mugged on a bus," said Rafael Alejandro Hernández, "I just want to live in liberty."

Hernández and his friend Yuniesky Rampón Borges Jiménez said that back in Cuba they'd opposed the government and been repeatedly arrested and physically beaten for their actions. Hernández recited a list of Cuban dissident journalists he said were his friends.

The pair had requested asylum in Colombia, but understood that their case had been rejected. They seemed clearly desperate. Hernández, who claimed that the Cuban government had trained him from age 16 to be a spy and to infiltrate the U.S., said he'd had to leave behind his infant daughter in Cuba.

If the pair wanted attention, they'd chosen the right place. Colombian police and migracíón officials showed up, the migración officials eager to take the Cubans back to their office to discuss their cases.

"There are many possible solutions," an immigration official assured them. "In Colombia, every procedure has an appeal."

Yet, their prospects weren't good. In March, Colombia denied refugee status for six Cubans who two months previously had gotten off of a plane headed to Cuba and staged a hunger strike in the El Dorado Airport. By that time, Colombian government officials said they had lost track of the six Cubans.

The two Cubans on Plaza Bolivar this afternoon were nervous about trusting the government officials - appropriately, for citizens of the hemisphere's last surviving full dictatorship. They feared being sent back to Cuba or to Venezuela, a close Cuban ally.

"You're not being detained," the official assured them. "We'll just talk."

An older man with a bicycle listening to the discussion, apparently a sympathizer of the Cuban government, began criticizing the paramilitarism and corruption in Colombia.

"If you said those things in Cuba, my friend, you'd be in prison already," Hernández told him.

But other bystanders were also fearful. One woman worried that people would be endangered because they appeared in my photographs. (I can't imagine that would be true, in this situation.)

Ready to go with the officials, Hernández rolls up a poster
announcing their hunger strike.

"You foreigners have caused us all problems," another person in the crowd yelled out. "Foreigners started the guerrillas here."

During the Cold War, Cuba financed guerrilla groups across the continent. And Colombia's ELN guerrillas were founded by a group of young Colombians who had studied in Cuba.

"The last thing we want to do is cause problems," Hernández assured her.

This man criticized Colombia as corrupt and violent.

"These people are crazy," one of the immigration officials told the Cubans.

"You see, we can't talk here."
The immigration officials urgently wanted the protesting Cubans off of the government plaza. Cuba is hosting peace negotiations between the Colombian government and FARC guerrillas. Perhaps an international incident involving Cuban dissidents wouldn't be convenient.

"What about those negotiations in Cuba?" Hernández asked. "You see - there's politics in everything."

Bystanders watch and photograph as the Cubans
leave with immigration officials.

The two men finally, reluctantly, agreed to go to the immigration office. Hernández gave me his e-mail address - rafale1220 (at) gmail (dot) com .

"Write me. If I don't reply in three days, it means I've been disappeared, or sent away," Hernandez told me. Apologetically, he added: "I've been made to imagine the worst possible things."

The crowd from the plaza followed them to the government car. "Copy down the license plate number," someone yelled out. Others photographed the official cars.

Update: Hernández wrote and said they'd had a successful meeting with the immigration folks, who gave the Cubans three additional months of 'safe passage' in Colombia and promised to send them to a third country. If not, however, he says 'We'll resume our hunger strike.'

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Protesting for Palestine

A man waves a Palestinian flag today near the Parque Nacional in Bogotá.

Pro-Palestinian activists waved flags and handed out white flowers today in front of the Parque Nacional, in condemnation of recent Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip.

A woman in Islamic dress hands out
white flowers in front of the
Parque Nacional in Bogotá.

Certainly, one's heart goes out to these people. The conflict, however, isn't so simple. If Hamas hadn't started firing rockets at Israel, then Israel wouldn't have fired back. However, Israel's response does seem very disproportionate, and it also seems to me that long-time injustices by Israel against Palestinians feed the anger.

Colombia has small, but apparently growing, Islamic and Arabic communities. Enough, in fact, to justify the construction recently of a large mosque in north Bogotá. Many of the protesters I spoke with were Colombian-born women who had converted to Islam, presumably in order to marry Moslem immigrants.

While Colombia has never experienced immigration on the same scale as other South American nations, during the early 20th century immigrants from Lebanon and Syria settled on Colombia's Caribbean coast, particularly in the city of Barranquilla. Most of those people were apparently either already Catholic or later converted. The best-known Colombian of Arabic heritage is undoubtedly Shakira, whose father moved here from Lebanon, via New York. Today, the trading town of Maicao on the Venezuelan border feels like a little piece of the Middle East.

Demonstrators hold a Palestinian flag.

A pro-Palestine demonstrator hands out white flowers to symbolize children killed in the Gaza Strip.

'Neither Islamic fundamentalism nor imperialism.' A mural near Bogotá's Cementerio Central.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Venezuela's Slide Towards Dictatorship - and Colombia's Complicity

Maria Corina Machado.

Maria Corina Machado is a Venezuelan national assemblywoman and fiery opponent of that nation's 'socialist' government.

Or, at least she was an assemblywoman until a few days ago. That was when Machado, in an attempt to publicize the government's widespread abuses of human rights and free speech, accepted a speaking slot from a Panamanian representative in an Organization of American States meeting. As it turned out, Machado did not get to say much. Venezuela used parliamentary maneuvers to suppress her, and Venezuela's allies - more accurately called satellites and receivers of petroleum handouts - shouted her down.

Nevertheless, Venezuela's National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello decided that Machado's actions meant that she had 'accepted a government post' from Panama, and Cabello announced that Machado was ousted from the Assembly and stripped of her parliamentary immunity.

No matter that nobody else equates accepting a speaking slot with holding a government post, nor that Venezuela's Constitution doesn't give the Assembly president the power to unseat deputies by fiat. But Venezuela's 'Bolivarian' rulers have long wanted Machado shut up and preferably in prison. They have accused her of rebellion and complicity in the killings which have occurred during recent anti-government protests. But, like the three military officers arrested the other day on charges of planning a coup, the government has offered little evidence against Machado, whose most evident 'crime' is being an outspoken critic of chavismo.

For Venezuela's Bolivarian government, it's all part of a pattern. Another prominent opposition leader, Leopoldo Lopez, is being held prisoner on a military base, also on dubious charges and in apparent violation of the constitution. And the government has progressively restricted the opposition press and made the legislature and courts rubber stamps for the president's orders.

This is the definition of an authoritarian tyrrany: A government which makes decisions by fiat, without feeling a need to supply evidence, nor bother with the mechanisms of independent courts or parliament.

Colombian Foreign Minister María Ángela Holguín visited Venezuela this week and met with government officials and opposition leaders. But her ministry did no more than issue a non-judgmental wish that violence would end. Colombia does not want to strain relations or lose Venezuelan cooperation for the peace talks in Havana. (You can be sure that if people were protesting and dying in the streets of Bogotá, Venezuelan leaders would be denouncing Colombia as a 'fascist state' and 'puppet of the empire.')

Lopez, the imprisoned government opponent, wrote a letter to the New York Times blasting "the shameful silence from many of Venezuela’s neighbors in Latin America...To be silent is to be complicit in the downward spiral of Venezuela’s political system, economy and society, not to mention in the continued misery of millions."

He could say the same about the United States, which remains addicted to Venezuelan oil.

As long as other nations fear taking a stand for civil liberties in Venezuela, Venezuelan leaders will feel little need to respect basic democratic values.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Bogotá's British Moment

Bogotá's not going to become a British colony, or change its official language to English. But a flurry of events have made this a somewhat British moment for Colombia's capital.

Thanks Avianca. Recently, Avianca started non-stop flights between Bogotá and London. A long haul.

Business is Great. The UK government is marketing the country as a gateway to Europe for Colombian businesses.

The UK set up a website promoting trade between the two countries.

And, not long ago, Britain's education ministry opened an office in Colombia to recruit students for UK universities.

Despite the distance between them, Colombia and Britain's ties go way back. The British sent a British Legion to fight against Spain alongside Simon Bolivar's armies. (There is still a British Cemetery in Bogotá, beside the Central Cemetery.) Later, British recognition of the newly independent states was crucial in their being recognized by other nations.

Colombia and Britain have warm relations today in part because of geopolitical and geographical coincidence. London argues that history and population trump geography in its claims to the Falkland Islands, which are located off of the coast of Argentina, which also claims the islands and calls them the Malvinas. Using somewhat similar historical arguments, Colombia claims the San Andres archipelago, off of the coast of Nicaragua, which has a rival claim to the islands.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

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

Colombia, Still Venezuela's Whipping Boy

Flying toward Venezuela?

Venezuela's opposition plans to fly 18 warplanes from Colombian territory and attack their country.

Venezuela's dictator-for-a-day, exiled in Bogotá since he headed a failed 2002 coup, is conspiring against Venezuelan Pres. Nicolas Maduro.

A group of 'paramilitaries' arrested in Venezuela are Colombians planning to assassinate Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.

And Colombian smugglers are shipping Venezuelan staples out of their country. 

Nicolas Maduro: Desperate?

Sound familiar? Can anybody guess Venezuelan Pres. Maduro's strategy to counter his numerous crisis, including widespread shortages and his own questionable political legitimacy?

A hint: It has to do with beating on Colombia.

Before he makes more wild charges, Maduro ought to think about providing evidence.

I'd like to know how anybody could purchase 18 warplanes in the U.S., sneak them into Colombia, get competent crews on them and then attack Venezuela with them - without observers catching on. And, if they accomplished this feat, I wonder what 18 warplanes could accomplish against a nation which has gone on a huge arms buying binge during the chavista years.

As for Pedro Carmona, the businessman who was appointed to head the coup government which

A man who's day came, and went. Pedro 'The Brief'
Carmona during his two-day reign in Venezuela.

overthrew Hugo Chavez for three days in 2002: he's become a non-entity. Perhaps he might possibly be conspiring from Bogotá, where he took refuge (altho Venezuela offers no evidence for this), but that would be pointless. Carmona failed utterly during the days when he had the opportunity to lead Venezuela. He lost all legtimacy and Venezuela's opposition has moved on. Even if Carmona IS conspiring, there's no reason to care.

The group of Colombian 'paramilitaries' sounds more interesting - but the Venezuelans have offered few details about this group. Where's the evidence that they were going to attack the Venezuelan government? Whom are they tied to, either in Venezuela or Colombia? This 'paramilitary' episode seems like a repeat of another one a decade ago when Venezuela arrested another group of supposed paramilitaries outside of Caracas. Those guys' motives and paymasters were never cleared up, and I suspect that this group's won't be either.

Colombian conspirator? A gasoline smuggler, known as a
'pimpinero,' fills a Colombian gas tank with
smuggled Venezuelan gasoline.
(Photo: Contralaluzcucuta)

But Maduro's complaints about contraband across the border are the most absurd. Venezuela subsidies many products, most notoriously gasoline, and places price limits on many others. The subsidies generate waste and the price control mean that farmers and factories stop producing, since it makes no sense to sell something for less than it costs to produce.

Maduro calls the subsidy and price control system a 'victory of socialism' - but it's a strange sort of victory, with shortages and lack of domestic production.

Pimpineros wait by a road near the
border with jugs of Venezuela gasoline.
(Photo: Viajeros.com)

Doesn't Maduro realize that, as water runs downhill, capitalism moves things from where they're cheaper to where they're more valuable?

Who can imagine that, with Venezuelan gasoline priced at a few cents per gallon, it won't get smuggled across the border into Colombia, where gasoline brings world prices? (By the same token, who can imagine that cheap cocaine won't get smuggled across the border into Venezuela and then on to Europe and the United States, where it's expensive?)

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

More Canal Trouble for Colombia?

A threat to Colombia? Old plans for a canal across Nicaragua are coming back. (Photo: Wikipedia)

In 1903, Colombia had just finished the bloody Thousand-days civil war. In Colombia's presidency was José Manuel Marroquín, a philosophy professor who reportedly was more passionate about writing books on grammar than governing. And the country was still smarting from the dismemberment it suffered when Ecuador and Venezuela broke away from La Gran Colombia.

It could have been Colombia: Construction of the Panama Canal (Photo: Wikipedia)

Enter the United States, led by Pres. Theodore Roosevelt, a military man, believer in Manifest Destiny and wielder of the 'big stick,' who was bent on expanding the U.S.'s power across the hemisphere.

A ship crosses the Panama Canal.

Roosevelt wanted to dig a canal across Central America to connect the Pacific and Atlantic oceans and save ships the long and dangerous passage around around the southern tip of South America. And the Colombian province of Panama was the logical place to dig it, since the French had already done years of excavation there. (The alternative was digging across Nicaragua.)

No warrior: Colombian Pres. Jose
Manuel Marroquin.

Bogotá's relationship with Panama was already tenuous. The province was isolated from the rest of Colombia - today, there's still no land connection between the two nations - and many Panamanians had long aspired for independence - even rebelling several times. The Panamanians also resented their sufferings during the Thousand Days War, which they felt was fought over issues foreign to them.

So, when Washington approached Bogotá proposing digging a canal across Panama, Colombian leaders worried. Bogotá had less than a century before already lost much of its territory, and now this big power from the north was proposing digging a trench across the country and then assuming long-term control of the corridor.

Colombia's Congress gave the Yanquis the cold shoulder and made big demands for the canal concession.

Theodore Roosevelt:
A rough rider.

The strategy backfired disastrously for Colombia. Roosevelt encouraged the Panamanians to stage yet another revolt and immediately recognized Panama's independence. Roosevelt even sent down U.S. warships to prevent Bogotá from putting down the rebellion.

Instead of losing temporary control of a corridor of land, Colombia lost a whole province.

It's interesting to think about how things would be different if Colombia had cooperated with the Roosevelt administration. Today, Panama would likely still be a Colombian province, giving Colombian much more economic and geopolitical importance.

But there's no changing history.

And today, Colombia's unfortunate relationship with Central American canals may be heading for a repeat.

The recent Hague International Justice Court's ruling expanding Nicaragua's Caribbean waters breathed new

Nicaragua still claims Colombia's San Andres archipelago,
located off of Nicaragua's coast. A nearby canal would
 impact them economically, geopolitically and
environmentally. 

life into that nation's hopes to build its own canal between the oceans. A canal across Nicaragua would be longer than Panama's, but have huge advantages. It would be a sea-level canal, meaning that ships would not have to be lifted and lowered in locks as the Panama Canal does, and it would be wider and deeper than Panama's. The world's biggest ships, mostly oil tankers, already can't fit thru the Panama Canal and still won't even be able to after that canal's current expansion is completed.

The Nicaraguan government is moving ahead with a concession to a Chinese company to dig a canal across the country. (There had also been talk of the Chinese building a 'dry canal' in the form of a railroad line between Colombia's Pacific and Atlantic coasts.) After the Hague ruling, some Colombian officials even suggested that the Chinese interest in building such a canal could have influenced the Chinese judge on the panel, but there's no evidence for that.

The Seaflower Marine reserve around the San Andres
archipelago would be hit with pollution and exotic species,
as well as huge sea traffic, if an inter-ocean canal is
dug across Nicaragua. (Photo: Unesco)

But a canal across Nicaragua could mean trouble for Colombia. It would inevitably increase Nicaragua's influence in the Caribbean, increasing pressure on Colombia's sovereignety over the San Andres Archipelago off of Nicaragua's coast. Nicaragua has long claimed the islands.

Adding a major shipping channel will also produce huge environmental impacts from ship movement, ship wastes and the introduction of exotic species. That's particularly worrying for Colombia's Seaflower Marine Sanctuary around the San Andres Islands. (Colombia is using the sanctuary to challenge the recent Hague court ruling, but its chances for success look slim.)

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Snubbing Venezuela

Protesters in front of Congress today chanted 'Capriles, fascist, imperialist.'

Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Carpiles met with Colombian Pres. Santos today in a politically

Capriles and Santos shake hands today. 

curious event which did no favors for Colombian-Venezuelan relations.

In Venezuela's recent presidential elections Capriles lost narrowly to Hugo Chavez's chosen succesor, Nicolas Maduro - according to official results. The election contained lots of irregularities. Maduro intially promised a thorough recount. Since then, Venezuela's government has been shaken by a scandal over corruption and infighting, as well as severe shortages of basic goods. A weak Maduro quickly forgot his recount promise.

But Capriles is traveling across the region asking neighboring nations to support a recount. Of course, the Venezuelan government won't do it, and - as justified as Capriles' demand is, it's hard to see what advantage there could be for Colombia in meeting with Capriles. Already, Maduro is threatening to withdraw his government's support from the Colombian government's negotiations with the FARC guerrillas.

Anti-Capriles proesters in front of Congress on Plaza Bolivar chanted 'Capriles, fascist, imperialist.' Perhaps they've forgotten that Chavismo continues selling most of its country's oil to that Great Satan, the United States, and placing its economy into hock to Russia and China. The Chavistas have also eliminated checks and balances and are suffocating independent media. But those are all domestic Venezuelan problems.

But the protesters may have one point: I can't conceive of any reason why Santos met with Capriles - who doesn't have a snowball's chance of getting the election reversed - except as a favor to Washington.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Goodbye to 2012 - and to Hugo Chávez?

Hugo Chávez, right, with Cuban Pres. Raul Castro back in October, when Chávez announced himself cured of cancer.

The ending of 2012 also looks like the departing of Venezuelan Pres. Hugo Chavez, who is in a Cuban hospital suffering from complications from cancer.

The long-winded Chavez hasn't been heard from publicly for more than two weeks, and his vice president says his condition is 'complicated.' The Venezuelan people don't know the details, however, since the Chavez administration has kept the details of Chavez's condition secret. That's also why he's had his treatments in Cuba, where he's safe from a nosey free press (and it's no gesture of confidence for Venezuela's much-vaunted health care system).

Chavez's suddenly critical condition has also revealed a bait and switch of historic proportions. During the recent presidential campaign, Chavez acted as tho he was recovering - even tho he undoubtely knew his prognosis was poor. Venezuelans reelected Chavez, who has already held power for a dozen years, to yet another six-year term. Now, it looks obvious that even if El Comandante survives, he'll be no more than an invalid and a figurehead.

Chavez's illness is sending his country into unknown political territory. It's not clear what will happen if, for example, Chavez cannot make it to his Jan. 10 inauguration. Chavez designated his vice president Nicolas Maduro to succeed him. Maduro has been a loyal chavista, but lacks Chavez's charisma. Will Chavistas support him, or more ideologically figures such as Diosdado Cabello, or Chavez's older brother Adan? It seems likely that no other Chavista politician could win an election against the opposition.

For Colombia, too, Chavez's illness means more uncertainty.

Chavez had seemed to be assisting with the government-FARC peace negotiations also being held in Cuba. Will a Chavez sucessor help?

Other possibilities are scarier. What if a weak Chavez succesor tries to consolidate his power using nationalism by confronting historical rival Colombia?

It also strikes me as ironic that Chavez, a larger-than-life figure who often announced supposed conspiracies to assassinate him, is in the end being felled by a mundane illness which respects no status or power.

One time, back when I was a journalist living in Caracas, Chavez announced that someone had tried to shoot down his airplane with a surface-to-air missile. I visited the beach under Chavez's landing path and talked to residents, whose accounts made it clear that no attack had happened - and that an attack probably wasn't even realistic.

By the same token, Chavez's 'socialist revolution', while denouncing politically incorrect dangers, ignored inconvenient, mundane ones. For example, it was only several years into his presidency that the Chavez government finally eliminated leaded vehicle fuel, which harms children's development. Neither has his government flouridated the drinking water, a proven way to prevent children's tooth decay. Nor does it enforce air pollution laws, but it does spend billions of dollars subsidizing gasoline down to a few cents a gallon (which keeps old smog-belching clunkers on the road).

I once attended one of la revolucion's many long-winded leftie conferences, held in concrete a tower in central Caracas. I remember looking over the event's program, which included speeches denouncing genetically modified food crops, even tho not a single study that I know of has shown GMO's to harm human health. I looked out the tower's window at one of the slums crawling up the hills bordering Caracas and saw plumes of carcinogenic smoke rising from burning garbage, a proven carcinogen. So, Chavez's revolution prioritizes populist measures such as its gasoline subsidy over measures which would save lives.
Maybe it's in bad taste to suggest that a sick man contributed to his own disease, but in this case it seems to be true.

Of course, these policies are important not only for Chavez, but for the millions of Venezuelans whose health suffers because the Chavez government chooses populist measures over healthy ones.


By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Did he not really not mean that?

Mr. President, tell us it isn't not so! Does he really want to eliminate Colombians' rights?

One thing which has bothered me since moving to Colombia is the grammatical construction by which people say one thing while meaning the opposite.

I guess I supposed that I might just be imagining things - until I spotted this quote by Pres. Santos in today's El Tiempo, about protecting Colombians' rights in the wake of the controversial ruling by the International Court of Justice slashing Colombia's maritime territory in the Caribbean.

Did he really say this? Evidently, yes.

Did he really mean it? No. He meant exactly the opposite:

But this grammatical construction, for some historical reason, has become so internalized in Colombia that even educated people accept it for what it's supposed to mean, not what it does.

It's far from the Spanish language's only logical failing. Take the whole double negative thing, which in English would mean a positive - such as: 'No hay nadie en la casa,' which translated literally gives us 'There isn't nobody in the house,' meaning that there is somebody.

But that double negative has become officialized, institutionalized and sanctified in high school grammar texts. I'm just hoping that this 'Hasta no..,' construction never does.

English, of course, has its own grammatically nonsensical phrases, including 'I could care less.' People use it to mean they don't care, and should say what they really mean: 'I couldn't care less.'

Meanwhile, the dispute with Nicaragua just gets worse and worse. Colombia's withdrawal from the Pacto de Bogotá leaves the two nations with no common agreed arbitrator. Nicaragua will continue claiming the sea territory the court awarded it. And, as long as Colombia rejects the new sea boundaries, Nicaragua will undoubtedly continue claiming the San Andres Islands and keys, as it has for decades.

Those are the ingredients for an ugly international dispute, which has the potential to turn violent, and will surely cost Colombia international stature.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Colombia: International Outlaw?

That's what it looks like after Colombia withdrew from the Bogotá Pact, which gives the International Court of Justice in the Hague jurisdiction over disputes between members.

Colombia's motivation is obvious: Colombians didn't like the court's ruling last week expanding (from Colombia's perspective) Nicaragua's maritime sovereignty in the Caribbean at Colombia's expense.

But the ruling leaves Colombia with one less international legal mechanism to peacefully resolve disputes between members and erodes Colombia's authority in every international organization. The pact, signed in 1948, is formally named The American Treaty for Peaceful Solutions, and it appears to have worked. As far as I know, there's never been a war between two nations which had ratified the pact. (Peru and Ecuador fought their border wars before Ecuador's 2008 ratification.) Previous to the pact, however, Latin American nations fought numerous border wars, including the ones which dismembered Paraguay and Bolivia and the 1932 Peru-Colombia war over Leticia.

Several border disputes, including ones between Chile and Argentina, Chile, Bolivia and Peru and another between Colombia and Venezuela over their border in La Guajira - which brought them close to war in 1987 - still fester in the region. The Bogotá Pact provides a presumably objective authority to resolve those peacefully, if not to everybody's liking.

By withdrawing from the Pact, Colombia rejects the authority of that court. But its decision comes too late juridically. After all, at the time the court ruled last week, Colombia was still a member of the pact and recognized the court's authority. And the Colombian government should also remember that, along with expanding Nicaragua's waters, the court also reaffirmed Colombia's sovereignety over the San Andres islands and their surrounding keys - which was what Colombia had asked for in the first place. By rejecting the new maritime boundary, Colombia also delegitimizes the ruling on the islands and keys.

Nicaragua has said it is sending military ships to patrol the waters which it now considers its territory. But Colombia says it is maintaing warships in the region. Does this sound like a threat of war?

Colombia's decision to leave the Bogotá Pact, like a child who abandons a game because he didn't win all he wanted, will also delegitimize Colombia in all international organizations, because other nations will suspect that Colombia, if it doesn't get its way, will simply abandon the field.

Colombia's decision, "means not only a violation of an international norm, but also confronts Colombia against the United Nations system and the international community," Walter Arévalo, professor of international relations at the Universidad del Rosario, said in an analysis published on the Congreso Visible website.

That's not a good position for a nation like Colombia, which has relied heavily on international cooperation, to be in.


By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

San Andres' Other Big Loser: The Environment?

The International Court of Justice's ruling last week slashing Colombia's territorial waters around the San Andres Archipelago was a disaster for the islands' fishermen, whose fishing opportunities appear to be drastically curtailed.



Ecotourism in San Andres' biosphere
reserve. (Photo: Changemakers)

But the environment will also suffer if Nicaragua does not continue Colombia's conservationist policies in maritime areas the court transferred to Nicaraguan control. Those areas include 54% of the  349,800 square kilometer Seaflower Biosphere Reserve and Marine Protected Area, which surrounds the islands. According to the San Andres government, it constitutes the largest marine protected area in the Americas, with more than 400 fish species, 54 soft coral species and 48 hard ones, 130 sponge species, 4 turtle species and 157 species of birds, among lots of other biodiversity.

 In addition, a year ago Pres. Juan Manuel Santos promised to ban oil drilling around the islands.

San Andres fishermen. They may find their
livelihood devastated in multiple ways.

Will Nicaragua be a good steward of its maritime environment (assuming that Colombia recognizes the court's ruling)? Unfortunately, Nicaraguan officials' initial remarks after the court decision have been about exploiting the region's resources, including undersea oil.

The answer is important not only for the region's biodiversity, but also for the fishermen's livelihoods. Fish do not recognize political frontiers, and destroying their breeding habitat will destroy fish populations throughout the Caribbean.

Doomed world? Fish swim in the Seaflower reserve. (Photo: ABC.es)

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours