The New FARC

FARC political party campaigners on Carrera Septima last night.

Bicycling down Carrera Septima last night I came upon this group of FARC members on campaign.

Men debate while holding FARC flyers.

But let's be clear: These were not the old guerrilla FARC, but the new political FARC: the Alternative Revolutionary Force of the Common People. The same initials as the armed guerrilla organization, and many of the same people, but a whole different nature.

That they have really changed became clear to me when I heard their discourse: It was standard,
boring and political: Lots of promises about equality and vows to improve healthcare, increase equality and improve security.

Call them hypocritical if you like. After all, not long ago, the FARC guerrillas were out there kidnapping and assassinating politicians, driving peasants off of their land, and in general generating all the sorts of problems and suffering they are now campaigning against.

The new FARC will not likely be any more successful than they were in their previous incarnation at accomplishing these goals. However, at least they are now playing the political game instead of tearing their nation apart. In that, the deeply flawed peace treaty at least accomplished a whole lot.

Selling peace and prosperity, under the eye of McDonald´s.

A man, in blue jacket, hugs a FARC senate candidate.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Marching Off, Stage Left

For reasons we could debate, Latin American teachers' unions appear to often be wildly, inordinately far-left. Perhaps it's the mixture of a truly proletarian labor force with a level of intellectualism not often found among mine or factory workers.

One of the most surreal incidents I've experienced in my years in Latin America was an interview with a teachers' union official in La Paz, Bolivia. The woman had just returned from a union conference, and described to me the debates there: It was the Trotskyites vs. the Stalinists. (She was one of the Trotskyites.)

I left the interview wondering which decade I was in.

I felt the same way today when I passed these red communist flags carried by striking teachers. The teachers' demands are pretty standard: higher wages and benefits. Those won't require a revolution, which isn't likely to occur anytime soon, in any case.

'Let's go UPN.' The Union Patriotica Nacional is a far

The teachers' march on Carrera Septima.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

And They Should Know!

'To the streets to fight, to the ballot boxes to protest. Vote empty.'

They're telling you so themselves: Leave your ballot blank! And they are the Socialist Party, who should know very well what happens when people don't vote, or the vote is made irrelevent: Stalin, Mao, Castro and, maybe soon, Ecuador and Venezuela.

Bogotá is in the full swing of mayoral campaigning, and, as always, the options could be better: There's Clara Lopez, seen as a continuation of the current, unpopular Petro administration; Enrique Peñalosa, an ex-mayor with a personality problem, but who's remembered as a good administrator; and Rafael Pardo, a career politician with an erratic political history. And then there are others with no chance.

Do the Socialists have a better option? Probably not. But they do have a plan: Revolution! And while that may feel good, we know where it's taken us.

'Enough already! Vote blank.'

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The Two Truths of Miguel Ángel Beltrán

'No more persecution.' A demonstration this week on the
Universidad Nacional's campus in favor of
Beltrán and other 'political prisoners.'

Miguel Ángel Beltrán was a sociology professor at the Universidad Nacional's Bogotá campus. And, unsurprisingly, he was very leftist. But was he also a secret guerrilla agent? Or just a persecuted professor?

When the Colombian military bombed Ecuadorean territory in 2008 and killed FARC 'foreign minister' Raul Reyes, it reported finding documents showing that Beltrán was a FARC agent named Jaime Cienfuegos.

Beltrán was arrested and deported while traveling in Mexico and spent two years in a Colombian prison, accused of writing guerrilla documents and recruiting students for the guerrillas on the university campus. However, in 2011 a judge absolved Beltrán, concluding that the computer documents could have been manipulated and therefore could not be used as evidence in court.

That didn't end suspicions about Beltrán's FARC connections, particularly because when he was

Miguel Angel Beltrán arrested.

arrested in Mexico, authorities reported that he was carrying a flash drive with FARC documents. Those alleged documents included messages between 'Jaime Cienfuegos' and FARC leader Raul Reyes which indicated that Cienfuegos' international travels coincided precisely with Beltrán's own travels.

And the law wasn't thru with Beltrán. Last year, Colombia's Inspector General Alejandro Ordoñez ordered Beltrán stripped of his professorship and banned from holding public office. But Ordoñez, an extreme conservative, could hardly be expected to consider Beltrán's case objectively. And this August, while traveling in Panama, authorities detained Beltrán and deported him back to Colombia. Beltrán was quickly freed this time.

Graffiti over a Universidad Nacional entrance says
'We are all Miguel Angel Beltrán.'

Beltrán clearly shares some ideas with the FARC. In contrast with the governments of Colombia, the United States and the European Union, Beltrán refuses to call the FARC terrorists, but rather "political actors" and "a response to state violence."

Such opinions are not, of course, illegal - altho they may cause some right-wing politicians such as Orodñez and ex-Pres. Alvaro Uribe to leap to certain conclusions about Beltrán's allegiances.

Whatever Beltrán's true actions and identity, he's well on his way into the pantheon of heroes and martyrs for the country's left. And another example of how unclear the dividing line can be between combatants and sympathizers in Colombia's long conflict.

Pro-FARC graffiti on the Universidad Nacional's Bogotá campus.

A student walks past a pro-Beltran mural on the Universidad Nacional's Bogotá campus. 

A poster celebrating Beltrán's 'absolution.'

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

A Note to the Protesters

Sign-carrying union members march thru downtown today.

Dear May Day protest marchers, 

It's great to see people, especially young people, out demanding changes they believe in, instead of spending their time drinking, watching television or playing video games. 

Anarchist mural in the National University
calls for women to fight.

And many of your demands today are certainly very justified: Decent wages, rights for workers, punishment for violators of human rights and decent prices for agricultural harvests.

But how do you want to accomplish these things? Reading your banners and listening to your chants makes me think that what you want is really a Revolution and to see Colombia's government replaced by a communist or anarchist state.

I could write on and on about the disaster that Communism was and still is for the peoples living under the system: There was the disfunctional economy, shortages of basic goods, the lack of free press, bans on protests and restrictions on art, the gulags, the rigged trials, the prison camps, the mass murders, the dictatorships...But if you still believe in the promise of communism today, it tells me that you're determined to ignore the evidence and that nothing will change your mind. 

As for anarchism, one only has to take a look at the parts of the world lacking a functioning

Communist flags hung on Ave. Septima today.

government to see anarchy's unpleasant and deadly results. But if you haven't looked for yourself already, then, like the communists, you don't want to see.

But, whatever the merits of anarchism and communism, one thing is certain: For better or for worse, COLOMBIA IS NOT GOING TO HAVE ANY KIND OF REVOLUTION ANYTIME SOON.

Give up. Stop dreaming. Take hold of reality.

So, instead of wasting your energies demanding the impossible once a year and throwing rocks at the police every month or two, do something realistic. 

Protesters march down Ave. Septima after dark.
They were chanting 'Multinationals out of Colombia.'

Colombia's got far more than its share of injustices, but most of them are relatively boring, mundane problems not nearly as exciting as revolution. There's pollution, deforestation, urban unsustainability, violence against women, child poverty, child drug addiction, hazardous workplaces, overflowing landfills...and on and on.

Those mostly unsexy problems don't lend themselves to marches and screaming. They require many hours of hard work, much of it unpleasant. But that's the way to make real changes. Calling for revolution may be exciting, but it's not likely to help anyone. 

Regards, 

Mike Ceaser

A sign from today's May Day marches: 'When the countryside goes on strike, the city advances.'

After the march, union members relax with a beer and a tejo game.

This somewhat contradictory mural on Ave. Septima shows a militaristic Pres. Santos firing 'peace bullets.' A strange message, since the left has generally supported peace negotiations with the guerrillas.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The Campesinos March

The march followed the 'Cumbre Agraria' - Agricultural Summit - held near Simon Bolivar Park.

Peasant farmers, students. political parties, Afro-Colombian and indigenous groups marched today demanding lots of things - and in particular that the government fulfill obligations it made to aid farmers and block cheap crop imports.

Afro-Colombian marchers.

Marchers carry a banner potraying ex-president and now Senator Alvaro Uribe as a fascist. Uribe's party, the Centro Democratico, did well in Sunday's elections, when Uribe was elected senator.

Marchers carried a flag with the portraits of Latin left icons Che Guevara and Simon Bolivar, as well as deceased Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. Amazing that a man who wrecked his country is seen as a saint. 

The Soviet Union is gone, but Lenin lives on - in Bogotá.

The Marcha Patriotica is widely seen as close to the FARC guerrillas, and could be the guerrillas' vehicle for entering politics if the guerrillas and government sign a peace deal.

Protesting the 'prison crisis.'

The Union Patriotica party, often linked to the FARC guerrillas, did poorly in Sunday's parliamentary elections.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours