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

Animal Rights: A One-Bull Show?

'End of the animalist bench in the Bogotá City Council.' (Image: Semana.com)

Bogotá's animal rights activists have lost two battles recently: A court ruled that the Mayor Petro lacked the authority to prohibit bullfighting, and then the City Council voted down a proposal to remove the term 'bullfighting' from the Santamaria Plaza's official list of uses.

Now, the City Council's 'Animalista' benchers feel impotent and frustrated, as well as divided internally. (Several animalista councilmembers actually voted against the proposed plaza name change. They explained that the court ruling obliged them to do so.)

The animalistas seem to be a small interest group. But they are loud and likely the council's most altruistic members. They chalked up one major victory a year ago when the city finally retired the cart-pulling horses from the streets. Mayor Petro also won their gratitude by not allowing bullfighting for the past two years in the historic Santamaria Plaza. However, this year, while a group of young bullfighters staged a hunger strike in front of the plaza, a court gave the mayor six months to allow bullfighting again.

Petro, who had vowed to resign before allowing bullfighting again, agreed to obey the judge's order.

Those losses seem to have taken the winds out of the animalistas' sails and left them fighting amongst themselves - which makes no sense to me. Other groups mobilize themselves in the face of challenges. And, there are many other - and much more important - animal welfare issues to fight for.

Cruel entertainment. Two roosters in a death struggle.

What about cockfighting, which is legal and goes on in Bogotá? I've been to cockfights, and they're
horrific, lacking any of even the 'art' of bullfighting. A bunch of drunk, yelling guys crowd around a ring in which two roosters slash each other to death with razors their trainers have attached to the birds' ankles. As the evening winds up, a pile of dead birds accumulates beside the ring.

Pigs crowded into a cage on a
factory farm.

And how about factory farming? The countless animals which live and die in factory farms and slaughterhouses make the few dozen bulls killed during a bullfighting season almost insignificant. And, in contrast to the crowded, dirty conditions in a factory farm, fighting bulls live well, and for much longer than animals raised for milk or meat, before they're brought to the bullfighting plaza.

I've seen virtually no attention paid to the conditions of life and death for animals raised for milk and meat in Colombia.

And the illegal trade in wild animals? This gets some attention, but not much.

And there are undoubtedly lots more animal welfare issues of much more importance than bullfighting for the animalists to worry about.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Welcome to Gridlock

Much more of this to come. Cars in a jam on Carrera 30. 

In a grim move for a liveable Bogotá, the City Council voted down a proposed traffic congestion charge.

A daily traffic jam in La Candelaria.

Look forward to a future of ever-worsening traffic jams, noise and pollution. It's a future which will hurt everybody - except for those who sell cars, gasoline and parking lots.

In opposing the charge, a city councilwoman opined that 'Bogotá was not ready for a congestion charge.'

Does that mean that Bogotá IS READY for tens of thousands of additional cars, which will compound traffic jams?

When will Bogotá be ready for a congestion charge? Perhaps a decade or more from now, when a first subway line is finally working? By then, the number of private cars in Bogotá may have doubled, strangling the city.

But congestion charges, which have reduced traffic jams and pollution in London, Singapore and other cities, can do particular good exactly because a city lacks a subway system. The income generated by such a charge would help finance Bogotá's mass transit.

Why did the council dump the congestion charge after months of discussion, despite the support of both Mayor Petro and his temporary replacement Rafael Pardo and two studies which concluded that a charge would work?

I bet that those who profit from traffic jams and air pollution, including car sellers, gasoline vendors and the car parking industry, with their deep pockets, lobbied hard against the congestion charge. Who backed it? Perhaps a few NGOs.

Meanwhile, Colombia continues taking public money away from schools, hospitals and parks to subsidize the diesel and gasoline fuels which are poisoning us and turning our streets into parking lots.

Do those sound like rational priorities? Of course not.

The brilliant cynic Ambrose Bierce defined democracy as 'Three wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.'

With powerful economic interests ready to attack it, a congestion charge won't have much chance until a popular and charismatic leader, who's willing to take short-term political costs, champions the idea. Mayor Gustavo Petro, who seems obsessed with fighting to hold onto power for the sake of holding onto power, isn't that man.

In a May 7 editorial, El Tiempo suggests that the City Council's vote was 'political' and argues that a congestion charge is a necessity for Bogotá. City Hall will introduce the measure again, El Tiempo says. Hopefully, I don't expect much from the Petro administration.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Enough Already! (Petro's back)

A Petro supporter carries flags on Ave. Septima.

I woke up this morning feeling a terrible tension, which lasted most of the day. It continued when I saw the piles of trash on central Bogotá's streetcorners, the vehicles belching plumes of smoke and the endless traffic jams.

Why did these scenes of urban malaise - which I see every single day - bother me today in particular?

Because Mayor Petro's back, reinstated by a judge.

It's not so much because I think Petro was a bad mayor - even tho he accomplished little and seems to believe that billboards and radio ditties will change people's behavior more than enforcing laws will.

No, Bogotá's urban troubles angered me particularly today because, with the city's mayor mayhem continuing into a second round, there's no end in sight for these urban maladies.

Petro was mayor for a little more than two years, the final months of which he spent mostly fighting

Pro-Petro people on Ave. Septima celebrate their
man's return to office.

the inspector general's decision to oust him for allegedly mishandling garbage collection and a recall vote. The scheduled recall vote was cancelled after Petro finally lost a long legal battle against his ouster.

Petro was first replaced by labor minister Rafael Pardo, who actually got things done, who was in turn replaced by Petro ally Maria Mercedes Maldonado, who held the office for barely one day.

Now, the recall vote will be rescheduled, and the legal fight over the inspector general's order will continue.

Bogotá's merry-go-round of mayors will continue, with officeholders who don't know how long they'll be there and who are more concerned about keeping their grip on power than actually exercising it.

And, meanwhile, garbage will keep piling up, the air will get dirtier and traffic jams will get longer, because we've got nobody at the helm.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Street Art and Politics

Painting a face on Calle 26.

It took only  a few days after the ouster of Mayor Petro, a promoter of street art, for official Bogotá to make a 90 degree policy swerve on the issue.

A few days ago, city workers erased illegally-painted graffiti painted along Calle 26, including along the walls of the underpass where several months ago Justin Bieber and his buddies infamously painted a marijuana leaf and other graffiti (which was erased the next day).

Militant Bogotá grafiteros didn't wait to respond. This weekend they were out painting new stuff along 26th - including defenses of the right to graffiti.

Ironically, the city's anti-graffiti work just provides fresh canvases for more painting.

Find a lesson in that, temporary Mayor Rafael Pardo!

A graffiti artist sits on Calle 26 above graffiti calling Bogotá's temporary designated Mayor Rafael Pardo 'illegitimate.'

Grafiteros paint along Calle 26, including a phrase demanding 'Respect for graffiti.'

Street art provides a colorful backdrop for bicyclists in Sunday's Ciclovia. 

Jorge Eliecer Gaitan.

 

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours, which offers street art/graffiti tours.

And What Happens Post-Petro?

A Petro supporter on Ave. Septima
yesterday.

After signing the order ousting Bogotá Mayor Gustavo Petro, Pres. Santos didn't wait to appoint a replacement. Ex-minister of labor and would be-candidate for mayor and president Rafael Pardo is now mayor of Bogotá, until another interim mayor is designated.

A career politician, except for short stint in journalism, Pardo appears to be a serious, technical guy. He studied in Los Andes University, got a graduate degree in The Hague (Netherlands) and international relations at Harvard University. Pardo started out in the Liberal Party, became an ally of Alvaro Uribe, and then moved back to the Liberals. A bit ironically, he participated in the demobilization of various guerrilla groups, including the M-19, of which just-deposed Mayor Gustavo Petro was a leader.

A small crowd of loyalists listens to pro-Petro speeches
last night on Plaza Bolivar. Earlier, when Petro spoke,
the plaza was full.

Besides labor minister, Pardo has also been senator and defense minister. But his career has also involved controversy. He helped direct the hunt for cocaine cartel kingpin Pablo Escobar, during which government forces allegedly collaborated with a violent, outlaw group named the Pepes, which was established by the rival Medellin Cartel and paramilitary groups. But Pardo also displayed principle and backbone by breaking with Pres. Uribe over his controversial paramilitary demobilization plan and Uribe's plans to run for reelection.

As mayor, Pardo says he'll continue Petro's policies and concentrate improving the city's transit and fighting
crime.

Petro, meanwhile, hasn't given up the fight. His supporters have filed new lawsuits against his ouster and the ex-mayor is still appealing to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, altho that appears unlikely to save him.

It's not clear for how long Pardo will be acting mayor.

Petro's party, the Progresistas, are now supposed to present Pres. Santos with a list of candidates from whom Santos will choose one person to act as mayor until the winner of a special election takes office.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Mayoral Chaos

Bogotá ex-Mayor Gustavo Petro

Gustavo Petro's sudden exit from Bogotá's City Hall bodes ill for the city, for the peace negotiations and for political peace generally.

On the one hand, Petro's ouster by Inspector General Ordoñez's order will mean four mayors for Bogotá in three years, including Petro's predecesor Samuel Moreno, who is in prison now facing corruption charges, Clara Lopez, the placeholder appointed to succeed him, Petro himself, and the placeholder mayor whom Pres. Santos will appoint to hold the office until elections are held. And then, of course, will come whoever wins the special election - making five mayors since Moreno's ouster in May 2011.

All that makes the Colombian capital look exactly like what Colombia's trying hard not to be: an unstable, corruption-plagued Third World city lacking any sort of rational development plan. The possibility that the next mayor elected could be a conservative such as Francisco Santos, who was vice president under Pres. Alvaro Uribe (and is Pres. Santos's cousin), creates the prospect of the city's policies veering across ideologies. Forget continuity of policies or projects.

As far as the peace negotiations between the FARC and government taking place in Havana, the ouster of

Bogotá's previous elected mayor,
Samuel Moreno, who is now in prison.

Petro, a one-time leader of the M-19 guerrillas, on questionable grounds (for allegedly mishandling garbage collection) by an arch-conservative official will make FARC leaders ask, validly, whether they will receive fair treatment and have a role in government if they sign a peace deal. (Whther or not murderers like the FARC deserve a political role is a separate issue.)

Finally, Petro's ouster in this questionable manner will make him a martyr for his supporters and leave lots of resentment. It would have been much healthier for the city to have postponed the ouster and allowed the recall election, scheduled for early May, to have gone ahead. Stand or fall, Petro's fate would be decided by Bogota's citizens, leaving a sensation of closure and fairness.

Add to that the very real possibility that an enraged and embittered Gustavo Petro will start campaigning against the system by promoting the nihilist 'voto en blanco.'

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Camp Petro

'The peace town - Bakata.' Bakata was the Muisca Indians' name for the place which is now Bogotá, as well as the origin of the city's name. The poster places Petro alongside Nelson Mandela. Perhaps an exaggeration?

Scenes from Plaza Bolivar, where Mayor Gustavo Petro's supporters are camping out in his defense.

'A coffin for democracy.' Petro's supporters call the unelected inspector general's ousting of the mayor a blow to democracy. 

Women pose with an M-19 guerrilla banner. Petro was once a leader of the M-19, most notorious for their disastrous attack on the Justice Palace in 1985.

'The corrupt mafias condemned Petro.'

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The Most Hated Man in Colombia?

Inspector General Alejandro
Ordoñez.

Not long ago, Alejandro Ordoñez was a somewhat obscure, if polarizing, government official and Gustavo Petro was mayor with a popularity problem.

Then Ordoñez ousted Petro from the office and banned him from politics for 15 years - all for mishandling Bogotá's garbage collection system.

A sign outside a La Candelaria cafe says:
'No to the inspector general's intolerance.
No to dictatorship.'

Today, Petro is on his way to becoming a martyr and folk hero, while Ordoñez is the target of anger by Petro's backers and is being questioned and criticized by other high government officials.

Ordoñez extreme conservatism has long gained him the oprobrium of many left-leaning Colombians. A conservative Catholic and follower of controversial French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre - some of whose followers deny the Nazi Holocaust - Ordoñez has staunchly opposed same-sex marriage and abortion rights in Colombia. Ordoñez believes that the Colombian state, which is officially secular, should be based on Catholic doctrine, according to his Wikipedia entry. Ordonez's efforts to discourage even information about legal abortion rights have earned him warnings from other government officials.

Petro already a folk hero? Signs on Plaza Bolivar associate
Petro with assassinated comedian Jaime Garzon.

Ordoñez's latest decision to oust Petro was criticized by both the minister of justice and the attorney general, Eduardo Montealegre, who called Ordoñez's action "inquisitorial" and "anti-democratic."

A survey this week found that 60% of Bogotanos disagreed with Ordoñez's action - and that Petro's popularity had leapt from 42% to almost 51%.

On the other hand, amongst very conservative, very Catholic Colombians, Ordoñez is surely very popular.

And, to Ordonez's credit, he has ousted both liberal and conservative politicians from office.

But Colombians will have to live with Ordoñez for a while yet. Recently elected by Congress to a second term as inspector general, he will hold office until 2017.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Neo-Nazis vs. Petro

Posters on the Plaza del Chorro opposing Mayor Petro and the FARC guerrillas, placed by the Union Nacional Socialista, a neo-Nazi group.(Photo: El Espectador)

Is the campaign to recall Bogotá Mayor Gustavo Petro a neo-Nazi initiative?

'Petro is staying!' A Petro campaign tent on Plaza Bolivar.

Of course it isn't. The recall's main advocates is Miguel Gómez Martínez, of the conservative Partido de la U, who says that under Petro's watch the city has become chaotic, that Petro mismanaged the city's garbage collection and that City Hall policies are hurting the TransMilenio system and the construction industry. Some of the arguments on Gomez's website actually sound leftist: That Petro has reduced the nutrition in school lunches and the shuttered soup kitchens and neighborhood centers for poor women and children.

But the effort to cut short the term of the leftist mayor and ex-guerrilla has, disturbingly, attracted the support of far-right organizations.

A Gustavo Petro campaign poster. 

In June, Angelica Lozano, a city councilwoman from Petro's Progresista party and a leader of the LGBTI community, released a telephone recording which seemed to show that the neo-Nazi organization Tercera Fuerza had planned a meeting in a building used by Creo Colombia, a youth group which backs conservative ex-Pres. Alvaro Uribe, and which has collected signatures for the recall effort.

More recently, posters from a national socialist organization backing the recall appeared in La Candelaria.

The recall's mainstream backers, who have reasonable if debatable arguments for wanting Petro out, aren't responsible for their extremist supporters. However, they should make it clear that they do not share those groups' ideas and don't want to associate with them.

Altho Petro's popularity is under 50%, the mayor seems confident that he will be able to beat back the recall. His experts are now reviewing the lists of signatures, many of which Petro claims are not valid. To oust him, Petro's opponents must accomplish two things: Get a majority of the votes cast in the recall and also motivate more than 1.2 million bogotanos to participate in the special election. The second is the most challenging, and, according to experts, nearly impossible. For his part, Petro has two strategies to choose from: He can either call on his supporters to boycott the vote, hoping that the minimum participation requirement wouldn't be reached, or campaign to win a majority. The first strategy is probably more realistic, but winning a majority would give his government an endorsement.

A neo-Nazi poster in central Bogotá denounces communism and the FARC guerrillas. 

Free Colombia! (Courtesy of the National Socialists)

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

No More Petro?

Sign here to revoke Mayor Petro!

Opponents of Bogotá Mayor Gustavo Petro announced this week that they have collected more than the 290,000 signatures required to hold a vote on revoking him from the mayoralty.

This wasn't hard to see coming. From the start, the election of Petro, a one-time leader of the M-19 Guerrillas, was controversial.

The poorly thot out new garbage collection scheme generated lots of discontent, which was compounded by the valorizacion plan, which is to tax particular districts of the city in order to pay for public works in those areas. Inconveniently, however, somebody has to pay for those public works which everybody wants.

While Bogotá's poorest neighborhoods are the areas most in need of new public works, they have the fewest resources to pay for them. Ironically, the anti-Petro campaign says that it has collected many signatures in poor neighborhoods, which makes me wonder whether those signers knew what was good for them.

Ousting Petro could also be a blow to hopes for a peace agreement with the FARC guerrillas, who are negotiating with the government in Havana, Cuba. After all, the fact that Petro, an ex-lider of the M-19 guerrillas, holds the nation's second-most-important political position provides proof that armed insurrection is not necessary to effect change. Petro's ouster, even at the ballot box, would be seized on by some to claim that the system's rigged.

But Petro may yet survive. If the registraduria decides that opponents collected enough valid signatures, an election will be organized, in which 1.2 million people must vote. More than half of those people would have to vote in favor of revoking Petro. I'm not sure exactly what would follow: a new mayoral election? Or would someone else be designated to complete his term? What about the second-highest vote-getter, Enrique Peñalosa? And, in case of a new election, could Petro run to succeed himself?

Whatever happens, it's a valuable exercise in civi participation. 

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours