Whose Patrimony is Worth Protecting?

An apartment tower under construction near the Castillo San Felipe, a colonial fort, in Cartagena.

An apartment tower - one of a planned five - for low-income people being built near a colonial fort in Cartagena is threatening the city's designation as a UNESCO world heritage site.

It's a difficult decision: The low-income families, many of whom have already paid for apartments in the towers, need comfortable, affordable housing near where they work. But five modern towers will detract from the castillo's character, and loss of world heritage status would surely damage Cartagena's tourist appeal.

Doesn't Cartagena have another location to build apartment towers?

The polemic over construction in Cartagena makes one wonder why nobody protests when architectural monstrosities appear in Bogotá's own supposedly colonial historical center.

The ugly, multistory, box-like apartment building on the rear, left, was recently completed on the south end of Carrera 3, one of La Candelaria's most picturesque and historic streets. 

This block of Carrera 3 WAS one of the nicest in the neighborhood, colorful single-story houses and cobblestones. Now it has an ugly multi-story apartment building.

The Externado University recently built these character-less buildings on the hillside above La Candelaria, deforesting part of the hillside and blocking residents' views of the rest.

Some years ago, neighbors protested the construction of this faux-colonial building on the corner of Calle 9 and Carrera 2.

Tourists pose in front of the centuries-old La Candelaria Church. But, sadly, modern ugliness is going up around it.

Pedestrians pass below buildings which remind me of mushrooms.

Anything attractive at all - much less colonial - about this building on Carrera 3 and Calle 11?

An Oxxo liquor/junk food store on Calle 11 just above the La Candelaria Church, one of about a half-dozen such stores which have appeared recently in La Candelaria. Do they contribute much besides feeding students' and tourists' addictions?

Or this one, on Carrera 4?

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

A Prince's Polemical Plaque

British ships attack Cartagenas in 1741. (Image from Wikipedia.com) 

In early March 1741, a massive British colonial fleet of 186 ships and 23,600 men, including 12,000 infantry, attacked the port city of Cartagena, defended by only 6 ships and 6,000 men, as well as its famous forts and shore batteries.

Cartagena Mayor Dionisio Vélez, on left, and Prince Charles,
on right, unveil the polemical plaque.
(Photo from the prince's website.)

Spanish Admiral Blas de Lezo, who
commanded the defense.
(Image from Wikipedia.com)

Spanish Admiral Blas de Lezo chose to make a fighting retreat. During the next two months, the British troops, commanded by Admiral Edward Vernon, took one Spanish defensive fortification after another. But they were losing men at a horrific rate, to both Spanish guns and to tropical diseases.

In May, the humiliated British withdrew, having lost 18,000 men killed or injured, as well as their goal of wresting the fabulously valuable Caribbean colonies away from Spain. Spain's South American empire would survive another 70 years.

Meanwhile, back in London, the government believing that its forces had won, and had already issued coins celebrating the 'victory.' When news of the disaster arrived, King George ordered the coins removed from circulation and prohibited anyone from talking or writing about the defeat.

British Admiral Edward Vernon.
(Image from Wikipedia.com)

Today, the British are no longer mum about one of their greatest naval defeats. During Prince Charles' visit last week, he and the mayor of Cartagena unveiled a plaque 'In memory of the valor and suffering of all those who died in combat attempting to take the city and the fort of San Felipe, under the command of the Admiral Edward Vernon in Cartagenas de Indias in 1741. Presented by the Corporación Centro Histórico de Cartagena de Indias'.

During the ceremony, the Cartageneros were blinded by the prince's star power. But by the next day, they were complaining. After all, why had the city spent public funds to pay tribute to foreigners who attacked it? How about commemorating the Cartageneros who died courageously defending their city (and the Spanish empire)?

Coins minted to commemorate the
great British 'victory' in Cartagena.
(Photo: Wikipedia)

They have a point, but could profit by looking at the ironies of history. After all, the Cartageneros were fighting so heroically to preserve the Spanish empire, which less than a century later they would be fighting against for Colombia's independence. During that 1810 - 1820 war of independence the British would return - this time fighting on the Colombians' side against the Spanish. There's another plaque on Plaza Bolivar commemorating the help of the British Legion, which fought alongside of Simon Bolivar.

In neither case, of course, were the British being altruistic. In both wars, the Brits wanted to weaken

Spanish control on the Americas and open the New World to British trade.

Another irony: Amongst the British imperial soldiers were many men from its north American colonies, including Lawrence Washington, half-brother of George Washington, later to become of the United States' revolution against Britain. Lawrence Washington so admired Adm. Vernon that he named the family estate Mt. Vernon in his honor. A generation later, many of these same men, or their sons, would change uniforms and fight against Britain.

The Cartageneros' complaint is valid. But they also might stop a moment and reflect that the British invaders didn't want to control Cartagena as much as to free it from Spain in order to be able to trade with South America.

So, if the British invasion had succeeded, Colombia's independence might have come a half-century sooner.

Update: Cartagena officials are discussing redoing or replacing the plaque. But, meanwhile, someone attacked it with a hammer.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

And What About the Women?

The seemingly endless stream of stories about the U.S. Secret Service agents' antics with prostitutes in Cartagena have detailed:

How many men were involved, and how many women. 


How much they paid.


What Cartagena's brothels are like. 


The impacts on the agents' careers. 

But nobody's asked about the women whom the agents paid for sex:

A story in today's New York Times details the experience of one of the prostitutes, whose pay dispute with an agent she'd just slept with. The woman comes off as assertive, but also vulnerable: she almost left without payment, said that the episode had left her anxious and crying and had made her decide to abandon Cartagena.

The reporter apparently didn't ask how the woman had become a prostitute, altho her proud self-description as an 'escort' suggests she did it voluntarily, as does her price - several times the monthly minimum wage for a single night's services.

El Tiempo also cites rumors that some of the prostitutes were minors, which is of course illegal in Colombia. The ICBF, the child protective authority, says it will investigate.

According to the U.S. State Department's 2010 Human Trafficking Report "Colombia is a major source country for women and girls subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically forced prostitution." Undoubtedly, there's also domestic exploitation, as this report called Human Trafficking in Colombia: A Modern Slavery says. But, according to the report, some women who migrate within Colombia to work as prostitutes do so "on a voluntary and free way: they can decide the length of stay, type and number of clients to meet and work schedules."

I've also interviewed several prostitutes who appeared to be satisfied with their work, at which  person with limited education can make much more money than she could in a shop or as a street vendor.

When prostitution - or just about anything else - is prohibited, it just gets pushed underground, where prostitutes become even more vulnerable and fearful of seeking help.

Perhaps the best solution is for prostitution to remain legal and regulated, with assurances that women who want to leave 'The world's oldest profession' have the option of doing so.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Another Area for Legalization?

The news that a dozen United States Secret Service agents have been called home from Cartagena because at least one of them allegedly had 'contact' with a prostitute suggests another area for decriminalization.

The legal status of prostitution is a legitimate subject of debate. Legalization enables authorities to regulate and even tax prostitution, and makes sex workers feel more able to seek help from police if they're abused. But critics of legalization say that legal prostitution can serve as a cover for abuses and trafficking of girls and women, as happens in Spain, The New York Times reports. Holland, where prostitution is also legal, is also a major destination for human trafficking, according to this United Nations Report. Back when I was a journalist, I also heard horrific stories about impoverished girls being forced to become prostitutes in Ecuador, where adult prostitution is legal.

But there I also talked to adult women prostitutes who swore by their profession, with which they supported their families.

But prohibiting prostitution also turns a natural human activity and what's supposedly the world's oldest profession into a subject of scandal, giving it a far greater importance than it deserves.

Proof of that are the headlines in the Washington Post and New York Times about the U.S. Secret Service agents getting called home because at least one of them allegedly bought sexual services in Cartagena during the run-up to the Summit of the Americas, taking place this weekend. While prostitution is illegal in almost all of the United States, it is depenalized in 'tolerance zones' in Colombian cities, such as Bogotá's red light district.

Evidently, the Secret Service agents' tastes were not expensive. A Bogotá radio station sent a reporter to the supposed source of the alleged prostitutes, the 'Pleyclub' in an industrial neighborhood of Cartagena. The only sign on the entrance warned patrons to keep an eye on their belongings. The house next door offered rooms for 18,000 pesos a night - less than $10.000.

Nevertheless, the Americans apparently didn't pay for the services, causing the prostitutes to contact the police and put the affaire on the newspapers' front pages.

But the Washington Post, always keeping us abreast of Secret Service men's sexual misbehavior, reports a different story: that one of the agents took a woman to his room during a late night party at the agents' hotel. The woman turned out to be a prostitute, something which the agent may or may not have known, and she demanded payment. The agent refused, the Post reports, and the woman caused a disturbance and complained to the hotel staff, who called the U.S. Embassy.

Legalizing prostitution would have lots of impacts, positive and negative. But on the positive side would be that the naughty behavior of a few Secret Service agents wouldn't risk overshadowing the important issues being discussed at one of the Western Hemisphere's most important events.

Meanwhile, those agents may be regretting being cheapskates, which will likely cost them dearly.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Colombia, a Top Tourist Destination

A Cartagena street scene

Colombia came in second in the New York Times' very unscientific readers' poll of 2010 tourism destinations. One suspects that the Colombian Embassy did some lobbying - but no matter. It shows how far Colombia's come from a decade ago, when it was almost a failed state.

The article's accompanying comments talk about how beautiful, friendly and inexpensive the country is. There are lots of great places to travel to, of course, but perhaps the outstanding thing about Colombia is that tourism's still new here, and so you can feel like you're off the beaten path, and locals are still generally enthusiastic about foreigners. In tourist-choked locals like Cusco, Peru and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, you might get the opposite reaction.

But, Colombia won't be the new frontier for tourism for long. How will expanding tourism impact Colombia's tremendous biodiversity - which is what many visitors come to see - and which is already under pressure from climate change?

Hopefully, tourism can contribute to the preservation of Colombia's biodiversity and human culture.

Macaws are in decline from habitat loss and hunting.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours.