Fired for Truth-Telling?

Yohir Akerman, ex-columnist. 

For years, Yohir Akerman wrote often polemical columns for Medellin's El Colombiano newspaper - columns often critical of religion and even of the newspaper's other columnists.

But when Akerman dared to suggest that the Good Lord could be - horrors of horrors - mistaken, he got ousted from the paper.

Akerman's latest and last column arose from the recent flap over the Universidad de la Sabana's opinion on the issue of adoption by same-sex couples. Sabana University, an elite private school located in north Bogotá, was founded by Opus Dei, the extremely conservative Catholic group. Predictably, the university's medical school recommended against permitting gay adoption. However, it went on to opine that homosexuals could be considered mentally ill, a position long since rejected by the medical establishment. The retrograde view on gay people brought the university so much criticism
that it issued a retraction.

In his newspaper columns, Akerman quoted Old Testament verses prescribing the

El Colombiano
newspaper.

death penalty - often by stoning - for adulterers, rebellious children, women who are not virgins at marriage and other 'wrongdoers.' He also also cited Bible verses endorsing slavery.

"All of these concepts are in the Bible," Akerman concluded, "and as history has demonstrated on these subjects, god was mistaken."

The newspaper appended this convoluted message to the column: 'Note from the directors: This newspaper promotes debate from respect and good arguments. We consider that this column strays from those principles. For the author, not publishing the column would mean his resignation. We publish it and accept his resignation.'

The directors did not explain why quoting the Bible constituted a lack or respect or good argument.

The Bible: Infallible?

Semana magazine quotes Akerman as saying that the paper's director criticized him particularly for not capitalizing the word 'god' and for asserting that God was mistaken.

In Sabana University's defense, it's not explicitly clear that its criticism of same-sex adoption was based on religious ideas. In fact, it doesn't seem unreasonable that growing up in a heterosexual family, which has been the norm for much of human and pre-human evolution, would be better for kids. But it also seems obvious that a loving, supportive family of any type is much better than an abusive one or being warehoused in an orphanage.

And the studies I've seen show that children of same-sex couples tend to out-perform those of heterosexual couples for a simple reason having little to do with the parents' gender or sexual orientation: they have highly-motivated parents who had to make lots of effort to have kids. In contrast, we all know that many heterosexual couples become parents by mistake.

For its part, Akerman's column seems to fall well within the spectrum of reasonable commentary. After all, he primarily quoted the Bible rather than attacking it.

Rather than summarily ousting Akerman, El Colombiano's editors might explain why the Bible is unerring, and therefore that death by stoning is a reasonable punishment for a range of moral 'lapses.'

But while they're at it, El Colombiano might also find itself endorsing a Christian version of the barbaric Islamic State.

As for the court, it ruled that, for now, same-sex couples could adopt only when the child was the biological offspring of one member of the couple, but that the legislature should regulate the issue.

Perhaps such an incremental decision is best in a highly-Catholic nation. In the U.S., when courts made rulings on controversial issues such as racial segregation and abortion it's led to years of conflict. Some things are best decided by the more democratic legislature.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

What El Tiempo Forgot to Mention

'Successful debut for Aval on the New York Stock Exchange.' Aval's owner, it just so happens, also owns El Tiempo.

If you read yesterday's El Tiempo you learned that Grupo Aval, the huge Colombian banking group, made a successful initial offering on Wall Street - altho it didn't make quite as big a splash as did Alibaba.

'Wall Street welcomes
Grupo Aval's Shares.'

But Colombia's leading newspaper neglected to mention that Aval and El Tiempo share the same owner, billionaire Luis Carlos Sarmiento. The news wasn't necessarily distorted - Reuters and Fox business news also described the offering as successful. But you could question the huge spread Sarmiento's newspaper gave his bank. Other Colombian media also reported the offering, but made it their second or third story. 

The website La Silla Vacia also pointed out that El Tiempo has given much less coverage to other stock offerings, including even that of EcoPetrol, Colombia's national oil company, in 2008. La Silla Vacia also observed that El Tiempo gave flattering attention to a highway project in which Sarmientos has interests.

El Tiempo has the right to splash whatever it wants across its pages, and readers have the right to judge the paper's credibility. But in the United States and other nations it's basic journalistic ethics to mention possible conflicts of interest in reporting. Take, for example, the Washington Post's coverage of Amazon Corp. and its owner Jeff Bezos, who bought the newspaper last year.

When Sarmiento, Colombia's richest man with a fortune of $17 billion, purchased El Tiempo in 2012 he probably saw it mostly as a trophy. But when he did so, he promised that the paper's coverage would not be biased by his business interests. Now, the more that he uses it to blow his own horn, the less respect it'll bring him. 

For its part, El Tiempo's smaller but older rival El Espectador has belonged since 1997 to Colombia's second-richest family, the Santo Domingos. A glance at El Espectador's coverage of one of the family's other prominent properties, La Cerveceria Bavaria, finds a lot of flattering coverage, including the information that Colombia's beer consumption is still relatively low. 

I'll wait with bated breath for El Tiempo to do an exposé on Grupo Aval or one of its banks, or for El Espectador to uncover corruption inside Bavaria.

Latin American journalism, unfortunately, is known for corruption and favoring special interests. The ownership of Colombia's two most important newspapers by its two richest families is a test for whether journalistic ethics can stand up to economic interests, and the results don't look so encouraging.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Can an English-Language Paper Survive?

It's not easy starting a newspaper these days, especially when it's a real one - printed on dead trees.

As a veteran of several newspapers - several of them sadly deceased - I'm a real believer in the printed word, as well as the role newspapers play in uncovering graft, telling truth to power, bringing new perspectives on old topics. Other media, such as video, just can't do the job with the same agility and detail.

But, as everybody knows, the traditional newspaper industry is in crisis, mostly due to the Internet, which places limitless information at our fingertips, instantly. Several big papers in the U.S. have folded, others slashed their staff (including stringers like myself). It's not so much because people are reading less, but because the advertising, which is historically the media's main income, has shifted to the Internet. At the same time, the Internet has filled with parasitical publications (read: Huffington Post), which take information generated by others, rework it and republish it as their own.

So, it's admirable to see someone launch The Bogotá Post, a new newspaper that's actually printed on paper.

I've got to hand it to this group. The Post contains real news and real stories by real writers. They evidently interviewed an Irish deputy minister visiting Colombia about Colombia's peace process. (He's optimistic, altho the two countries' conflicts have fundamental differences. And, was the IRA as corrupted as are Colombia's guerrillas by drug trafficking and human rights violations?) Jenny Boyle (it'd be nice to know who she is and how long she's lived in Bogotá and how she commutes) writes an opinion column criticizing the women-only cars in TransMilenio, which for her represent the city's resignation to an ugly element of human nature - men's sexual predation. (Unfortunately, human nature - and particularly male nature - is often ugly, and Bogotá can't easily change that.) The inaugural edition also includes a nice opinion piece by Briton Oli Pritchard about the wonders of bicycling in Bogotá. I'm afraid that Pritchard forgot to mention Bogotá's aggressive drivers and clouds of pollution, but it's still nice to see urban cycling praised - especially in an article that's not surrounded by auto ads.

Then there are some somewhat dated news articles about Gustavo Petro and a few predictable features about Usaquen and the monuments of San Agustin. (I couldn't tell whether the Post is meant to be a weekly, bi-weekly or monthly publication.)

What the Post's inaugural issue conspicuously lacks is much advertising - its only income, since the paper is free. Hopefully, that will come in future editions. But it'll be a challenge in the Internet age.

Sadly, my journalistic career is a trail of deceased and agonizing publications. I started out journalistically with the Florida Flambeau, a spirited, independent daily paper covering Tallahassee, Florida's universities. We published exposés and hard news, as well as sports. But the Flambeau died - beaten by a more commercial paper catering to the sororities and fraternities, according to this Wikipedia article. Several years and newpaper jobs later, I worked for the Bolivian Times, a weekly published in La Paz, Bolivia. The BT struggled along with a colorful and hard-working, but sometimes incompetent and occassionally drugged-out staff, an owner often more interested in flattering his elite friends than doing serious reporting, and Bolivia's dysfunctional economy. Nevertheless, we managed to do some interesting reporting. The BT finally died - perhaps deservedly - after many of us were stiffed of our salaries.

Recent years have not been easy for English language publications across Latin America, as English-language papers have folded not only in Bolivia, but also in Caracas and Mexico City, where the surviving Mexico City News saw its staff slashed a few years ago. Besides the Internet, such newspapers have also fallen victim to changing hiring policies. Foreign companies used to bring down foreign staff, but now tend to hire locals.

The Bogotá Post joins the Colombian capital's only other English-language print publication, The City Paper. I'm not sure how The City Paper, a monthly, has managed to survive the tough times for newspapers despite little advertising. I've enjoyed The City Paper's talented, sometimes magazine-quality photographs and features (detracted, unfortunately, by irregular editing). Both are in competition with the Internet-only, Medellin-based Colombia Reports, which publishes interesting articles, many of which however are recycled from the Spanish-language press.

Good luck to the Post. A new voice is always important. Let's hope this one lasts. 

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Colombian Journalism - A Lot Less Deadly

A newsstand in central Bogota.  

Conditions are improving for journalists in Colombia - in contrast to much of the rest of the region.

In its annual report isued today, The Federation for Press Freedom, or FLIP, reported 123 'agressions' against Colombian journalists during 2013 and two killings, of a radio reporter and an informal journalist. Many of the attacks took place against reporters covering last year's massive anti-government protests.

Still, as disturbing as those events are, Colombian journalists had it much worse in years past, when often more than 10 journalists were murdered annually. Many of those past killings, the FLIP points out, remain unsolved.

José Dario Arenas

The FLIP made a specific report about the violence-wrought Bajo Cauca region, where radio stations have abandonded news reporting in favor of sports and music to avoid angering the wrong people.

One of the journalists killed was a young man in the town of Caicedonia, near Armenia, who had Extra Quindio to support his wife and children. Soon, he started phoning in information about the local prison and police incidents to the newspaper. Apparently, he reported on the wrong person. One day, two men bought a newspaper from him, opened it, looked at an article about Caicedonia's prison and then shot Arenas dead.
practiced the trade informally, and for only six months. Jobless, José Dario Arenas, 32, had started selling the

Both Arenas's mother and a journalist who investigated Arenas's murder received death threats. The journalist later quit his job at the newspaper, which is no longer sold in Caicedonia. The killers won.

On the positive side according to the FLIP was the passage this year of legislation broadening access to government documents - altho it still requires the president's signature to go into effect.

But across Latin America, many media are under siege from their own governments - in many cases,

El Tiempo reports the demise of Venezuelan newspapers.

ironically, leftist governments whose leaders suffered decades ago under repressive right-wing dictators.

In Ecuador, Argentina and Venezuela, governments have used new laws, slander charges and economic weapons to intimidate and disable critical journalists. In Venezuela, probably the most critical case, broadcast media have lost their licenses and newspapers find themselves unable to import newsprint. Venezuela's leftist leaders have repeatedly accused the media of causing the nation's soaring crime.

In much of the region, it seems, the violence once used to repress the press has been replaced by intimidation, economic and legal tactics.

During this week's protests in Venezuela, the Venezuelan government banned Colombian TV station NTN24 from cable networks and the government-owned phone company even blocked Twitter photos.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Foreign Profits Win Out Over Colombian Lungs

Lobbying by U.S. truck makers means Bogotanos will suffer from smoke-spewing trucks for years to come, The Chicago Tribune reports.  

It's a story which should embarass all Colombians - and shame those of us from the United States.

This year, the Colombian Ministry of the Environment planned to require emission filters on all new

A Coca Cola truck contributes to Bogotá's air - and lungs.
Filters can remove 90% of particulate pollutants.

trucks - an environmental/health measure long required in developed countries.

But U.S. truck manufacturers, which dominate the Colombian market, cried out to heaven, the Chicago Tribune reports. The air quality measures gave unfair advantage to European manufacturers, they claimed (because the Europeans make cleaner vehicles, perhaps?). The truck makers and buyers also claimed that environmental measures were too expensive for Colombia - even tho the lack of such controls costs Colombians many billions of dollars every decade in health and other costs, according to Universidad de los Andes Dean of Engineering Eduardo Behrentz (as well as untold human suffering).

Bogotá's buses don't bother with filters, either. 

Conveniently, the malleable Colombian environmental authorities postponed the new filter requirement until early 2015, the Tribune reports (and we'll see what happens in 2015).

"The Colombian government is on the (industry) side, and it's allowing the import of technologies that are considered obsolete in the country where they were created," Behrentz told the Tribune.

The truck makers and buyers apparently also used free trade agreements Colombia has signed to argue that health and environmental measures impose unfair restrictions on capitalism, according to the Tribune piece.

But the immense health damage from air pollution, which causes thousands of premature deaths every year in Bogotá alone, means other kinds of restrictions on people's lives.

Of course, trucks aren't the only culprits contaminating our lungs. Spend a short time on a Bogotá street and you'll see that cars, buses, trucks and factories all share the responsibility - as do the authorities who turn a blind eye to the problem.

EcoPetrol recently invested huge sums to lower the sulphur levers in the country's diesel fuel to 50 parts per million - a respectable level for a developing nation. But Behrentz says that money's wasted as long as the country doesn't require emissions controls and allows decades-old vehicles to continue operating.

Even police vehicles flout environmental laws.

Behrentz, who helped write the law which was postponed, sounds embarrased about his own government.

"I don't praise my own government that chose (foreign companies') interest over the interest of the Colombian people," he told the Tribune.

Also check out my blog (in bad Spanish) specifically about air pollution:

www.airenuevobogota.wordpress.com

The result...smog blankets Bogotá.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Hugo Chavez and Me

The death of Venezuelan Pres. Hugo Chavez likely ends an era of firebrand populist leftism in Latin America, creates new questions for Colombia and gives me reason to be nostalgic about some of the most memorable journalism I ever did - or am likely to.

Still, the way he died was a pathetic episode fitting for a man whose rule was both dynamic and destructive for his country.

Caught Up in a Coup

I moved to Venezuela just weeks before the April 2002 quasi coup, which swept him from power for 48 hours before he came roaring back on the shoulders of loyal military men. That was great journalism, and sort of makes me wonder whether this man, who overcame his enemies time and again and became such a presence over Latin America, could now just return from the dead like the messiah he seemed to believe himself to be.

Covering the coup and counter-coup in an unfamiliar city full of paranoia and confusion was naturally an unforgettable experience. I had just moved to Caracas, knew almost nobody, had no home Internet connection, and had only an old laptop whose floppy drive was broken - fatal in those pre-USB. When the turmoil began I was at the mercy of taxi drivers whose priority was not to find me an open internet cafe, but to maximize their fare by driving me across town and back.

Read All About It! Selling El Tiempo's
special edition about Chavez's death.

Still, frantic and confused, I managed to work. I participated in the huge marches which culminated with Chavez's kidnapping by coup leaders, who spirited him off to a Carribean island. But the coup quickly turned tyrranical, as its leaders - who included businessmen and Catholic Church officials - suspended the Constitution and civil rights. Even people who had wanted Chavez out agreed they didn't want this, and popular opinion and loyal military brigades brought him back.

One evening, amidst it all, I was in a taxi headed towards Miraflores, the presidential palace. Frantic crowds were milling around in the streets. On the tops of high-rises were sillhoueted figures. Were they snipers? Both sides were charging that their supporters had been shot by snipers. Suddenly, the taxi driver stopped, still blocks from the palace. He was too scared to continue.

I got out, into the crowd, and an editor called from a U.S. newspaper.

"Who's in control there?" he asked.

"How can I possibly know?" I replied.

I went home, wrote frantically, and then raced to an Internet cafe, where I retyped the stories from my laptop's screen and sent them in. Often, I did this while surrounded by teenagers chatting and playing video games, oblivious and uncaring about their nation's fate.

One evening near the end of this drama I was in an Internet cafe frantically writing a story, when an employee approached me.

"Would you mind changing machines sir?" he asked. "Then you can continue chateando."

"Chateando??!!!" For the love of god, I protested, I was not chatting, but documenting their nation's drama for the world. But the young kid didn't care. I had to change machines, losing valuable minutes. But, a few minutes later, he was back again.

"Sir, the boss has asked for you to leave."

"What! Why?" I almost screamed. "I'm very busy."

The employee was unmoved. "The other customers are complaining," he told me.

My further protests didn't help, and so, furious and panicked, I saved my work and ran out the door.

Miraculously, there was another open Internet cafe across the street. Here, however, several people were sitting waiting for computers. The minutes until deadline counting down in my head, I sat down beside another foreigner and proceeded to tell him my story, hoping for sympathy and assistance. He nodded with understanding.

"You don't smell too good," he observed.

Of course. I hadn't showered or probably even changed clothes for three days.

But the man was helpful and let me move ahead of him in line. This Internet cafe was less olfactorily sensitive and I was able to finish and file my stories just in time.

Later, I did a memorable investigative story about links between the opposition groups involved in the coup and U.S. 'pro-democracy' financing, which won me points with Chavistas.

A Hollow Revolution

I had moved to Venezuela with real hope that Chavez's 'revolution' offered real answers for the poor of Latin America, a region where tremendous poverty coexists with wealth and abundant natural resources. But, as time went on, Chavez's 'revolution' seemed to me like more and more of a fraud, designed more to buy power and votes than to help his country. I visited a literacy program in which the readings consisted of propaganda about the wonders of Chavez and the evils of the opposition. A few years later, the government boasted that illiteracy had been eliminated. That would have been news to many of my neighbors if they could only have read enough to understand it.

I visited public hospitals where the elevators and air conditioning didn't work, the intercom system had been stolen and basic supplies such as gauze and alchohol simply didn't exist. Chavez did import Cuban doctors to work in poor barrios. that program undoubtedly did some good, but I had doubts after interviewing leaders of pro-Chavez medical organization whose policy was supposed to be prevention. They were all obese, and I had to ask them to please put out their cigarrettes, as the office's air was stifling with smoke.


A Killing on the Border

And then there was the crime. During my last several months in Caracas, three or four people were murdered in the lower-middle-class street where I lived. And the galloping inflation, about which my neighbors, many of whom were poor, struggling people, complained constantly. All sort of corruption also spun out of control in Chavez's Venezuela. It seemed as tho nearly every cop and border official was looking for a bribe.

One time, I was returning to Venezuela from Colombia, crossing the border in the semi-desert La Guajira region. There, I passed the Colombian border post, crossed a forested no man's land where money changers hung out with wads of bills, and then came to the Venezuelan border post. At the Venezuelan post, the guards proceeded to search my few bags until they discovered my old laptop.

"Look, he's got a laptop," they announced, as tho it were a bomb. "What's the meaning of this? We must report this to our chief."

I knew that there was nothing wrong with having an old, used laptop, especially when you're a journalist. But I also knew that if these officials wanted to mess with me, they could, and they would, until I forked over a bribe. While I pondered we to do, we suddenly heard gunshots come from the no-man's-land. Robbers had run out of the forest, shot and robbed one of the money changers and disappeared back into the trees.

The border agents, ashamed to be trying to extort a petty bribe while people were being murdered in their area of responsibility, told me to take my laptop and go. I did, feeling very bad.


A Revolution Run on Free Gasoline

But to an environmentalist like myself, probably the most infuriating and hypocritical of Chavez's policies was his gasoline subsidy, which pushed the price of a gallon of gas down to just a few cents a gallon - and had it constantly dropping.

The results are obvious: waste, pollution, endless traffic jams - and all for a subsidy which took money which could have funded schools, police and hospitals and gave most of it to the rich (and to Colombians, who buy smuggled gasoline). Of course, Chavez didn't let his own policies stop him from warning the world about environmental destruction and climate change, and denounce the United States for burning oil irresponsibly.
Meanwhile, by tilting the electoral playing field, eliminating government checks and balances and getting rid of term limits, Chavez was turning himself into an elected autocrat.

while living all of this, I recieved a steady stream of hostile e-mails from idealistic young Chavistas celebrating La Revolucion - from far away in the U.S.


A Yanqui-Caused Cancer?

Now that Chavez has died - soon after getting himself reelected by assuring his people that he was cured of cancer - there will probably be elections, and Chavez's hand-picked succesor Nicolas Maduro will probably win. (Maduro showed his stripes tonight with a long tirade about how the opposition had certainly caused Chavez's cancer. The proof? That Israel supposedly poisoned PLO leader Yasser Arafat.
Anyway...)

It was only the latest evidence-less assassination charge against dark powers. Much more likely, Chavez's cancer came from the cigarettes he smoked, or the air polluted by his populist policies.
Vice President Maduro, altho uncharismatic, will likely win an election thanks to sympathy for Chavez and the fact that the state has been transformed into a Chavista electoral machine.

Maduro will inherit lots of problems from El Comandante Chavez, including huge budget deficits, the region's highest inflation and soaring crime rates, particularly homicide.

Chavez's death removes a charismatic leader and deep-pocketed financier for the region's leftist regimes in Bolivia, Argentina, Ecuador, Cuba and Nicaragua.

As for Colombia, Chavez's death raises lots of questions. He evidently was supporting the government-FARC peace negotiations in Havana. Will his succesor have the desire or the stature to do the same? During Chavez's 14 years in power, Colombia and Venezuela had many confrontations, altho relations have recently improved. Who knows what Chavez's succesor might do. Will he be more ideological? A guerrilla sympathizer? Will he blame Colombia for all of Venezuela's ills?

Time will tell.


By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The Risks of Reporting

Londoño's bombed car - it's amazing more people weren't killed.

Theirs were very different histories, styles and viewpoints - but both show why it's still risky to be a journalist in Colombia.

Romeo Langlois is a youngish French journalist held by the FARC guerrillas, who siezed him after he fled during a firefight while accompanying Colombian soldiers.

Fernando Londoño and ex-Pres. Alvaro Uribe

Fernando Londoño was interior minister for Pres. Alvaro Uribe and continues being a fervent defender of all things Uribista - as well as of the military, Catholicism, business interests and everything conservative. I've sometimes listened to his morning radio show, which is egoistically named 'The Hour of Truth,' and read his newspaper columns, and I disagree with most of what he says, including most of his political opinions as well as his addiction to automobiles and love for golf - an elitist, environmentally-destructive excuse for a sport. Nevertheless, Londoño has every right to express his opinions, and those undoubtedly were part of the reason that a would-be assassin jumped from a motorcycle and attached a bomb to Londoño's car the other day. The bomb killed two of Londoño's bodyguards and injured dozens of people on the street, but only lightly wounded Londoño himself.

Romeo Langlois at work. 

Agree with him or not, Londoño had every right to express his views, which contributed to public debate.

Colombia is much less dangerous for journalists than someplace like Mexico, where drug violence is raging. And, Colombia has become much safer than it was in decades past, when Pablo Escobar and other narcos intimidated and murdered journalists who didn't write what they were told to.

Langlois' and Londoño's travails are reminders of why we should be grateful to the people take risks to provide us with news, analyze it and opinionate on it, in newspapers, radio, television and on the 'net.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Where is Roméo Langlois?

Roméo Langlois, a reporter with France 24.

I met Roméo Langlois, the French journalist who disappeared during a battle between the military and the FARC, only a few times and social and journalistic events. But I often saw him around La Candelaria, where we both live.

I only remember one conversation we had - a debate about whether the leader of Germany was conservative or liberal. Langlois was right.

Yesterday, in the midst of a battle between soldiers and FARC guerrilla fighters, Langlois was injured and disappeared into the jungle, according to military reports. Today, he might be lost, injured, held captive by the guerrillas or even, God forbid, dead.

Langlois was with troops covering an anti-drug operation when the soldiers encountered more than 100 FARC guerrilla fighters in civilian dress, according to the military's account. During the battle, which lasted for hours, four soldiers were killed and several wounded, and Langlois was shot in the arm. Perhaps desperate to show that he was a civilian, Langlois pulled off his bullet proof vest and ran toward the guerrilla line, according to soldiers accounts. He has not been seen since.

Let's all hope that Langlois is alright and will soon return to his home and work. If and when he does, he'll surely bring the story of a lifetime back with him. Let's also hope for the best for the injured and the families of those killed in the battle.

Langlois' ordeal provides yet another reason to ask whether drug production should be legalized. If it were, then, rather than armed outlaws, it'd be produced by tax-paying businesses. That would, of course, mean less work for journalists like Langlois, but also a better world.

Langlois' ordeal reminds me of some hairy journalistic times of my own. For example, the time I interviewed a local paramilitary leader late one night along a desolate road outside of Cucuta, near the Venezuelan border. The man told he how evil the FARC and Venezuelan Pres. Hugo Chavez were. He showed me the pistol he carried under his waistband. Afterwards, I asked the taxi driver who'd made the contact for me where the 'para' was going at that hour.

"Oh," the cabbie replied quite mildly, "he's going to the next town to kill people."

The paramilitaries were notorious for the practice of social cleansing, the murdering of 'unwanteds' such as drug addicts, prostitutes and petty criminals.

Another time, I was in Venezuela interviewing peasants who'd been driven out of Colombia by paramilitary violence. One day, my hosts suddenly told me that I needed to go interview someone out in the jungle. We made a long trek there, didn't find the person, and returned the next day after spending a mosquito-infested night in a hammock. Then my hosts explained to me that they had found out that a group of ELN guerilla fighters were searching for me, and so they'd sent me into the jungle to hide me.

It turned out that my host was himself a FARC operative. A few weeks later, he went into town to buy medicines and was gunned down in street.

The FARC should release Langlois, who was a civilian doing his job. They should also stop disguising themselves as civilians, which is a violation of the rules of war. And, while they're at it, the FARC should also give up their futile struggle, which only inflicts more suffering upon Colombia.

Update: On May 6 the guerrillas finally acknowledged that they're holding Langlois, and said they'll releae him 'soon' - but didn't say when. 

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

A Sad Adiós to the Colombian Miami Herald

A past edition of the Miami Herald's international edition.

Last year, a familiar and surprising publication appeared on Bogotá newspaper stands: the international edition of the Miami Herald.

It lasted about one year, and I always wondered how it could survive in a nation in which few people read the news in English, and those who do do it mostly on the Internet. This year, I haven't seen the Herald on newsstands.

In reality, it was mostly New York Times stories below the Herald's masthead. I occasionally purchased the paper, in part because it brought back memories of sitting down with the morning paper back home in the States. And, for all of the speed and convenience of the Internet, I still find reading on paper more satisfying. And, in fact, studies have found that people recall better what they read on paper than what they read on a computer screen. I also have a personal attachment to the Herald, since I contributed a few stories to them years ago, when they and other papers still had freelance budgets.

(Finally, I also have a guilty reason for preferring reading on paper: When you click on some sleazy, superficial headline about Michael Jackson or Britney Spears on the Internet, you know that some computer someplace is taking note and planning more such stories. But, when you read trash like that on paper, nobody else knows.)

Yesterday, Feb. 9, was the Day of the Journalist in Bogotá, designated by the Circle of Journalists of Bogotá.

Selling an international daily paper in English here had to be a challenge from the start when expatriates and tourists can instantly read the New York Times over the Internet. English-language newspapers in Latin America have also declined in recent decades because of changes in corporate hiring policies, as U.S.- and U.K-based companies have tended to hire more locals, who usually receive lower salaries.

The few English dailies remaining in the region include the Buenos Aires Herald, the Tico Times and The News in Mexico City. Of course, online publications have flourished. But most of those mostly copy or rewrite stories from other publications. For about three years around 2000 I wrote for the Bolivian Times. The Times did some bad, even irresponsible journalism, but also contributed a different opinion and informed. It's since folded, and despite my bad memories of being exploited by the paper's owner, the Times' disappearance was probably a loss for Bolivia.

Across the globe, newspapers are having hard times because of the Internet and other forces, as I, an ex-journalist, know well. In Colombia and much of Latin America, in contrast, newspapers are still going strong - thanks in part to a strong regional economy, to the limited Internet penetration and to wealth families who enjoy the status of running newspapers. But as Internet use spreads, Latin American newspapers will inevitably face the same challenges which U.S. and European are now.

Journalist Jineth Bedoya,
attacked for her work.

In recent weeks, Latin papers and other media have also faced threats from governments and illegal organizations. Ecuador's leftist government passed a law prohibiting journalists from reporting on elections - an obvious move to protect the government from press criticisms. An Ecuadorean court also fined two journalists $2 million for "humilliating" Pres. Rafael Correa with their investigative book about alleged corruption by the president's brother. Journalists' organizations have criticized the Ecuadorean government for these and other moves to muzzle the free press.

Meanwhile, Argentina has passed a law regulating paper sales - an obvious move by the government to intimidate the critical El Clarin media group.

In Colombia, meanwhile, the FARC guerrillas reportedly planned to murder a reporter who they believed to be an informant for the U.S. government and another who had written a book about the late FARC leader Mono Jojoy.

Also, Bogotá police prevented journalists from entering a court hearing on the killing by police of a young graffiti painter. Also, the year 2000 kidnapping and gang rape of Jineth Bedoya, a reporter with the El Espectador newspaper, remains unsolved.

In honor of Journalists' Day, the Circle of Journalists of Bogotá gave awards for outstanding journalists and journalism work in print, radio, TV and other 'net. Semana magazine won an award for 'The DAS's Secret Papers,' about the secret police agency's selling of classified documents.  Olga Beher also won an award for her book 'The Clan of the 12 Apostles,' about allegations of connections between paramilitary groups and powerful Colombians.

Those are a few of the reasons why print journalism continues to be so important and relevant.


By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours