Latin American Democracy in Retreat

Authoritarian Venezuelan
Pres. Nicolas Maduro.

In the mid-2000s, Colombia's popular and hard-right Pres. Alvaro Uribe wanted to run for a third consecutive term. But the Constitutional Court ruled against the idea, saving Colombia's fragile democratic system from falling into the grip of a strongman. Uribe instead selected his defense minister, Juan Manuel Santos, to run as his succesor. Santos won - but rebelled against his mentor, creating a sort of alternation of powers.

Similarly, in Ecuador Pres. Rafael Correa tried to maintain power by selecting his own succesor. But that man, Lenin Moreno, also rebelled against his mentor, saving Ecuador's instituations from becoming puppets of a strongman.

But Argentina did appear to be falling victim to a personality cult under the corrupt Kirchner dynasty - until Argentineans finally voted against them and elected Pres. Mauricio Macri, who is trying to clean up the Kirchners' mess.

Nicaragua's authoritarian president-for-life Daniel Ortega
and his wife, who is also his vice president.

Other Latin nations, however, have been less fortunate. In Bolivia, Nicaragua and, most notoriously, Venezuela, leftist leaders are turning themselves into presidents for life, sometimes with disastrous results in corruption, human welfare and the economy.

Now, some fear that Mexican president-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador, known as AMLO, a
leftist populist admirer of Cuba's ex-dictator Fidel Castro who will have few checks on his power and who appears to believe more in himself than in democratic institutions, will weaken Mexican democracy, which has just suffered through a presidential term marred by flagrant corruption and is under strain from chronic drug violence.

Jair Bolsanero, potential
dictator of Brazil?

But now the greatest threats to Latin democracy are coming from Washington D.C., where a leader
 who patently does not believe in democracy is setting a deplorable example for nations which once looked to the U.S. for democratic guidance, and Brazil, which is about to elect a racist, homophobic misogenist and unapologetic admirer of military dictatorship, as president.

Brazil's importance can hardly be exaggerated. It is the largest nation in Latin America and the world's fourth-largest democracy. It is also the protector - if it can be called that - of the Amazon, one of the planet's treasures of biodiversity and storehouse of carbon dioxide. And if virtual Brazilian Pres. Jair Bolsonaro is even more extreme than Trump, Brazil's institutions are much weaker.

It's all enough to make one wonder whether Latin America (and even the planet's) brief experiment with liberal democracy was only that, and experiment, which is failing.








By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Cultural Cacophony in the Gabriel Garcia Marquez

On the main patio of the Gabriel Garcia Marquéz Cultural Center you'll find something startling - unless you consider big time wrestling high culture: There's a wrestling ring, surrounded by lurid and violent images of Mexican wrestling.

Sure, violent, obnoxious, glamorous wrestling is big in Mexico, but does it really rate center stage in an institution named after Colombia's Nobel Prize-winning novelist? (The center, bizarrely, has no exhibition about Marquéz himself.)

However, in the art gallery downstairs, one finds something more fitting: an exhibition about the legendary and tortured Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. Frida fans will enjoy the different perspectives on the artist, who suffered physically from polio and a car accident (she underwent 32 reconstructive surgeries) and a tumultuous relationship with muralist Diego Rivera, a fellow communist. Both Rivera and Kahlo, who was bisexual, had numerous affairs, altho they managed to stick together.

Kahlo died in 1954 following several suicide attemps.

Perhaps fittingly, Frida painted herself, portraying her own physical and mental sufferings.

In the exhibition, 23 Mexican, one Chilean and one Mexican artists, portray Kahlo's suffering, sexuality and religiosity.

Frida, Prince, or both?

Frida having fun.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

43 Crosses for 43 Martyrs

Students of the Universidad Nacional planted 43 crosses today to memorialize the 43 protesting Mexican university students who were kidnapped, 'disappeared' and apparently murdered recently. The student protesters had been detained by police, who killed six students and then handed the rest over to a criminal gang, who reportedly murdered the students, then burned their remains and dumped them into a river. Most incredibly, the town's mayor and his wife were apparently working with the criminal gang. 

The closest parallel in Colombian history is probably an April 1984 episode during which police entered campus and reportedly beat and murdered student protests.

The sign says 'They buried us alive, but didn't know that we were seeds,' a quote from Uruguayan journalist, novelist and poet Mario Benedetti.

Below is a mural near the Plaza del Ché on Bogotá's National University, commemorating a May 1984 episode when police entered campus and allegedly beat and murdered student protesters.

'Let us not forget.' A memorial to students murdered by police during May 1984 protests on the National University campus in Bogotá. 

A plaque memorializing students killed by police during the May 1984 protests.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Coca Leaf Escapes North

A soldier chops down coca bushes in Colombia? Peru? Bolivia?
Actually, it's southern Mexico. (Revista Punto de Vista)

Soldiers used machetes to chop down the coca plants last Thursday, then piled them up and burnt them. Another 1,639 coca plants had been destroyed.

However, this didn't take place in Bolivia, Peru or Colombia, the three countries which have monopolized the production of coca leaf - the base ingredient for cocaine - for the last several decades. Rather, it was in southern Mexico. And these were the first coca plants discovered outside the Andean region of South America during recent decades.

How does your garden grow? Coca plant in Sri Lanka,
possibly mistaken for sandalwood.

It was probably inevitable that coca plantations, which South American nations have tried to eradicate with mixed success for decades, would shift to other regions. And, it's not so novel as it sounds.

Coca plants are native to Andean regions above 1,000 meters. However, the hardy plant can flourish in many regions. Back before coca leaf and cocaine were prohibited, plantations of the bushes were cultivated in Java, India, Jamaica, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, British Guyana and Malaysia. Around the turn of the 20th century Java, a Dutch colony, was the world's main supplier, and Japan later had industrial-scale coca leaf plantations on its then-colony Taiwan.

Today, coca leaf grows as an ornamental plant in Sri Lanka, where it has been mistaken for sandalwood, and I've seen reports of it being planted in Africa.

Coca cultivation areas in the Andes
in 2007 colored in red and yellow.
(Map from TNI.org)

"However, coca is a relatively easy plant to grow," according to the Transnational Institute. "Coca could easily escape the Andes for other tropical regions if enough pressure to eradicate the plant is applied."

Critics of the War on Drugs have long argued that there is a 'balloon effect.' As eradication and interdiction increase in one region, criminal groups shift to other regions.

The economic incentives for planting coca leaf outside of South America and closer to cocaine markets in the United States, Europe, China and Australia are tremendous. After all, virtually all of the final street price of cocaine comes from the costs and risks of transport and the bribes necessary to carry the stuff across borders. The best proof of that is the perpetual poverty of the campesinos who grow coca leaf.

The Mexican coca leaf plantation, in Chiapas State near the Guatemalan border, measured only 15 by 75 meters, and was hidden under banana plants. The coca plants had grown more than 4 meters high, indicating they'd been there for a long time. A week before, Mexican authorities had discovered 180 kilograms of coca leaves and several plants in a house in the city of Tapachula, also in Chiapas.

Will this be the last coca leaf plantation discovered in Mexico or Central America? Don't bet on it.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

A Legalization Whammy for Mexican Drug Cartels?

Marijuana: Better legal?

While the world's attention was on Barack Obama's reelection victory, individual states continued their marijuana legalization trend  - which may mean a big revenue hit for the drug cartels which are tearing Mexico apart.

The Mexican Competitiveness Institute's study, titled 'If the Neighbors Legalize,' projected that if one or more U.S. states legalized marijuana for recreational use it would not only mean more pot access in those states, but in others as well, as the legal post states exported across the country. As it turned out, both Washington and Colorado legalized recreational marijuana use yesterday, while Massachusetts legalized medical marijuana (making medical pot legal in almost all the New England states).

The Mexican institute guesstimated that between 40% and 70% of the pot now consumed in the U.S. is imported from Mexico. But legal pot producers in the U.S. should now be able to undercut the illegal Mexican producers' prices, cutting them out of the business.

Severed heads on a Mexico disco floor.
Victims of the illegal drug trade?

"It would be expected that almost all of the consumers would prefer buying and consuming legally produced marijuana," the report said.

While the legalized states represent only a few percent of the U.S.'s total marijuana consumption, the analysts concluded that the lower prices and better quality of legal pot will make legal, U.S.-grown pot a better deal throughout almost the whole U.S., except some border areas with Mexico.

That, in turn, will take away between one fourth and one third of the Mexican cartels' profits if one of the states voted to legalize, according to the analysis. That would translate into between one and two billion dollars in reduced income for the cartels, depending on which one of the states legalized. Since two states legalized, one would expect the hit to be even bigger, altho the study doesn't specify how much.

A Zeta cartel weapons arsenal. Purchased
with money from marijuana exports?

In any case, a cool billion or two fewer dollars in income for the organizations which have terrorized big swaths of northern Mexico has to be an excellent thing. It'll translate into their buying fewer guns, hiring fewer assassins, terrorizing fewer Mexican citizens.

The Associated Press interviewed a critic of legalization who predicted that the cartels would simply move into states where pot is legal. But, then they'd have to compete with legal, licensed producers, who would have the law on their side. And, if the drug cartels start producing pot where it's legal, then they'll presumably produce it in a more peaceful way.

A good idea?

The big unknown here is the reponse by the federal government, which still considers marijuana illegal. But it's hard to conceive of the Obama administration cracking down on legal pot, especially when it's clear that many Americans ](especially those young Obama voters) support legalization and Obama himself admitted inhaling as a young man.

The Fed's best policy here is to respect states' decisions.

Legal pot in a few states could also cause a domino effect, as neighboring states face the reality that the pot's coming acorss the border anyway, and by not legalizing they're just denying themselves a huge potential tax income.

After all, marijuana is already the most valuable agricultural crop in California and numerous other states.

Legalization's downsides shouldn't be ignored, either, of course: cheaper marijuana and easier access will probably mean more users. That's a concern, particularly for young people. I don't recall potheads excelling particularly in high school. But states should use part of their tax haul for education and to reduce abuse of all drugs - tobacco, alcohol, pot, cocaine, etc.

My only major doubt about this study comes from the fact that so many states have legalized 'medical marijuana' - which people describe to me as de facto legalization there. And, California pot is already smuggled across the country. So, could full legalization in a few states really make such a big difference? Apparently the Mexican analysts believe so, and their study is very detailed and authoritative.

The next logical step here, naturally, is to other drugs, such as cocaine, which would reduce the income of Colombia's violent, illegal organizations. (With the plus for Colombia's economy that coca leaf cultivation would likely stay here). That's a big leap, but the fundamental arguments are the same: more money for taxes, less money for violent cartels, and moving a huge industry from illegality to legality.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Fast and Furiously to Colombia II

Made in the USA? Weapons confisticated from the
murderous Oficina de Envigado. (Foto: El Espectador)

A cache of weapons sold to criminals in Texas in order to trace them to Mexican cartels has turned up in Medellin, El Tiempo reports.

It's the second time that weapons from the controversial Fast and Furious weapons tracing program have turned up in Colombia. And, undoubtedly, the news will provide more ammunition for Republican critics of the Obama administration.

But the criticism misses the forest for the trees.

Yes, this project went very wrong when U.S. officials lost control of the weapons. However, the goal was extremely important: to find out how drug cartels and other criminal networks illegal obtain weapons sold in the U.S. and then use them to wreak havoc south of the Rio Grande.

A Colombian policeman, allegedly murdered
by the Oficina de Envigado. (Foto: La Vanguardia)

This April, U.S. authorities reported that more than 68,000 guns recovered in Mexico during the past 5 years came from the United States - which is surely just a fraction of the U.S. guns being used by Mexican criminals. And then there are the guns from the U.S. wreaking violence in the rest of Central and South America, including Colombia and elsewhere. To its credit, the Fast and Furious plan has shown just how far those U.S. guns get smuggled. The weapons in Medellin were reportedly recovered from the 'Office of Envigado', a violent succesor organization to Pablo Escobar's cartel employing ex-paramilitaries killers.

The weapons found a month ago on the property of the Envigado's commander included 13 pistols, 9 submachine guns and 56 rifles, according to El Tiempo, altho the article doesn't make clear how many of those came from the States. But those are probably only a sample of the firepower smuggled here from the U.S.

Guns for sale without background checks
at a US gun show. 

Mexican government officials and common Mexican people whose relatives have been killed in their nation's mindless violence have implored the U.S. to take common sense measures to control gun sales. And it's only common sense that by controlling sales of automatic rifles and huge gun magazines useful only for mass murder (as a start), the U.S. would benefit as well. The recent massacres in a movie theatre and a Sikh temple are plain evidence of that.

A piece of graffiti in Bogotá plays a
tic tac toe game with rifles and
bulls-eyes and concludes that '
Nobody wins.'

But owners of gun stores in U.S. border states such as Texas, Arizona and New Mexico were so selfish that they sued to overturn an Obama administration rule requiring them to file reports when someone purchased several high-powered rifles within a five-day period. Just to make myself clear: the gunshops were still allowed to sell a person multiple high-powered firearms within a five-day period, but just had to report the sales. But the gun sellers' valued their profits so much more than they did lives of people in Mexico and Colombia that they objected even to that. At gun shows, meanwhile, firearms are bought and sold with virtually no control at all.

Everybody knows where most of these weapons go, and who uses them: vicious criminals like the Oficina de Envigado. But the U.S. political system is too intimidated by fanatical gun rights lobbies such as the National Rifle Association to do anything about it.

It's a continent-wide tragedy which appears to be expanding fast and furiously.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Shifts in the War on Drugs?

Peña Nieto: Reconsidering the drug war.

When, a few months ago, Colombia and other countries put the War on Drugs up for discussion at the Americas Summit in Cartagena, some people predicted it would open the door to reassessing the prohibitionist policies. 

Three recent events make me suspect that's started happening.

- Last week, Colombia's high court brought back the right to carry a 'personal dosis' of drugs.

- Meanwhile, the Uruguayan government is planning to grow and market marijuana, in order to take the profits away from violent criminal organizations.

- Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Mexican president-elect Enrique Peña Nieto told PBS News Hour that "I'm in favor of opening a new debate in the strategy in the way we fight drug trafficking. It is quite clear that after several years of this fight against drug trafficking, we have more drug consumption, drug use and drug trafficking. That means we are not moving in the right direction. Things are not working."

That's not good news for Washington, which has backed current Mexico Pres. Felipe Calderon's Colombian-style war against Mexico's drug cartels. That strategy has generated huge amounts of violence in Mexico, while producing questionable impacts on the illegal drug trade.

Mexico seems likely to shift strategies under Peña Nieto, whose PRI party has historically made deals with narcotrafficking cartels to reduce violence. The question is how explicit and how dramatic this shift will be, in the face of inevitable criticism from Washington. 



By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Searching for Gabo

The Gabriel Garcia Marquez Cultural Center, on the right on 11th St, was built by the Mexican government. 

Novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez's 85th birthday this week seems like a good excuse to visit the Gabriel Garcia Marquez Cultural Center on 11th St., in La Candelaria.

The center was designed by
Colombian architect Rogelio Salmona.

The cultural center was built in 2008 by the Mexican government's Economic Cultural Fund. (Garcia Marquez, knicknamed Gabo, has lived in Mexico City for many years, so there is a connection.) It's a handsome building, designed by Colombian architect Rogelio Salmona, with his characteristic curves and open spaces. The center also has a huge bookstore and hosts many exhibitions and cultural events, including talks and concerts. On Sundays, they often hold public aerobics in the center's open-air atrium.

The center has a great bookstore,
including books in English. 

In other words, the cultural center's a handsome place and a very positive addition to the neighborhood.

But I've always wondered why they don't have anything about the center's namesake, Nobel Prize winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez, author of One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera, among many other works. In the past, the center has been decorated with portraits of Mexican writers, including Carlos Fuentes, a good friend of Garcia Marquez. Occasionally, I've seen Garcia Marquez's portrait there as well. And, naturally, the center has Garcia Marquez's novels - as well as  novels by many other authors.

I once asked some of the center's employees whether it wouldn't make sense to have an exhibition there about Garcia Marquez's life and work.

Well, they explained, but this center was built by Mexico. Sure, I agreed, but it is named the Gabriel Garcia Marquez Cultural Center.

They seemed to grudgingly agree that it'd be nice to have something about the Colombian novelist. I haven't seen anything, tho.

But if they prefer not to include any exhibitions about him, then why not just change the name? Then, at least, Gabo-worshipping tourists wouldn't come there looking for information about their literary idol.

Telling Part of the Tale: Gabriel García Márquez in La Candelaria

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Homicides: Declining, But Still Way Too High!

Murder numbers drop (Graph from El Tiempo)

Colombian authorities congratulated themselves recently that a historic drop in homicides - a decline to nearly half since 2002, even though Colombia's population has increased.  

Nevertheless, the murder rate of about 33 per 100,000 people is still horrible. The United States murder rate is only 5 per 100,000 , Brazil's is 22 per 100,000 and even Mexico, in the throes of a drug-fueled wave of violence, has a murder rate of only about 14 per 100,000. Venezuel is in a different class, with 49 murders per 100,000 people. 


(Then, there are sane nations, such as Chile, Canada, Australia, Japan and most of Europe, where the murder rate is just a few per 100,000 . Most of those countries, incidentally, restrict gun possession.)

In recent weeks, murders have generated headlines because of the murder of two vacationing Universidad de los Andes students, who because of their cameras may have been mistaken for spies by an illegal armed group. And the killing of two Catholic priests in Bogotá. Ordinarily, most murder vicitms are poor and anonymous.


Why Colombia's murder rate is so astronomically high is a mystery to me. The nation's armed conflict might contribute a few thousand killings. Is there a streak of violence in Colombian culture? Anyway, let's hope it continues declining.

For the record, the great majority of murders in Colombia and elsewhere are committed during drug disputes, domestic conflicts, etc, rather than crimes against people not looking for trouble.


By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours