Libya: the Colombian Connection

M-19, Muamar Gaddafi ally.

These days, Venezuela's socialist Pres. Hugo Chavez remains as one of the last, and one might say most stubborn, supporters of overthrown Libyan dictator Muamar Gaddafi.

History does move in cycles. In the mid-1980s, members of Colombia's own leftist M-19 guerrillas traveled to Libya to fight in one of the dictator's wars.

The M-19and Gaddafi held some values in common, including an opposition to capitalism, the United States and colonialism. The Colombians joined leftists from other Latin American and Arab nations and the Phillipines to fight with Libya against Chad for a god-forsaken stretch of desert called the Aouzou Strip. The dispute certainly was rooted in colonialism: France, which had ruled Chad, had given the area to Italy, which had ruled Libya, in a futile attempt to prevent Italy from allying itself with Germany before World War II. But Libya's position had no more justice in it than Chad's, and the leftist groups seemed to have aligned themselves with Libya mostly because of the Libyan leader's anti-colonialist rhetoric.

All of which shows once again how some leftists, then as now, trust rhetoric over reality. Even by the mid-1980s, when the Colombians and others snuck their way into Libya, Gadaffi had already showed his true nature by viciously repressing dissidents at home and supporting terrorist groups and financing outright killings abroad, from Colombia to the Phillipines to West Germany to Great Britain. Gaddafi's later downing of a passenger plane over Lockerbie, Scotland  and efforts to develop nuclear weapons are also well known.

Even today, after Gaddafi's recent massacres of his own people and tyrranical regime have been well documented, ex-M-19 member Diego Arias, who wrote about the episode for El Tiempo newspaper, sounds like something of a believer in Gaddafi.

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"With all of its particularities," Arias writes, Gaddafi's was "a revolution which, in its best moment, we began to understand, admire and respect. It lost its way when he tried to export it, using violence and terrorism, but above all when it didn't renew itself with the changed times and reality....

"The fall of the Libyan regime means the end of two dreams which turned out to be utopian: a model of popular democracy and a military-political project of anti-imperialistic battle."


Similarly to Gaddafi, some young, idealistic, leftist Colombians now idealize the M-19, despite their many crimes, including the kidnapping and murder of Afro-Colombian union leader José Raquel Mercado and its 1985 attack on the Palace of Justice.

In the end, Gaddafi's lost his war with Chad (in an episode bizarrely named 'The Toyota War'), which was eventually awarded the Aousou Strip by an international court.

Colombia also has a second, more contemporary, Libya connection: ten Colombian mercenaries have been killed fighting for Gaddafi in Libya.


By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Is the Minimum Drug Dose Coming Back?

Depenalized again?

What's a drug warrior to do? Colombia's high court has just reaffirmed the legality of the famous 'minimum dosis' of drugs, which for years depenalized the carrying small amounts of cocaine, marijuana or other drugs for personal use.

The case involved a young man arrested with almost 80 grams of marijuana. A psychologist testified that the man was an addict, which is strange, since last I heard pot was not addictive (altho some people do become very dependant) and that the marijuana was for his own use. The court ruled that the police should direct their efforts against dealers, not consumers.

The guy's still got to go to jail, since the amount he possessed was far more than the old 'minimum dosis.' Now, let's see whether a change in policy filters down to the cops now searching thru college kids' backpacks on Bogotá streets  so they can chase muggers and rapists instead.

What have you got in there? Patting kids down near La Plaza del Chorro, in La Candelaria.

A captured drug sub. How many got away?

Also, the other day, Pres. Manuel Santos announced another "blow against narctoraffickers" with the arrest of 19 'ringleaders' of a band which built drug submarines and sent them north filled with cocaine for U.S. streets. Subs have become the new tool for drug smugglers, since they can't be spotted from planes. Over the past several years, the police have captured dozens of drug submarines - and undoubtedly congratulated themselves each time. But does anybody imagine that, if dozens of drug subs are getting captured, many more must be getting thru, to make it worth the cartels' while to continue building them?

Just for fun, I Googled the phrase "golpe al narcotrafico" (a blow to narcotrafficking) snd got more than six million results. That's an amazing number of blows for an industry to take, and continue functioning - especially one that doesn't receive any government subsidies.

Colombia's coca leaf harvest has been reduced in recent years (but, then, so has its coffee harvest), but coca leaf production has meanwhile increased in Peru and Bolivia. Most likely, with a nationalist president now in power in Peru, that nation's drug war cooperation will also decline.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

A Typical Colombiana?

Typical colombiana?

The Colombian government's Proexport office has spent millions of dollars marketing the country as a tourist destination where 'The only risk is wanting to stay.'

So, the country really needed yet another Hollywood movie perpetuating Colombia's image as a murderous place whose people are paid assassins.  Colombian organizations in New York are already criticizing the film.

The action film, whose reviews have been less than spectacular, tells the story of an Afro-Colombian girl whose parents are murdered by a drug lord in Bogotá. The girl emigrates to the U.S., where she grows up and sets about hunting down her parents' killers, who, strangely, are living in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Not particularly original - which the problem. Filmmakers undoubtedly could find more original themes about Colombia, including the country's tremendous culture and wonderful people, almost none of whom become assassins. But perpetuating the same old stereotypes about drugs violence is so much easier and more profitable. 

Extras hit the ground on Plaza Bolívar
after a soap opera assassination. 

At least, Colombians can't pin all of the blame for this one on the gringos. The film was written and  produced by Frenchman Luc Besson and made by Sony Productions.

And, spreading the blame for bad P.R. around, during the last few days Colombian TV station Caracol has been filming a soap opera about a fictional assassination of a Colombian president - something which I don't believe has ever happened in real life.

Even so, Colombia has had more than its share of violence. Media recently reported about a teenage girl in Medellin who has allegedly committed a half-dozen murders and headed a band of child assassins. But horror stories like hers are the very rare exception. But the movies, sometimes, make them seem like the typical Colombian.

Zoe Saldaña, who plays the film's protagonist and, has defended Colombiana. Saldaña, whose family is from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, says the fictional assassin provides a positive image because she is "a woman with lots of ingenuity." Maybe so, but ingenuity can be used in other ways.

Extras wave flags during soap opera filming on Plaza Bolívar.

Running away after the fictional assassination.

Cheery extras. Not such a bad assassination. 

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Grafiteros: Artists, Criminals or Both?

A fat frog and a psychedelic girl, behind the Central Cemetery.

Anyone who's spent some time in Bogotá has seen the city's great graffiti, murals and varied street art, which decorates walls all over town. Much is political, other just colorful, beautiful and creative.

But graffiti artists, called grafiteros, work on the edge of the law, often painting on city- or privately-owned walls, and doing their work furtively. Because many graffiti artists are young and male, into drugs and alternative politics, and probably don't work in suits and ties, they often get branded as criminals. That's sad, since their work does a tremendous amount to brighten up this grey city and make it citizens think and reflect. Some graffiti, of course, is just ugly and visually polluting.

Diego Felipe Becerra, graffitero killed by police.

A tragic case the other day brought to the headlines the grafiteros' uncomfortable situation. Several  young men were painting under a bridge in north Bogotá when police appeared, pursued them and shot one fatally in the back. News reports have produced two portraits of the victim, Diego Becerra, who was 16: a clean-living, enthusiastic street artist, according to his family, or a mugger, according to a bus driver and at least one neighbor.

Becerra with a creation. 

None of which, of course, explains why the police shot to death a teenager who was painting a wall, even if, as alleged, he'd  mugged bus passengers.

The case has, at least, received attention. Vice President Angelino Garzon has even committed his own staff to investigate the killing.

Investigators have reported that Becerra did not fire a weapon, as a police officer had claimed, and the policeman who shot Becerra has been suspended pending the investigation's findings. Meanwhile, other grafiteros have marched demanding justice in the case.

A piece of wall art in La Candelaria reportedly made by Becerra. 

Camilo Torres, the martyred priest, in the National University.

Bogotá's most famous mural, Che Guevara in the National University. 

Leftist leaders, in the National University campus. 

Near the red light district, a mural celebrates equality and dignity for women. 

A colorful mural on Jimenez Ave. 

On Carrera 4, 'No Graff, No Life.'

Tagging under a bridge in central Bogota. 

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours, which offers graffiti bike tours on request.

Coal to Newcastle, and Coffee to Colombia

Sacks of coffee waiting to be roasted - some of them imported.

Back when I was growing up, my mother used the phrase 'coal to Newcastle' whenever something got shipped to a place that was supposed to be producing it. (The UK town of Newcastle was known for coal production - until a strike shut down the mines and forced it to import coal.)

Bags of coffee beans, some imported, some Colombian.

Now that's happening to Colombia and coffee.

Today a coffee factory owner displayed bags of green coffee beans imported from Ecuador, Venezuela and even as far away as Vietnam, which he's going to roast and grind to make Colombia's best-known beverage.

To be sure, Colombia still exports high-quality coffee. The imported bags contained miscolored, mostly low-quality beans of the low-priced robusto variety, mostly to be consumed domestically as 'tinto.' Most of Colombia's high-quality arabico beans, which are grown in the mountains, are exported under the brand name 'Cafe de Colombia.'

The large bean is Colombian,
the two right ones from Vietnam. 

Several factors have contributed to reducing Colombia's coffee production: last year's torrential rains  devastated lots of agricultural areas (and this year's upcoming rains are supposed to be even worse). Related to that, global warming has reduced the coffee harvests in many areas. And, the factory owner said, displacement of peasants by Colombia's seemingly endless armed conflict has driven many peasants off of their farms, leaving the lands unproductive.

A cup of Colombian coffee.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Defending the Upia River

On Plaza Bolívar, protesting mining pollution along the Upia River. 

Today, people who live near the Upia River protested on Plaza Bolívar against the impacts of mining along the river.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get details from them about what sort of mining - whether gold, coal, silver or emeralds - is being done there, or details about the impacts on the environment and the people, whether erosion, pollution or the destruction of biodiversity.

Pollution, likely from small, illegal mines,
near the city of Buenaventura (Photo: Panoramio.com)

The answer most likely is 'most or all of these impacts.' Colombia is experiencing a mining boom, which brings in billions of dollars in royalties, but also takes a huge toll on the nation's environment. Authorities have tried to exercise control on some mines, most famously the suspension of  Greystar's gold mine, planned in or near a high-altitude wetland called a paramo. On the other hand, the small, informal and often illegal mines generally produce proportionately more pollution from chemicals including mercury and cyanide, and also endanger their workers. The Santos administration has tried to shut down thousands of illegal mines - but that's only a little easier than ending the drug trade.

The Upia River (Photo: Panoramio.com)

The Upia River, located on the eastern side of the Andes Mtns east of Bogota, hasn't made much news, which probably means that destructive mining goes on there unchecked and unnoticed by anybody outside the region.

Large-scale mining, altho generally cleaner than small, informal mines, has been widely criticized in Colombia as a losing proposition, both economically and environmentally. The government has called mining the 'locomotive' of economic growth, and it does contribute a lot to the GPD. But mining areas tend to be poor and environmentally damaged. And those royalties often feed corruption instead of improving common people's lives.

The fear is: When Colombia's finally dug up up and exported all of its natural resources, it'll be left still poor and corrupt and with its tremendous biodiversity gone forever.

Few nations have built stable, solid democracies and a strong middle class, which is the foundation of every democracy, by exporting raw materials. Rather, they turn those raw materials into finished products, such as furniture, computers and airplanes and sell them for much more money, generating lots of skilled, good-paying jobs along the way.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Uribe in His Labyrinth

Ex-Pres. Alvaro Uribe not looking happy.

The Washington Post newspaper published three stories today (here, here and here) about the chuzadas scandal, in which ex-President Alvaro Uribe allegedly ordered eavesdrops and other spying tactics against high court officials.

If the allegations are true, they're yet another sign of Uribe's Nixon-like paranoia about critics and opponents.

The Post makes the point that the alleged spying campaign apparently used funding sent by the United States government for anti-drug and anti-guerrilla efforts. If that's correct, then it's of course a terrible misuse of foreign aid. However, it's probably also true that the judicial system now investigating Uribe has also received U.S. support.

With ex-Pres. Uribe besieged by a corruption investingation, Uribe's one-time minister of agriculture in prison for allegedly giving ag subsidy money to political allies and Bogotá's mayor suspended from office and apparently headed to prison on corruption charges, it looks like Colombia's experience a real corruption epidemic.

That might be true, altho from my observation corruption is much less rampant in Colombia than in countries such as Bolivia, Paraguay and Venezuela, where I also lived.

And, the sort of refreshing aspect of this is that it's happening despite the fact that Uribe is still very popular, and that current Pres. Juan Manuel Santos was Uribe's defense minister and succesor (altho the two have clashed recently). I suspect that such investigations of a predecessor wouldn't happen in many countries.

So, this is a story of corruption - but also of a system that's responding to the problem, however tardily.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours