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

Colombia's NSA

The military had set up a secret office in west Bogotá disguised as a video game retailer and hackers' hang-out, apparently to eavesdrop on Colombia's guerrillas. But the listeners allegedly went beyond their mandate and also listened in on the government's negotiators in Havana, Cuba.

Pres. Santos seemed to suggest that behind these actions was someone who wanted to sabotage the negotiations with the FARC guerrillas. That would make sense, since a peace treaty would reduce the military's influence and importance in Colombian society - as well as its budget.

But the broader danger which this episode, first reported by Semana magazine, illustrates is the way that surveillance programs, without proper oversight, tend to expand beyond with little control.

This isn't the first time this has happened in Colombia. The most notorious previous case was the DAS scandal of Alvaro Uribe's administration, when the government intelligence agency spied on all manner of people suspected of hostility to Uribe, including journalists, Supreme Court judges. The episode led to the DAS's liquidation.

Last year El Tiempo reported that the police planned to spy on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook and to do so were considering hiring an Israeli-American espionage company with a dubious background.

The United States' National Security Agency has, controversialy, monitored phone calls, e-mails and all sorts of other communications. That seems to have gone far beyond a reasonable, focused kind of surveilliance.

Lots more will come out about the military's eavesdropping program, which has already gotten four officers suspended. But, if they were spying on government negotiators, it's a fair bet that the espionage didn't stop there.

Espionage is a legitimate tool for governments - and its use is inevitable, in any case. But, particularly in a nation like Colombia, surveilllance requires a effective and transparent oversight. Otherwise, here comes 1984.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

What a Difference a (Car-Free) Day Makes!

Left, Carrera 30, near the Universidad Nacional, on a normal day,
and, right, today on Car-Free Day.

You can take a lot of conclusions out of these pairs of photos of Bogotá avenues on 'normal' days, left, and today's Car-Free Day, on the right. (I didn't necessarily take the photos at the same time of day, but the scenes are typical.) One thing is clear, however, on those 'normal' days traffic often barely moves. Today, there was room to move.

Left, Calle 26 on a normal day, and, right,
today on Car-Free Day.

While the streets were clearer, the air wasn't necessarily cleaner - underlining the city's lack of control on vehicle emissions. El Tiempo editor Ernesto Cortés wrote a scathing column about air pollution today.

I saw many more bicyclists than on an ordinary day.
These are riding on the bike lane on Ave. Septima.

Environmental officials reported that ozone and nitrogen dioxide levels dropped compared to normal day. But concentrations of tiny particles suspended in the air actually increased in the morning, before leveling off to 'normal.'

Buses moved considerably faster and both TransMilenio and SITP buses carried more passengers.

Liberal Party political campaigners pedal
down Ave. Septima. 

Environmental officials set up 9 air pollution measurement stations, where they measured the emissions of almost 600 vehicles - about 100 of which failed. As far as I can tell, Car Free Day is the only time when officials actually measure vehicle pollution in the streets (whether those vehicles are actually punished is another issue). By their probably non-too-strict standards almost 1 out of 5 vehicles failed. If they would only do such measurements on a regular basis and actually remove these vehicles from our streets, Bogotá's air quality, health and quality of life would rise notably.

Bogotá environmental officials reported that the number of cyclists sextupled today. I'd take that statistic with a grain of salt, but numbers did rise.

The city created a temporary bike lane along the length of Ave. Septima - it should be there every day. These costumed bicyclists found the new lane useful. 

TransMilenio buses were packed. 

But SITP buses were, as always, almost empty. 

Not just cyclists - skateboarders also used the bike lanes.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

What - Me Advertise?

Not advertising? A young boy mans a sidewalk sales stand offering candies and cigarettes, which are featured in a slick display ad.

Why did this street vendor open these cigarette cartons?
How else could she sell smokes by the stick?

The Marlboro Men are dying off, many killed by the cigarettes they marketed; Michael Schumacher's days of being a tobacco billboard are over; and even Colombia has banned tobacco advertising and the practice of selling cigarettes by the stick - which makes it easy for kids to start smoking.

So, with today's headlines reporting that the world's cancer deaths will double - and many of those from tobacco in developing nations like Colombia - why doesn't Colombia bother to enforce its own tobacco control laws?

Yesterday's El Tiempo:
 'World cancer cases to double in 20 years.'

Colombia's tobacco control law prohibited tobacco advertising - but included a loophole large enough to drive a display ad thru. The law excepted displays for cigarettes and for the tobacco merchants, the line between display and advertisement is evidently an easy one to cross over.

The law also prohibited the sale of cigarettes 'by the stick,' or as 'loosies.' That part has simply been ignored, by both street vendors and the police. For proof, just take a look at any street vendor, whose open cigarette boxes are next to candies - convenient for teenagers who have only a few hundred pesos in their pockets.

What, me advertise?

Police could easily combat this practice with sting operations - have kids try to buy cigarettes, and confisticate the cigarettes from any vendor who sells to them. But the police just don't bother.

Today, someone observed to me, borrowing from Noam Chomsky, that tobacco kills far more people and is far more addictive than is cocaine. But, while the US finances coca leaf erradication in Colombia, it has, at least in the past, helped the tobacco industry. For that matter, many Colombian cigarettes are made and marketed by U.S. companies.

A vendor advertises cigarettes and sells loosies near the entrance to the Universidad del Rosario, in La Candelaria.

A street vendor in central Bogotá sells cigarettes by the stick. 

Sensual smoking in Shakira's latest video. The singer has a foundation for poor kids, but perhaps their health isn't so important. 

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Natural Beauties?

Traditional scenes? Models get sexy on the beach near Tayrona Park.

A few years ago, a controversy arose over a plan to build a luxury hotel in Tayrona Natural Park, because, presumably, it would defile the already less-than-pristine park. The hotel was never built.

Bats played an important role in
Tayrona culture. A Museo
 Nacional guide said the animals
 were believed to protect young
 girls from incest. 

So, why isn't anybody objecting to the Aviatur and Viva Colombia's new calendar featuring babes in bathing suits posing on Tayrona's beaches? (And forget about anybody protesting against marketing Colombia by showing off its sexy women - even as the government campaigns against human trafficking.)

The Tayrona Park region is known for its beaches and jungles and particularly the trek up to the Lost City, built by indigenous people beginning around 650 a.d. and abandoned during the century after the Spanish reached South America, as Europeans diseases devastated native peoples. The 'Lost City' was rediscovered in the 1970s by Colombian archeologists, altho local people surely had always known about it.

The so-called Lost City is actually only one of many towns in the region, which is now inhabited by three indigenous peoples, the Wiwas, Koguis and Arhuacas - none of whom walk around in bikinis.

Altho Tayrona does have a nude beach, the area's culture has lots more to offer than scantily-clad women. Here are some pictures from an exhibition in the Museo Nacional in Bogotá.

A meeting of mamo in Ciudad Perdida.

Tayrona pots. 

Foundations of Tayrona homes near Ciudad Perdida.

A Tayrona house. 

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Camp Petro is Gone

Now you see them, now you don't. Where protesters once camped, today people play with pigeons on Plaza Bolivar, 

For 56 days, until early morning on Sunday, supporters of Mayor Gustovo Petro - or, at least, opponents of his ouster - had camped on Plaza Bolivar in the mayor's support.

But about 3 a.m. Sunday police moved in and cleared out the approximately 30 tents and trucked off tons of 'trash' - much of it likely valued by its owners - was trucked away. The police were obeying an order from Procurador Alejandro Ordoñez - the same official who ordered Petro removed from office for allegedly mishandling the city's trash collection service.

Ordoñez said that the demonstrators had not obtained the necessary permits and could damage the plaza.

Petro, meanwhile, is waiting to see how his court battle works out, and whether he can prevent Pres. Santos from appointing a new mayor on Feb. 8. If Petro evades the ouster order, he'll face a recal vote in early March.

I asked this young man whether he was a Petrista. "Petro is a political prostitute." the told me, explaining that he was there only to oppose Petro's ouster by the procurador, which was 'anti-democratic.'

But while the tents were gone, many of the demonstrators were still on the plaza, in deep conversation, today. 

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Bogotá's Homicide Rate Dips, but the Region's Stays High

'Bogotá is no longer one of the most violent' cities, boasts the headline.

Bogotá's media celebrated a dip in the city's homicide rate to 'only' 16.7 per 100,000. That's still a terribly high number by world standards, but moderate in Latin America and positively low in the general context of Colombia, whose national rate is about 33 homicides per 100,000 people.

Bogotá's homicide rate, meanwhile, is half that of Medellin, where 34 people were murdered per 100,000 residents last year. But Medellin's homicide rate was a great improvement over the previous year, when the city suffered a rate of 52 homicides per 100,000 residents. And Colombia's third-largest city, Cali, ended last year as the world's 6th most violent city, with 90 homicides per 100,000 people.

For its part, Latin America is the world's most violent region.

Colombia's national homicide rate, in the low 30s per 100,000 population, is still the highest in South America, but way below some Central American nations. (Actually, Venezuela almost surely has a higher homicide rate than Colombia's, but Venezuelan authorities stopped releasing homicide numbers years ago.)

According to the police's statistics, many of these murders stem from gang battles. But those gangs aren't fighting for carrots. They're fighting over drug sales and territory in which to market illegal drugs. So, Colombia's violence is directly related to the outlawed drug economy. (During the most violent years of the Medellin Cartel, that city's homicide rate neared 350 per 100,000 people, perhaps a world record.)

But Colombia's violence pales in comparison to that in some poor Central American countries, whose police and legal systems are no match for the power of the cartels which traffic drugs across their territories. San Pedro Sula, , Honduras, had 187 homicides for each 100,000 residents last year. Some cities in northern Mexico, where drug cartels battle to control the United States market, have homicide rates almost as high.

Colombia's homicide rate peaked during the final years of the Medellin and then rose again during the early 2000s, when the war against leftist guerrillas was at its hottest.  

To put that in context, the World Health Organization labels a rate above 10 homicides per 100,000 people as 'epidemic.'

Unlike epidemics caused by viruses and bacteria, this one is completely human-caused, and therefore humans can stop it. But the region is far from trying the only realistic: ending the policies of drug prohibition, which push this multibillion-dollar market into the hands of violent, outlaw groups which settle their differences with guns and bombs.

In Bogotá, Mayor Petro may deserve credit for the city's homicide drop because of the restrictions he placed on gun ownership.

Bogotá is near the bottom of this ranking of the homicide rates in 15 cities in the Americas. 

Yet, the North and South American cities are far more violent than these European cities. 

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours