The March for Peace and Everything Else

Peace demonstrators on Plaza Bolivar.

I saw only a small part of today's huge 'March for Peace and Democracy,' organized by Bogotá's City Hall, but enough to realize that it was the usual mix of unions, political groups and even entertainers.

In any case, it's no surprise to find the leftist mayor supporting the controversial peace negotiations between the FARC and Colombian government taking place now in Havana, Cuba. The guerrilla leaders want to go to Congress after any peace agreement is signed. But conservative critics, led by ex-Pres. Alvaro Uribe oppose the talks and say the guerrillas should instead go to prison for their many human rights violations.

Yesterda afternoon, Pres. Santos announced his intention to run for reelection next year, and the peace negotiations are sure to be a central issue of the campaign.

Mayor Petro and other M-19 Guerrilla leaders, of course, created the model which the FARC hope to follow. The guerrilla group demobilized in 1989 and turned into a political party, playing a prominent role in writing Colombia's new Constitution in 1991. Today, Petro is mayor of Bogotá and other ex-M-19 leaders are in Congress.

Giving the peace sign. 

Several marching bands set the beat.

Ex-Telecom employees joined the march. 

A stern policewoman protects - or protects us from - a marching band.

Displaying City Hall's slogan, Humane Bogotá.

'Deceit is also violence.' But who's deceit?

'We women are a generation of peace.' 'No more violence against women.'

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Greenman's Cow Manure Art

Greenman displays a cow manure painting.

Greenman, a friend who is an artist and environmental activist, has this very unique workshop located inside a greenhouse on the campus of the National University, La Nacho.

Greenman, who generally paints himself green, dresses in green clothing and rides around on a green bicycle, incorporates his green philosophy into his art. When we visited him during today's bike tour, he showed us some tiny fish which he'd found, some still alive, discarded in trash along the polluted Ave. Caracas. A fish seller had thrown out the tiny animals because they weren't sellable. He also had a snake which had been killed by the university's lawn mower. All those animals were to become part of Greenman's artwork.

Greenman makes his 'paint' out of cow manure. He says it's very durable, and more importantly is environmentally sound. For Greenman, the manure represents a cycle of life, from grass to the cow and then fertilizer.

"This completes the life cycle," Greenman told us.

From this cow manure will emerge great art.

Greenman grabs his green bike. 

This little snake, killed by a lawn mower, will become part of an artwork. 

Greenman's materials.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Kennedy and Colombia

Kennedy and Colombian Pres. Albeto Lleras inaugurate housing for the poor in south Bogotá.

The 50th anniversary of JFK's assassination is as good a time as any to take a look at the storied president's relationship to Colombia.

Kennedy visited Colombia once, in December 1961, only the second U.S. president to do so, following Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

JFK in Bogotá.
(Photo: JFK library.)

The purpose of Kennedy's visit was ostensibly to inaugurate a south Bogotá housing project funded by United States aid money. But the Kennedy administration's broader purpose was to line up regional governments behind U.S. Cold War policy - in particular, opposition to Fidel Castro's communist government in Cuba. Eight months before, the U.S. had launched the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion, which Kennedy had inherited from his predecessor, the Eisenhower administration.

Kennedy had lots going for him in Latin America: he was young, handsome, charismatic, apparently vigorous (he in fact had severe medical problems), and, most of all, Catholic.

In March '61, his administration had created the Alliance for progress, supposed to help development of Latin America.

But the United States faced widespread distrust across Latin America, as expressed by Colombian an ingratiating letter a few months before Kennedy's visit. Lleras said that Colombia had "no doubts" about the U.S.'s commitment to send development aid to Latin America, but that many other countries thought that Washington's demands weren't balanced. Washington's aid pledge to the region "lacks precision," Lleras wrote, "while at the same time the United States requires from (Latin nations) in very precise form radical transformations that they cannot undertake without external aid from the United States."

In other words, if Latin American nations were to follow Washington's economic and ideological blueprints, they expected to be paid for it.

A cartoon shows Kennedy and Fidel
Castro confronting each other.
(JFK Library)

Pat M. Holt, a journalist, book author and staff member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, also believed that Washington had more persuading to do: "Some - I am afraid many - Latin Americans are not yet convinced that the Soviet presence in Cuba is by intervention and not by invitation," he wrote, adding that, because of Castro's apparent popularity, "Latins are assailed by doubts that (Organization of American States (OAS)) to end Soviet intervention in Cuba would interfere with the right of the Cuban people to self determination. This argument may be silly, but that doesn't keep some people from believing it."

On the following page, Holt quoted a clause in the OAS charter stating that "No State or group of States has the right to intervene, directly or indirectly, for any reason whatever in the internal or external affairs of any other State."

For its part, Lleras assured Kennedy that Bogotá was on the same page as Washington in its "desire to sek proper solutions to the serious danges which have been created for the hemisphere by the imminence of the Soviet menace..."

A few days before Kennedy visited Bogotá, Colombia broke diplomatic relations with Cuba. In January 1962, the OAS expelled Cuba, which is still not a member.

In Nov. 1963 Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Some conspiracy theories hold that Castro was behind the killing. The south Bogotá neighborhood which Kennedy visited was renamed Barrio Kennedy.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Bogotá's Zorreros: Trotting Off Into History?

A horse cart trots thru Bogotá's Santa Fe neighborhood on a recent afternoon.

Bogotá's horsecarts, long a surprising sight on the capital's streets, were supposed to be gone by now. But hundreds or more remain, trotting about, vending things or carrying loads to dispose of or recycle.

Animal rights activists led the campaign to ban the carts, which were supposed to be gone by Oct. 1. By early August only about 1,000 of the 4,000 or so horses had been turned in. And a brief visit a poor, industrial neighborhood such as Los Martyres shows that many zorreros are still holding out.

The cart drivers, known as zorreros, are supposed to turn in their horses in return for a compensation intended to allow them to buy a small truck or open a small business. But many of the zorreros, who are overhwhelmingly uneducated and unsophisticated, may not be able to handle that wealth.

"We believe that many of the horsecart people won't have those trucks after a few weeks," a leader of Bogotá's recyclers told me.

The payments are so generous that Bogotá authorities even suspect that people from outside the city have brought in horses to trade for the compensation.

A horsecart and bike tourists near Bogotá's Paloquemao market.

It certainly is true that many of the cart drivers abuse, underfed and overwork their animals. In fact, many of the horses turned in to the city suffer from intestinal parasites and other ills which require veterinary attention. (Animal welfare groups are recruiting adoptive families for the animal retirees.) But other horsecart drivers value and love their animals.

And those cart drivers, who often have few skills, will struggle to survive without those animals. One leader of Bogotá's recyclers recently said that some have been forced into prostitution to feed their families.

And, for me, the horsecarts give Bogotá a different atmosphere, saying 'this isn't just another big city.'

Their disappearance - if it happens - will remove a piece of Bogotá's uniqueness and character.

And, does Bogotá really need more gas guzzling, polluting vehicles?

A horsecart amidst motor traffic. 

A group of mares, some of them retired zorrero horses, are rehabilitated on the campus of the National University while awaiting adoption.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Scenes From Bogotá's 2013 Bicycle Week

At the Bike Expo, a French tourists lifts a lightweight bamboo bike. 

Bogotá's annual Bicycle Week, consisting of events intended to promote cycling, wound up today. The week also included bicyle shows, circus performances and races.

Environmental activist Greenman with students in the Parque Nacional.

'Fewer Cars, More Bikes.'

A performer and bike tourist meet. 

A bicycle tourist from the States gives a dancer a lift.

Bici-Tante, a young Bogotá cycling magazine. 

Trendy new bikes, including one made of bamboo, on display.

Unicyclists at work.

Kids, participants in the Al Colegio in Bici (To High School by Bike) program. 

Bici-Cupid, who's supposed to make one fall in love with cycling.

Welcome to Bicycle Week. 

Racers fly downhill in the Parque Nacional.

Where did Guy Fawkes come from?

Harley-Style bikes. 

Bikes, and bicyclists, from yesteryear.

Women cyclists race uphill in Bogotá's Parque Nacional.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Cultural Incongruity

This band, composed of indigenous people from Peru, performs often on Bogotá's plazas, such as here in Las Nieves. They play traditional music from the Andes - so why do they dress like Plains Indians from North America?

They do it for a simple reason: "We get more tips this way," a bandmember once told me.

He explained that a friend had shipped them the costumes.

Sadly, even native North Americans exploit these stereotypical images. I once visited an American Indian reservation in the Carolinas. In the souvenir shops - often owned by outsiders - they sold things decorated with images of the Plains Indians.

This little girl was moving to the music. 

Andean music CDs. I didn't see any Sioux music here. 

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Don't Mess With Uribe!

A cartoon from El Tiempo portrays the
alleged plot against Uribe as a bomb
threatening to destroy the peace talks. 

Pres. Santos's recent revelation of an alleged FARC plot to assassinate ex-Pres. Uribe generated a lot of headlines - and statements that such a killing would sink the peace negotiations going on in Havana, Cuba.

Alvaro Uribe:
Untouchable?

.But why would assassinating Uribe - or even threatening to - really cross a line? After all, the FARC routinely kidnap and kill civilians, soldiers and police officers, drive peasants off of their lands, and attack infrastructure, cutting off electricity and water for humble Colombians. The guerrillas also recruit children, plant land mines, traffic drugs, and on and on.

As brutal a crime as assassinating an ex-president would be, what makes it any worse than the crimes
the FARC commit against humble Colombians, routinely and with little attention?

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours