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War In So Many Words: Semantics, Warfare, and the Hague

2011-05-25T12:33:00.001-07:00

Most politicians have a few words or phrases that they avoid like the plague. In the latter years of his second term, George W. Bush’s was “recession.” Former Colombian president Álvaro Uribe’s was “armed conflict.” He said it time and again: “There is no armed conflict in Colombia.” There are terrorists and drug traffickers and “criminal bands,” but paramilitaries and revolutionaries are a thing of the past.

Unfortunately, wishing doesn’t make it so. A friend from Santa Marta once remarked to me that the only people who believe there’s no armed conflict in Colombia are Uribe’s yes-men. Paras actively engage in forced disappearances, displacement, and atrocities in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, the world’s tallest coastal mountain range that provides the backdrop to one of the Caribbean’s prime tourist spots. The Aguilas Negras routinely carry out “social cleansing” in poor neighborhoods of major cities, including the capital of Bogotá—and yes, the reality is just as ugly as the euphemism. The Colombian attorney general’s office has reported that some eighty percent of the so-called “new criminal bands” are led by former paramilitaries. To this day, Mr. Uribe insists that there is no warfare in Colombia: Only lots and lots of criminals.

It’s quite the conundrum, from the perspective of international law: Namely, if it’s not armed conflict, how could Uribe justify the use of the military in bombing raids against FARC encampments, including 2008’s strike into Ecuador? The international community’s pretty clear on its disapproval of bombing civilians. Definitely a “go straight to jail, do not pass GO, do not collect $200” scenario.

Even speaking domestically, it’s clearly a gross violation of due process, depriving members of the FARC and other rebel groups—who don’t have belligerent status according to Uribe—of life and liberty without trial. Colombia, it should also be noted, does not allow for capital punishment.

Current President Santos is either quite astute or has some very sharp people working for him. The language of his Ley de Victimas—“The Victims’ Law,” which provides for reparations for victims and their families—specifically labels the nation’s decades-long blood-hurricane as “armed conflict.” Suffice it to say, Mr. Uribe’s less than thrilled and has been very outspoken on the matter. (To give credit where due, former US president Bush understands that the job of retired heads of state is to keep their opinions of their successors to themselves.)

Santos’s justification was succinct: “If we say that there’s no internal armed conflict… [former] President Uribe and he who was his Minister of Defense, now President of the Republic… will go straight to prison.” The President of the Republic has acknowledged what Colombian and international jurists have known for some time: bombing and/or machine-gunning civilians (albeit heavily-armed, felonious civilians) is a crime. They could find themselves at the Hague standing trial for atrocities.

Uribe dismissed it with his customary blasé attitude, a Bush-esque “ends justify the means” approach that seems to indicate that he doesn’t understand, or more likely, doesn’t care about, the gravity of the situation. His fear is that granting belligerent status to illegal armed groups will validate and legitimize them, putting them on the same level as the Colombian armed forces.

It’s by no means legitimizing the FARC or other rebel movements, according to Santos. Instead, it allows Colombia to bring its full might to bear without violating international law. Santos stated his desire plainly: “What I want is for the whole world to understand very well that, under international law, a country and its fuerza pública [literally: public force; a Spanish term for a nation’s military and police forces] can operate under the umbrella of International Humanitarian Law, which presupposes an internal armed conflict.”

President Santos is correct: Without recognition of belligerence, Colombian authorities have been systematically engaging in war crimes by intentionally targeting civilians. At that point, the concept of “just war” is irrelevant; a just war (if there is such a thing) has to be waged in accordance with certain standards.

Broken Chains, Spanning a Continent

2011-05-25T11:37:00.000-07:00

Colombia’s Supreme Court ruled that evidence collected during the 2008 “Operation Phoenix” is inadmissible in the nation’s courts. As with so much regarding the internal conflict, it comes as a surprise only to the Colombian government.

“Phoenix” was a cross-border bombing raid into the jungles of Ecuador in March 2008. The strike’s target was a FARC encampment, home to “Raúl Reyes” (real name: Luís Devia Silva; spokesperson for the guerrilla movement and member of the group’s Central High Command) and his not-so-merry men.

The raid touched off a diplomatic firestorm between Colombia’s completely unapologetic then-President Uribe and his Venezuelan and Ecuadorean counterparts. It turns out that Ecuadoreans were quite upset about having their airspace and sovereignty violated, their soil and even citizens bombed, and their territory invaded by foreign troops. That kind of conduct is generally considered in international relations circles to be, at best, horribly rude and at worst an act of war.

In the aftermath, Colombian military personal recovered evidence from the ruins of the guerrilla bivouac, including USB flash drives and laptop computers. The files found on the recovered equipment were used in criminal proceedings against politicians and even a Chilean national currently on trial in his native country and awaiting extradition to Colombia for his involvement with the FARC.

Until recently, that is.

The Chilean Supreme Court suspended the proceedings against Manuel Olate, and numerous criminal proceedings have come to a screeching halt due to the Colombian high court’s ruling.

It all comes down to the concept of “chain of custody.” In practical terms, it means that evidence can only be used in a criminal process when it’s been collected, stored, transported and transferred in accordance with a jurisdiction’s laws. Any disruption in the chain of custody creates the possibility for interference that could adulterate, alter or destroy the evidence in question, which in turn could affect the outcome of a trial. It’s why evidence lockers are so tightly controlled and why the police don’t give tours of active crime scenes.

To make a long story short, the Colombian Armed Forces stomped all over due process during Operation Phoenix. The evidence was collected:

By military personal who lacked law enforcement powers and authorization to do so,
In an area where Colombia has no jurisdiction of any kind,
Without a warrant,
And without the knowledge, consent or participation of the Ecuadorean government or the relevant law enforcement authorities.

To be fair, the Colombian government turned over the data to Interpol for independent verification, and that entity declared that it had found no traces of manipulation.

From a chain-of-custody/due-process perspective, though, there are two problems with this:

Interpol found no signs of tampering. That could mean that no one had fiddled with the bits, or it could mean that the transgressor(s) hid their tracks very, very well.
Interpol is not a Colombian national institution.

The Supreme Court made the right call: Even if the Raul Reyes laptops hadn’t been manipulated and had been certified as such, they would still be fruit of the poisonous tree; that is, the result of an illegal search. And it wouldn’t be beyond the realm of possibility for a cynic that the Colombian military—rarely an organization to get caught up in existential ethical conundrums over rights personal, civil or human—would contemplate or carry out evidence tampering.

Due to a broken chain of custody, the veracity of the evidence can be neither confirmed nor trusted. Without chain of custody, there can be no proof—and without it, no justice.

Letting Facts Speak for Themselves: Press Coverage of High-Profile Felons

2011-03-10T11:08:00.001-08:00

The headline on the full page piece in El Tiempo proclaims, "MARIO URIBE, THE END OF A CHIEFTAIN." A photo of the subject occupies about a fourth of the sheet, showing him with hands clasped in front of him in an almost beatific pose. The caption informs distraught readers that he ranked as "one of the most influential politicians in Antioquia in recent years."

A quotation sidebar illustrates Mr. Uribe's character and career as a civil servant. A fellow legislator notes that "he was a serious leader in Antioquia. In the rancher's union, he always enjoyed great acceptance," and the author tells us, "…His friends and family recognized a strong and lordly character."

The article measures 22 paragraphs; over half are dedicated to Mr. Uribe's education, personal life, early professional endeavors and political career. Non sequiturs such as, "Like all Uribes, he loved fine horses," put a human face on this electoral titan.

The obvious conclusion, from the author's admiring tone and glowing summary of a life lived to the fullest, is that the piece is an ode, a eulogy—from the Greek for "praise."

The piece features precious little in regard to the actual point of the article, stated clearly in the subhead: "This week the Court sentenced him to 7 years and 6 months' incarceration." Only in the second-to-last paragraph does a reader learn why this great man is suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune (at the hands of the Colombian justice system): concierto para delinquir agravado, or "aggravated conspiracy to commit crimes".* That is, he worked with paramilitaries to ensure political influence.

Rather than offering the who/what/when/where/why, El Tiempo has opted for an homage to the convicted. While there's nothing wrong with presenting another side of one found guilty, it behooves a writer, and the paper they write for, to write a balanced piece. One has to wonder where it all comes from. The story of one politician's corruption and ties to Very Bad Men reads as a footnote, an afterthought, rather than the entire point.

Is the reporter a hardcore Uribista, one of many, who believes that the Uribe clan can do no wrong? Is the editorial team facing political pressure from the Uribes or from higher up the totem pole? After all, the family of current President Juan Manuel Santos—Alvaro Uribe's handpicked successor—did found the paper and still maintains considerable influence. Or did no one care enough to do the right thing, journalistically speaking? Extricating one factor from the rest is a Sisyphean task… and ends up a moot point.

Colombia—and other nations saddled with similar social, economic and political situations—have to create a free press willing to print the news and raise hell, regardless of threats, bribery and disapproval from those in power. News outlets such as El Tiempo play an essential role in shaping the national discourse, as well as the public's perception of the national social reality. It's an immense responsibility, and it's all too easy to abuse or, in the case of ET's coverage of Mario Uribe's legal troubles, to shirk entirely.

It is, however, part and parcel of the job. If you don't like it, if you can't handle the pressure, you are, I'm afraid, in the wrong line of work.

Send lawyers, guns and money,

*For those with a US or English legal background, this probably doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Translated from the Wikipedia article: "Conspiracy to commit crimes is, in Colombian criminal law, a criminal offense that was established to take measures against offenses such as kidnapping, the formation of ilegal armed groups, terrorism, and extortion, among others. It occurs when two or more persons meet or conspire to observe an agreement or pact that has as its purpose the organization of said individuals in a society or group with criminal ends, without being specified what type of offenses will be committed, the time and place, or against who or what they will aggress, but what will be its principal activity: committing crimes.

WikiLeaks: Publish and Be... What, Exactly?

2010-12-04T12:50:00.000-08:00

WikiLeak’s release of thousands of US State Department diplomatic cables certainly qualifies as printing and raising hell, but one has to wonder if what they’re publishing is really all that newsworthy.

The first two info dumps in July and October 2010, on the Afghanistan and Iraq wars* respectively, were journalistic coups on the order of Woodward/Bernstein crossed with the Pentagon Papers. The amount of data that had been concealed—the secret history, if you will—from the citizenry of the US and the global community was simply staggering.

The diplomatic cables are a letdown after those revelations. More than that, they’re hardly surprising. Anyone who has more than a passing acquaintance with world events is well aware of just how obsessed the Chinese government is with Internet censorship; that Putin is the power behind Medvedev’s throne and running awfully close to a dictator; that Berlusconi is the vain, mostly ineffective figurehead of a barely-cohesive coalition government; and that Brazil wants to play the “Everyone’s Best Friend”† game. (Here is an interesting analysis by a couple of NYT writers.) In short, there’s a lot of data but little in the way of news.

What the cables represent are the internal monologues of a massive, often unwieldy bureaucracy with a very complex task. The idea that sentiments similar to those expressed by various ambassadors and diplomatic officers have not been espoused by the State Department’s counterparts is difficult to imagine. To be honest, I consider it more than likely that, upon hearing the WikiLeaks announcement, more than one diplomat or foreign-affairs minister experienced a moment of intense, buttock-clenching terror. Perhaps Lula da Silva put it best: "...It was thought that the Americans were better, but in the end they do the same silliness that the whole world does."†

Every day, we—as individuals, operating in a mind-bogglingly complicated system of social exchange and interaction—tell a hundred little white lies, even if it’s just smiling and saying “no worries” when someone steps on our feet or spills their coffee on us. Our private thoughts and immediate reactions are analyzed, discarded or modified, and then stifled or communicated in a calm, considered manner. This is what lets societies function.

In the office or any collaborative environment, we laud the one who can meld disparate elements, groups and interests into a single, functioning—or at least not self-sabotaging—unit. No matter whether it’s hand-holding the newbie, cajoling the whiner into carrying a fair share of the load, or concealing utter contempt for the pettiness of one or more parties (or all of them), the diplomacy of that person is rightly praised.

All that WikiLeaks accomplished was making those initial, impulsive and, most importantly, private thoughts of the bureaucracy public, in essence airing someone else’s laundry (dirty or not-so-).

If there is in fact egg on the State Department’s face, it’s due to having a database for supposedly confidential cables about as secure as America OnLine circa 1995. One doesn’t keep their innermost thoughts and desires where anyone might come along and have a peek at what might or might not be the author’s true feelings. In that regard, few words suffice to describe just how badly the State Department screwed up. One could argue that this grievous error is the State Department lying in the bed it’s made.

On the other hand, that doesn’t absolve WikiLeaks, nor does it strip the act of the somewhat childish, “Nyah nyah!” quality that seems to characterize it. This latest info dump doesn’t seem to stem from the same journalistic drive to seek truth and report it that defined the Afghan War Diary or the Iraq War Logs, so much as a desire to make the US government look bad. [Full disclosure: Anyone who has read anything I’ve written knows that I don’t think the US government needs any help at all in that regard. But giving a fair shake, and giving credit where due, is an integral part of journalistic ethics and integrity.]

Keeping secrets does not imply nefarious purposes; malice in secrecy comes from the subject matter that’s hidden, not the simple act of hiding.

*Note: WikiLeaks.org's servers are down at the time of publication, so here's Wikipedia's entry.

†Note: Linked page is in Spanish.

Above the Law and Good Taste

2010-11-29T12:30:00.000-08:00

Colombia’s former president, Álvaro Uribe Velez, has always acted as though he considers himself above the rules—constitutionally (changing the 1991 Constitution to allow a second term, then trying to allow for unlimited re-election), intellectually (in his treatment of university professors and students) and most recently in terms of appropriate conduct for former heads of state.

Moreover, he’s happy to point out others’ transgressions, but then pointedly ignores his own. A small sampling:

During his terms, Uribe repeatedly referred to professors and students as the “intellectual bloc” of the FARC. When members of the academic community at Georgetown protested the invitation for him to give seminars as a Distinguished Scholar in the Practice of Global Leadership, he and President Santos decried them as “pseudo-intellectuals” who weren’t upholding their scholarly commitment to academic debate and the free exchange of ideas.
Uribe condemned Hugo Chávez for trying to change the Venezuelan Constitution of 1999 (a document that Chávez himself pushed and supported) to allow for unlimited re-election. Later, just before his second term ended and he found himself facing imminent unemployment, Uribe pushed for a similar referendum.

Now, we have the ongoing novela of the “chuzadas,” the ex-president’s personal Watergate. And the similarities are striking: A sitting president using reserved funds for a special intelligence unit to spy on the opposition. (Maybe G. Gordon Libby’s goons weren’t quite to 00 Agent status, but the point stands.) Uribe even said (or tweeted, rather), “Eight years of daily communication with the armed forces, no one can assert that I gave illegal instructions in public or private.”

Admittedly, it’s a much more eloquent way of saying, “I am not a crook,” but one that, similarly, does not pass the sniff test.

The ex-Director of DAS (the Colombian secret police/intelligence service that carried out the wiretapping and surveillance in question), María del Pilar Hurtado, requested asylum in Panama to flee the charges against her. Panamanian authorities deemed her to not be politically persecuted, and as such have granted “common” asylum, on the grounds that she cannot get a fair trial in Colombia. Worse, Panama didn’t even advise Colombia of the asylum petition or its acceptance, despite the fact that Hurtado’s arrest warrant was common knowledge.

Okay, that’s definitely an unpleasant hiccup in diplomatic relations between the two countries, which have for the most part been quite amicable.

…And then Uribe opened his mouth.

Despite numerous declarations during his time in office on the strength of Colombia’s institutions, and righteous indignation at any implication that Colombian justice might not be all that swift and/or impartial, he made the comment that Panama did the right thing, since “there are no judicial guarantees” for due process or the safety of the accused.

How does that figure, then? Is he referring to the legal system he oversaw for eight years? What, precisely, happened in the four short months he’s been out of the Casa de Nariño?

Simply put, what happened is that he left. Now he’s free to criticize Colombia—the Colombia he claims to have saved—to his heart’s content, especially when it comes to covering himself in a domestic espionage case.

I am—surprisingly—in agreement with the Attorney General, Alejandro Ordoñez, in saying that what Uribe has alleged doesn’t conform to reality and that this kind of cynicism and smack-talking is by no means appropriate for a former president. In this, as well, what seems clear is that Uribe considers himself above the law and the bounds of decorum and good taste.

Demanding Favors, Demanding Equality

2010-10-02T21:00:00.000-07:00

In every relationship, you hit a point where things just aren't as intense as they used to b e. The people aren't the same as they were when things first started. Goals and priorities change, or the circumstances do. Things lose their intensity, the spark dims, passion cools.

Sounds like Santos and Obama need some counseling, maybe a weekend away together. Maybe Bush'll let them use his ranch for a little quality time.

Though it pains me, I've got to give Bush credit where due. He and Uribe had a certain chemistry that made Plan Colombia blossom. Rainbows shone reflected in the hundreds of 7.62mm shell casing spit out by all those shiny new Gatling guns, and birds sang, except where they'd all been wiped out by surplus Agent Orange.

UriBush was a match made in post-9/11 heaven.

For the record: I'm not singing the praises of Bush, Uribe or Plan Colombia. They just got along well, and from 2002-08 things were peachy, in a far-right, "If you're not with us, you're against us" kinda way.

Then, things changed.

Obama's policy focus was on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and on domestic issues like The Economy and healthcare reform. Neither he nor his inner circle knew diddly about those mysterious papists south of the Rio Grande, except that a fair few aren't too fond of the US (for, some would argue, some perfectly legitimate reasons). When it did come to Latin America, the Obama administration cared more about Mexico's ultra-violent drug war and a border about as secure as a bank vault made out of used Kleenex and guarded by a comatose paraplegic than about Colombia's relatively low-intensity insurgency and ultra-violent past.

Concurrently, Colombia's been undergoing some shifts in character(s) as well, with the election of Juan Manuel Santos as president. After being elected on a platform that boiled down to "Uribe 2.0," he has spent the last couple months trying frantically, and in the vein of Leonard Nimoy, paradoxically to say "I am Uribe" and "I am not Uribe."

A significant part of that distancing-but-not-distancing agenda (kind of like a beagle on a bungee cord) has been an insistence on reforming the US/Colombia relationship. Completely understandably, Santos wants a partnership of equals and rejects the idea of coming to the US with his hat in his hands. Regarding his meeting with Obama, he trumpeted a dialogue "de tú a tú," with the informal "you" implying a more casual, amicable standing between friends and colleagues, but more importantly, between equals, with none of the power imbalance often perceived in the dealings of the two nations.*

Asserting one's sovereignty and right to be treated with dignity is all well and good, until it's followed up with, "...So why aren't you giving us as much money?"

Putting your foot down and insisting that you won't be talked down to: Good!
Asserting your status as an equal: Another smart move!
Grousing that your Gold Card has been taken away: .... Uh, what?

In my capacity as counselor and international relationships therapist, I think we all need to take a few deep breaths and calm down. People are changing, priorities are getting shuffled around, the external factors are shifting. A good relationship celebrates these changes and learns to love the other for the novelty. Pining for how things were can only lead to disappointment. If both parties can't learn to compromise, and to give the other all due consideration and attention, maybe it's time to back off and evaluate: "Is this giving me (and the nation of millions that I represent) what I want and need?"

If not, well, I reference the eternal Sting:

Man, I can't believe the State Department isn't paying me for this.

Send lawyers, guns and money,
J.

*Many Colombians, like the Philipinos and the Mexicans, have conflicting feelings on the US. On the one hand, they're grateful for the support and friendship coming from the US, especially in the last decade. That said, they also realize that they wouldn't have all these problems if it weren't for the drugs that Americans want so very badly, and they're none too fond of the rather condescending tone copped by the States. It's one short leap from patronage to patronizing! They shouldn't take it personally, though; Uncle Sam's holier-than-thou attitude is equal opportunity, proving once again that jackassery is a non-discriminating, area-of-effect weapon.

Counting Coup(s)

2010-09-30T18:01:00.000-07:00

[Update: The situation has been resolved, thanks to an armed rescue by the Ecuadorian military.]

I've got Firefox set up to show me ElTiempo.com as my homepage as soon as I load the browser. That way, I (being one of those atavistic Luddites who owns neither a TV nor a radio) can keep up with breaking news.

It's a plan tha tends to pay off when something especially notable happens, such as the carbomb that went off not a half-mile from my apartment, or the death of FARC leader "Mono Jojoy" last Wednesday.

Today, it's this.

For those who don't read spanish, Rafael Correa, president of Ecuador, was taken to the hospital after rogue police attacked him with tear gas, nearly asphyxiating him. Those same cops, as of this writing, have surrounded the hospital where he's being treated and have effectively taken him hostage. All this came about after Correa's leftist government tried to enact a law that would revoke some economic incentives for the police and armed forces.

To voice their displeasure at having their pocketbooks lightened ever so slightly, a group of police officers did what any disgruntled civil servants would: attack the president.
If you watch the video here, you can see some of the rioting police [a phrase so rarely heard] burning tires to mark their perimeter/picket line around the hospital where they've got Correa cornered.

It should be noted that I'm generally not a fan of Correa, though he does do a fair number of things right. That said, this little barracks revolt is more representative of a bunch of college kids throwing rocks at riot cops than a planned strike or protest with some kind of goal.

You see, most times, when you attack the president of a country, it's what's referred to as a coup d'etat. Or rather, that's what it's called if it succeeds; if it doesn't, it's called treason. Treason, being one of those crimes most countries send you to face a firing squad for.

Where, pray tell, is this little temper-tantrum going?

You've got the president of your country held hostage in the hospital you sent him to. Do you...

...use this as the jumping off point for a coup d'etat?
You'd need the high command of the police and the military to go along with it, in addition to a clear candidate or military junta willing to take the reins. Not having any of that, you're screwed! Your bullet-riddled body will probably end up in an unmarked grave not far from the brick wall they stood you up against. Next time, plan ahead, or roll shaman.

...force the government to the bargaining table with the captive commander-in-chief as a bargaining chip?
Well, it's a slightly better plan than "I proclaim myself dictator for life!" ... but not by much. And it's about as likely to get you killed. The only difference is that instead of bleeding all over the sand at your execution, it'll be all over that fancy persian rug at the peace talks when the military uses it as a trap to lure in the conspirators, as Latin American militaries are known to do.

No government in its right mind would negotiate with a bunch of yokels protesting the removal of certain economic perks via violent rebellion... and then continue paying those yokels to enforce order. It'd be kind of like Lincoln defeating the South, instituting Reconstruction, and then appointing Nathan Bedford Forrest in charge of civil rights.

After all, we've seen what happens to governments who let conspirators hold onto their guns and their power.

...surrender quietly and hope the Powers That Be don't let loyal troops engage in a bit of vindictive machine-gunning?
Congratulations! You've managed to make it out of your hare-brained and half-a**ed uprising with your skin mostly intact. Maybe if you show the proper amount of contrition, you'll just be fired. Otherwise, see you in about a quarter-century! Hopefully you'll make better decisions next time 'round.

After Action Report: There's a lot of talk going on in the news media as to who or what was behind the hostage-taking. Most of them, like Evo Morales's accusation that the White House was behind it, are ludicrous. So far as I can tell, there are a few credible theories.

It was a bad idea spun out of control. The police were protesting, a few of them got stupid, and a few more of them said, "Well, we've gone this far..." I find it hard to believe, though, especially since the Air Force shut down the airports shortly after it all began.

They were counting on more support from the military. Not an unreasonable assumption, really; historically, the military and police have been very close, and the Public Service Law that the cops were protesting affected the armed forces as well. Unfortunately, it's usually best if you make sure that the guys with the big guns will actually have you covered, instead of just assuming.

It was a gambit, sacrificing pawns. This has too much of the conspiracy-theory nutjob about it to really satisfy me. Namely, that someone instigated this little tiff to see if Correa was weak enough to capitulate, or if anti-Correa sentiment was strong enough to oust him.

I'll update further as information comes available. In the meantime, stay tuned, True Believers!

Send lawyers, guns and money,
J.

If it looks like a drug war, sounds like a drug war, and kills thousands like a drug war....

2010-09-14T15:51:00.000-07:00

Secretary Clinton got in a bit of hot water on the political-correctness front last week, when she stated that Mexico is looking more and more like Colombia in the 80's and 90's. Of course, the following day, the White House and President Obama immediately tsk-tsked and corrected her, saying that Mexico is nothing like Colombia, with its "vast and progressive democracy" and growing economy".

Except, of course, that Clinton has the situation dead-to-rights... and frankly, she's far more qualified to comment on the subject than the President. For all his sterling qualities, Obama knows precisely jack about Latin America.

Citizens are being forced to flee their homes and the country due to the violence. Well over 20,000 people have been killed in four years as a direct result of the gang wars. The drug trade has spurred an unprecedented wave of bloodshed. The war between the narcos and the government, and between the various criminal organizations, has transformed it into one of the most murderous countries in the Western Hemisphere. The cartels intimidate and assassinate community leaders, journalists, politicians, and members of the police and military. They've committed retribution killings against cops and members of the armed services.

How, pray tell, is that not like Colombia in the 80's and 90's? Perhaps offense is being taken at the use of the word "insurgency" by Secretary Clinton, invoking images of the FARC, ELN, M-19, and the plethora of rebel groups that have cropped up in the Andean nation since the start of its internal conflict in the 1960's. It's a ridiculous semantics argument, though. Mexico might not have its own rebel group (except, of course, that it does ), but if we accept that the drug cartels are armed actors engaged in violent conflict with the Mexican government, most would agree that that constitutes an insurgency. Even Calderón himself has stated,

"This has become an activity that defies the government, and even seeks to replace the government...They are trying to impose a monopoly by force of arms, and are even trying to impose their own laws."
....
"Their main business is not anymore even drug trafficking, sometimes...Their business is dominating other people." (Source: Associated Press)

In addition, to assume that the FARC was the only armed opposition to the Colombian government is to lack the most basic understanding of la violencia. Colombia's problem wasn't only the guerrilla; it was the drug trade on the whole, the drug cartels, the paramilitaries, and the eventual involvement of all armed groups in the international drug trade.

Perhaps Mexico's President Calderón doesn't find the comparison to be all too flattering, but everyone who has more than a lay understanding of the conflict concurs with it. (Note: A friend living in Oaxaca, Mex., begs to differ. Her read of the situation is that, like Peru with the Sendero Luminoso, half the population doesn't actually believe there's a war on.)

The Colombians agree; Colombia and Mexico signed an accord last year that included Colombian training of Mexican federal police and improved cooperation. (Update: The outgoing Colombian ambassador to the US, Carolina Barco, made the following comment to El Tiempo:

"Creo que hubo una mala interpretación de lo que dijo. Creo que la violencia que está viviendo México, de esos narcotraficantes tan terribles, si es comparable a la violencia de un Pablo Escobar. ....Estamos hablando es de unos grupos violentos, mafiosos, narcotraficantes que hay en México y eso es comparable a un Pablo Escobar y todo el dolor que este ocasionó.
[I believe that there was a misinterpretation of what she said. I believe that the violence that Mexico is experiencing, from such terrible drug-traffickers, is comparable to the violence of a Pablo Escobar. ... We are talking about some violent groups, mafiosos, drug-traffickers, that are there in Mexico and that is comparable to a Pablo Escobar and all the pain that this causes.]"

Mexican politicians might not like it, but that is one of Clinton's virtues: saying what everyone is already thinking, even if it means telling the President of the United Mexican States that he's got no clothes.

Send lawyers, guns and money,
J.

LlamaDAS ChuzaDAS, Libertades ViolaDAS

2010-06-26T17:39:00.001-07:00

My new favorite piece of graffiti, located in Bogotá (Cll. 50 & Kra. 7a). The mural, so far as I can tell, is called "LlamaDAS ChuzaDAS, Libertades ViolaDAS". Now, to give a bit of background, Colombia's Administrative Department of Security (DAS) has been plagued by scandals throughout its history.

This may very well owe to a conflict of identity; on the one hand, it's essentially Colombia's secret police. They're in charge of all sorts of stuff, like the quotidian issuing of national ID cards and immigration control, to electronic surveillance and cloak-and-dagger stuff. DAS personnel cop an attitude somewhere between J. Edgar Hoover and Judge Dredd. In fact, my sister was kind of freaked out when she came to visit me here in Colombia. The DAS agents in immigration at El Dorado International Airport wear polo shirts with "DAS" emblazoned on the breast, and on the back, just under the collar, there's an image of a little DAS commando guy with ski mask and body armor pointing a pistol. Remember, Citizen, this is For Your Protection.

On the other, it's supposed to be a democratic institution. Heh.

The most recent firestorm of controversy has centered around "chuzadas," short for "llamadas chuzadas" or "tapped phone calls." To make a long story short, a special unit of DAS existed whose sole purpose was to monitor the activity of judges, magistrates, opposition politicians, journalists, and anyone else who might make trouble for the Uribe government. In testimony that came as a complete shock to no one, President Uribe denied knowing anything about it.

LlamaDAS ChuzaDAS, Libertades ViolaDAS: "Tapped calls, violated liberties." Trust me, it sounds far better in Spanish.

Robo-Uribe listening in, with Madame Justice standing for eavesdropping on judges and magistrates

"DAS Studio: Professional Recording"

Around the woman with the camera, it reads "Don't keep silent!" Done in the style of the Colombian military ads.... Soldier looking down the iron sights of his rifle, finger on the trigger. (I'll try to find an example of the ads and post one for reference.)

Porque Tenemos Memoria, Seguimos en Contravia: "Because we have our memories, we'll stay in opposition." Doesn't translate very well at all, unfortunately, and again, much more lyrical in Spanish.

School children, with the inscription "Yo no quiero ser un Falso Positivo": "I don't want to be a False Positive." In yet another case about which no one in the administration knew anything, rural peasants and urban poor were murdered by military personnel, dressed in FARC uniforms, and turned in as guerrilla fighters killed in action. Why? Because the Colombian armed forces, in all their wisdom, decided to reward their servicemen and -women with things like extra leave for combat kills. You know, just like redeeming your Skee-Ball tickets for that teddy bear. Except no one has ever been murdered over a teddy bear.

Digging Deeper: 10 reasons to consider Afghanistan’s gold mine just another hole in the mud

2010-06-21T13:12:00.001-07:00

With the discovery last week of immense, ridiculously lucrative mineral deposits in Afghanistan, everyone seems to be elbowing their way into line to sing the praises of Afghanistan's bright, gold leaf- and lithium-encrusted future. Few, though, seem to be willing to look to the past for its lessons. And (though it's starting to become a recurring theme…) those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.

The prospects sure are promising, if you look at the press releases and sound-bites. (But then, does anyone ever answer with a shrug and "Meh" when asked about something big like this?) Chief among the untapped varieties of paydirt are iron, copper, cobalt, lithium and the root of all evil, gold. At current market value, the resources are appraised at around $1 trillion. The promise of wealth has already caught the attention of foreign investors and mining interests, spurring talk of desperately-needed job creation for a country with an estimated 35% unemployment rate. The real figure is almost certainly much higher.

One Pentagon writer referred to the potential of Afghanistan to become the "Saudi Arabia of lithium." An adviser to the Afghan minister of mines: "This will become the backbone of the Afghan economy." General David Petraeus is perhaps the most cautious, as we've come to expect from him, saying, "There is stunning potential here… There are a lot of ifs, of course, but I think potentially it is hugely significant."

Unfortunately, no one seems to be talking to historians specializing in Latin America or Africa. Any of them could warn right off the bat that, potentially, it is also Bad News. How could this turn out poorly for the Afghan people? O, let me count the ways.

Why now? According to the Times' own piece, information on untapped riches has been lying around since the end of the Soviet occupation. US surveys were made years ago, and have been collecting dust ever since. As Jean McKenzie of GlobalPost points out, this is hardly news. Nothing has changed. And yet, all of a sudden, everyone's lining up to talk to the press. General Petraeus is weighing in. Internal memos from the Pentagon—not exactly known for sharing or playing nice with journalists—are made available. Afghan bureaucrats are getting chatty.
One thing did change in the Afghan situation: Public support for the war. Americans, and the constituents of politicians all across NATO, are getting tired of an unwinnable, costly conflict. There's nothing like avarice to motivate a people to war.
Job creation in one of the most dangerous occupations on the planet. Yes, there will be jobs. There will also be injury, death, and disability rates that are sky high. Make no mistake: Mining is a hazardous industry. Even China, economic powerhouse that it is, still suffers frequent tragedies, as does the United States. It's true that some kinds of mining are inherently safer than others, yes. It should also be noted that even when mine owners are taking all possible precautions and there is a government in place that will make mines hew to a strict standard of safety, it's still a crap shoot. In the past, foreign mining interests haven't shown themselves to lose too much sleep over the job conditions of native mine workers, and the Afghan government has neither the inclination nor the capacity to crack down on lax safety codes. [Note: As if to make my point for me, the coal mine in Amagá suffered an explosion in the process of writing this. Nine bodies have already been recovered. More than 60 miners are still trapped.]
And besides: Mining is a risky proposition even a country is not engaged in a brutal, 10-year civil war, which brings me to my next point…
Mines make tempting targets. Perhaps no one cared to look out their window, but there's a war on, and in the midst of a civil war, mines are high-value targets. One need only look at Bolivia's war for independence and subsequent civil wars to see how warfare can completely decimate the industry. It's a story as old as gunpowder and Guy Fawkes: What may take thousands of hours of labor on the part of hundreds of workers to build can be torn apart in seconds by one individual with a bomb and a grudge. Even if the opposition doesn't care to destroy the mine, it's an important asset to hold. Just like the poppy fields and trafficking routes, they're crucial elements to control—whether to use it to fill your own coffers or to ensure that the other team won't use it to fill theirs.
Of course, certain international bodies might levy sanctions against anyone doing business with one side or the other, but such a decree is only as powerful as the repressive power of the State that enforces it. In other words, in Afghanistan, it's only as good as the paper it's written on.
"Saudi Arabia of Lithium" isn't exactly a good thing. Afghanistan's deposits of that mineral, in such huge demand, will put it just behind, or even on par with, Bolivia. That's a good thing, of course. One need only look at the Andean nation's long history of prosperity, political stability, and equitable distribution of wealth to see what promise mineral wealth can hold. [Note: For those unfamiliar with Andean history, Bolivia has a long history of brutal, rapacious exploitation of its vast mineral wealth by foreign powers. It ranks as the world leader in changes of government. Over half percent of its population is below the poverty line. And its GDP in 2009 was $17 billion—only $5 billion greater than Afghanistan. All this, in spite of the "richness" of its Lithium deposits.]
There's another, greater question here, too: Really, who wants to be Saudi Arabia? Sure, if you're one of the .0002% of the population related to the House of Saud, it's fabulous. On the other hand, if you're a member of the general populace, it's led to crushing poverty, rampant corruption, and a brutally repressive government whose record of human rights violations would merit a US-led invasion if it thought could get away with it.
Monocultures don't work. An economy dependent on one or two products—whether coffee, sugar, oil, tin, or uranium—is a highly unstable economy, as has been so aptly demonstrated by the recent world financial mess. Monocultures are the world market equivalent of the chubby kid on the see-saw: As long as there's an equally big-boned playmate named Demand on the other side, everything's fun and games. As soon as demand goes on a diet, or finds a new BFF, suddenly fun-time's over and there's a fat kid rolling on the ground, bawling and unable to get back on his feet. An economy has to develop and devote funds to sectors other than the cashcow to take up the slack in rough patches.
Afghanistan is a newcomer to foreign investment. A dirt-poor Third World nation with money is kind of like a mule with a spinning wheel: No one knows how he got it, but darned if he knows how to use it. Unfortunately, the world is full of Lyle Lanleys just dying to sell the country stuff it doesn't need at prices it can't or shouldn't pay. Instead of a gradual introduction to foreign investment, Afghanistan is being plunged into it with no experience and no structures in place to regulate or control its influence. In his book Making Globalization Work, winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics Joseph Stiglitz examines East Asian economies that underwent extremely rapid growth, and the traits and policies that allowed some to weather the currency crises of the 90s. The chief difference between weatherers and the weather-nots was strict regulation of foreign capital. Afghanistan has no regulation infrastructure and nothing in place to develop other sectors, both in the economy and in the society at large, ensuring that mining interests and those who cater to them will make off like bandits, leaving their countrymen and future generations to foot the bill.

For sale to developing Central Asian country: One monorail. Slightly used. Asking for all subsoil rights in Kandahar province OBO.
Whose interests are being served? The Pentagon is acting to set up meetings with mining companies and calling in experts. If I'm not mistaken, the Pentagon is the HQ of the militant wing of the United States government—a nation that, over the course of two centuries, has proven wholly unscrupulous when it comes to filling its coffers and those of American business interests. The Pentagon certainly has a horse in this race, calling into question it impartiality and objectivity. Being filled with individuals who are very, very good at following orders, I worry the Pentagon will dutifully sell Afghanistan all the shovels it needs to dig its own fiscal grave (if you'll pardon the appropriately-mixed metaphors).
Resource exploitation begets other forms of exploitation. There are no ifs, ands, or buts—mining is an inherently inequitable endeavour. There's a reason that resource-poor nations have the greatest degree of social equality, political stability, and equitable distribution of wealth. The world over, mining is a zero-sum game; someone has to lose, be it in Kabul, Cochabamba or Canada.
The losers, though, are never the mining companies. They are those who live with the crud seeping into the groundwater or coating their lungs. Those in debt to the company store. Those who are in a race to the bottom, because someone else is always waiting to take their place in the tunnels or at the rock face. Those who see their children born with defects that arrived the same day as the mines themselves. The future generations who will be paying a national debt they never incurred while voting for the corrupt progeny of the same politicians that opened fiscal sinkholes.
Might it be possible to create an environmentally- and socially-responsible mining industry in Afghanistan? Of course. Will it happen? Of course not. Afghanistan's current government and governing class lacks the bureaucracy and the backbone to keep rapacious mining interests in check.
The country doesn't need to be another proxy. Right now, the US and, to a lesser extent, NATO, are calling the shots in Afghanistan. But China wants to get involved, at least in the commercial sector. As always, disentangling the squabbles of a country's merchant class from the political machinery is nearly impossible. Even though the battlefields are in the boardrooms, business can be just as cutthroat as any shooting war—especially for the denizens who live where the conflict is played out. The last thing Afghanistan needs is to be a proxy for another tiff between superpowers in which it has no stake.
Where is the representation of Islamic nations?
Just as with the butting of heads between the US and China, this whole mess is only tangentially an economic issue. Due to the "new" finds, Afghanistan is the latest stage for the debate over neocolonialism, taking the spotlight in a geopolitical struggle over sovereignty and cultural hegemony. It is not only fair but critical that Islamic nations weigh in, or even take the lead, in matters of Afghanistan's future. Countries like Turkey, Egypt, or Jordan provide role models for responsible investment while maintaining Islamic cultural identity. Afghanistan can either become a battleground between the Global North and Global South, or it can become a bridge. The US and NATO have the opportunity to show the world that they're not playing the oldest game; for their sake and that of millions of Afghan citizens, they need to show they're serious and not just gambling with others' lives and livelihoods.

Black and White, Green and Grey: Moral ambiguities and Colombian military justice

2010-06-19T16:58:00.001-07:00

With the rescue of four of Colombia's longest-held hostages last Sunday, there's an understandable amount of flag-waving and troop-supporting going on. However', the country can't let appreciation and gratitude—no matter how justified and well-deserved—blossom into full-blown hero-worship. The former entail awareness of what a group has done; the latter, a willful ignore of anything that tarnishes that gleaming, spit-and-polish image.

Make no mistake: Colombia should be proud of Operation Chameleon, its architects, and those who pulled it off without a hitch. Extracting four captives, held under heavy guard in the depths of a jungle straight out of a Conradian nightmare and returning them, safe and sound, to the bosom of their family after more than a decade? It was a masterstroke. Kudos, muchachos.

Unfortunately, this military victory came at a politically-opportune moment, and is being utilized as a political instrument at a time of a groundswell of public support for the armed forces. Before President Uribe leaves office, the Ministry of Defense is trying to push through reforms that will protect military personnel against civilian justice.

Under the current law—enacted in 2006, four short years ago—the National Attorney General is in charge of preliminary investigation of crimes committed by servicemen and –women, and that body decides if the accused will face a military tribunal or be subject to civilian justice. According to army chief of staff General Oscar González, the current arrangement infringes on both due process and the presumption of innocence of military personnel, robbing the military justice system of its role in the process. Proponents of the existing process point to past abuse by the armed services in matters of jurisdiction and a disturbing trend of impunity.

One could argue that this entire drama has become an issue due to one judge's ruling in a case nearly 25 years old. On November 6, 1985, a cell of the M-19 rebel group assaulted the Palace of Justice, seat of the Supreme and Constitutional Courts, and took numerous hostages. The army's attempt to retake the building included bombardment by tanks and armed vehicles, setting it on fire and killing hostages and guerrillas alike. When all was said and done, dozens were missing. An investigation into 11 of those disappearances, opened by the Attorney General in 2001, uncovered that they were abducted by the army and taken to the Cavalry School in the north of Bogotá. There, they were interrogated, tortured, and eventually murdered.

Colonel Alfonso Plaza Vargas (ret.), the first of four military offices to go on trial for the disappearances of 10 cafeteria workers and one guerrilla commando, was found guilty and sentenced to 30 years. The June 9^th ruling threw the judge who handed it down into a hurricane of controversy. Uribe himself publicly criticized the Hon. Stell Jara for convicting "a member of the Armed Forces that was defending democracy." Due to death threats and a ridiculous degree of political pressure, a judge who did nothing more and nothing less than carry out her charge to the best of her ability and to the fullest extent of her understanding of the law fears for her career and her life and is fleeing the country to protect herself and her 12-year-old son.

Why, then, should Colombia allow military justice to police its own? The culture of the Colombian armed forces—and, to some extent or another, the culture of all militaries the world over—is a culture of impunity, of maintaining silence and closing ranks against civilians sticking their nose into what the uniforms consider "none of their business." In the case of Colombia, it's a systemic issue—Uribe, his VP Francisco "Pacho" Santos, the current Defense Minister Gabriel Silva, and countless others in the administration are the high priests and chief apologists of the Cult of Camo. By giving carte blanche to uniformed personnel, they perpetuate the impunity.

There is, of course, something to be said for the confusion of combat, when the air is filled with bullets and shrapnel, and the blood with adrenaline. There is a fundamental difference, however, between poor decisions made in the heat of battle and atrocities committed with malice aforethought after the dust has settled. Whether it's a case US Marines going house to house in Haditha slaughtering civilians after a roadside bomb kills a comrade, or a Colombian army officer blackbagging survivors of a guerrilla hostage-taking and taking them for a violent debriefing, there is no excuse.

The argument could be made that Colombia's military, given their history of their rampant abuse of the sacred trust placed in them by their people and their government, have not earned the right to exclusive jurisdiction.

Nor have they earned the privilege of righteous indignation at the besmirching of their honor. Whistle-blowers and those who shine light on dark deeds don't shame the military; actions unbecoming of the uniform—and the complicity of good men and women who do and say nothing—are what do that.

None of this is to say that I don't appreciate Colombian servicemen and –women. They've got one of the hardest jobs in South America and the majority carries out their duties with honor. That said, wearing the uniform doesn't absolve one of one's sins, nor does it turn wrong into right. Until something changes in this pervasive mentality, these reforms are premature, setting ack a decade of progress towards a more peaceful Colombia.

Bleeding Green, Bleeding Out: When sticking to your principles spells certain defeat

2010-06-07T15:56:00.000-07:00

If politics makes strange bedfellows, it looks like Colombia's Green Party candidate Antanas Mockus will be sleeping alone come the second round of the presidential elections on June 20. In the world of Colombia politics, the Green Party is that individual who has come to the conclusion that all relationships are a power struggle, a zero-sum game that can only lead to heartbreak, so all they want are emotionally uninvolved "friends with benefits" that'll be gone by morning and will never appear needy.

On an individual level, that's just peachy if you decide that's what you want. When, however, you are a political party whose sole reason for being is to win elections, it's called "shooting yourself in the foot."

The Greens have declared, in no uncertain terms, that they will not consolidate political agreements or commitments with other parties, calling instead for a "citizen alliance" that will transcend party boundaries. A possible accord for collaboration with the leftist "Polo Democratico Alternativo" fell apart this weekend due to Mockus's unwillingness to integrate certain points into his presidential platform. (In response, the Polo leadership told its constituents to abstain on the 20th of June.)

The Greens don't, however, speak from a position of power. The "citizen alliance" they want and need would have manifested on May 30 in the first round if it was going to do so. Obviously, it didn't, with Mockus garnering 20% of the vote, a respectable turn-out for a newcomer on the national stage, but nowhere near enough to challenge powerhouse Santos's 46% and certainly not sufficient to be making defiant, go-it-alone boasts at this juncture.

The second round will be decided not by a grassroots groundswell of support from newly-enlightened conscience voters, but by the political machinery that has defined Colombian power games for the last two centuries. (Bicentennial: July 20, 2010. Happy early birthday, Colombia!)

Mockus, trailing by 26% points in the first round, has declared that, in the name of transparency and breaking with politics as usual, he'll have nothing to do with that particular tradition.

Granted, he's taken the moral high ground, but he's standing on a mountain of sand. To have any chance of avoiding a humiliating defeat at the polls, he needs something to shore it up with. Like a man so confident of his swimming ability he refused a life vest as the boat sinks out from under him, or, perhaps more apropos, he refuses it because it's made of eco-unfriendly materials.

The question becomes whether Mockus wishes to suffer a noble defeat with his principles intact, or have a fighting chance by giving ground. Right now, his stance on concessions is reminiscent of one of Santos's campaign posters: "Retreat is not an option!" As it stands, unless something changes rapidly and dramatically, the story of the Green Party's rise and fall will be titled, "Chronicle of a Political Suicide Foretold."

Send lawyers, guns and money,
J.

(For further reading: Those who speak spanish might enjoy this analysis of the Green Party's anti-alliance stance.)

House Arrest and the Culture of the Colombian Underworld

2010-06-06T07:00:00.000-07:00

Commit a crime here in Colombia, and you might just get the chance to relish all the comforts of home while serving out your sentences... no matter how heinous the transgression. If you are like a disturbingly high number of convicted offenders, you might just be at home. Colombia has granted almost 20,000 convicts the privilege of house arrest in lieu of time behind bars... and probably not out of altruism. Of those, about half (9,414) are "high risk" offenders.

What defines "high risk?" According to INPEC (Instituto Nacional Penitenciario y Carcelario, the Colombian corrections department), the breakdown of dangerous offenders with house arrest is:

Drug trafficking: 6,945
Homicide: 916
Conspiracy: 836
Kidnapping: 138
Sexual abuse of a minor: 380
Rape of a minor: 193
Terrorism: 6

And, of course, it's important to remember that when Colombians talk "drug trafficking," they don't mean some aging hippy with a hydroponics setup or some college kid making beer money for the weekend by selling his Adderall. Ethical discussions about personal consumption of drugs aside, I think we can all safely agree that these are Bad Men.

Coming as a great shock to no one, about two-thirds of the convicts ("prisoners" is hardly a fitting word under the circumstances) who enjoy house arrest really enjoy it, violating the terms with impunity. While electronic monitoring techniques such as ankle bracelets have proved a boon, the benefit seems only to be knowing when someone is going out for a coke-fueled night on the town. "Deterrence" is a pipe dream.

To most, the idea of giving house arrest in place of jail time for violent offenders who pose a clear and present danger to their communities, to the credibility and effectiveness of the judicial process and the fabric of Colombian society is folly at best and completely insane at worst. (That said, Pablo Escobar was allowed to build his own prison, so at least it's consistent insanity.)

There are definite precedents and valid reasons for the use of house arrest in the case of relatively harmless crimes, and various countries have employed it to varying degrees of effectiveness. Scandinavian countries are widely recognized for their innovative penal systems, emphasizing rehabilitation and socialization over punishment. Perhaps offering provisional house arrest to Finnish killers or Norwegian small-time drug-runners would yield the same groundbreaking results.

The problem, though, is that Colombia is not Finland. It's a safe bet that Dimebag Sven the pot dealer does not have the backing of cartels with near-global reach (who, a cynic might suggest, have enough pull in the right circles to get their cohorts off with the penal equivalent of a time-out and a stern warning).

The culture of Colombia's criminal element, and the dominance of criminal organizations, doesn't permit such non-punishments. While it's true that criminal organizations, and their chains of command and communication, exist on both sides of the prison wall, relying on the honor system shows either A.) a jaw-dropping level of corruption that undermines the country's attempts to shake off the "narcostate" label, or B.) a degree of optimistic naivete that shows only a nodding acquaintance with reality. If a state wants to punish criminals and dismantle the structures that give them power, it has to ensure that they don't have access to those structures, or at least limit it as much as possible.

Send lawyers, guns and money,
J.

Todos Los Hombres del Presidente

2010-06-04T12:04:00.000-07:00

One incident does not a pattern make, but history wasn’t too kind to the last head of state to throw imprudent words at investigative journalists from the Washington Post. One would that think Colombia’s President Uribe—usually an even-tempered individual not known for flying off the handle—would remember the old adage about those who ignore the past.

Scandal, or rumors thereof, have plagued Uribe’s entire political career. The most common allegations have involved alleged ties to Colombia’s infamous “paras”: right-wing death squads notorious for their ties to big business and the wealthy land-owning class. These paramilitary groups, often composed of moonlighting police and military personnel, kidnapped, tortured, massacred, and perpetrated the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of rural poor—often while working in concert with regular army troops.

It came as no real surprise, then, when last week the Washington Post ran a story implicating President Uribe’s brother, Santiago, in another instance of “parapolitica” (the Colombian term for the ties between politicians and the paras). According to a retired police major, Juan Carlos Meneses, Santiago led a group of paras known as “the 12 Apostles” that was responsible for at least 50 murders. Meneses—now living in Venezuela—is working with an argentine Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, who has threatened to bring the investigation to the international stage.

When first asked about the Post piece, the president responded that he didn’t read international newspapers. A scant few days later, he issued what can kindly be described as “a diatribe.” He defended his brother, expressing incredulity at “the ability of criminals to penetrate society,” including a “serious institution” like the Washington Post. The obvious implication is that extralegal influence is at play, either duping the Post’s reporters into being patsies or acting with the knowing collaboration of the paper’s staff. Neither is complimentary.

Furthermore, Uribe marveled at how the underworld “turn[ed] a Nobel Peace Prize winner into a useful idiot,” an oh-so-subtle stab at Pérez Esquivel.

Neither of these outbursts befit the President of Colombia, one of the most popular and respected heads of state in Latin America. Alvaro Uribe has made a name for himself as a firm, thoughtful, level-headed politician in a political stage where the spotlight is all-too-often held by vitriolic, frothing-at-the-mouth characters such as Manuel Zelaya, Hugo Chavez, and Evo Morales. These accusations wouldn’t seem out of place in Cuba’s Granma or Chavez’s daily soapbox, “Alo Presidente!” For someone who has gained prestige as the straight man of South America, they hardly reflect well upon him.

Send lawyers, guns and money,
J.

Indecisión 2010

2010-05-31T11:22:00.000-07:00

Yes, that joke is stolen directly from the Daily Show. Colombia's first round of the presidential elections were held yesterday; Santos (former defense minister under Uribe) won the first round with 47% of the vote, but didn't achieve the plurality needed to secure a first round victory. The next four years will be decided in the second round, to be held June 20th. In the meantime, pretty pictures!

The Plaza Bolívar, one of the polling places in the center of the city.

The Congress building, with more than its fair share of pigeons.

A group of protesters who have been camped out in the Plaza for around 3 weeks now, if not longer. Their grievance with the government (and the mainstream media) is the injustice and impunity that they feel characterizes the current political establishment. The sign reads, "In Colombia there is a hunger for Justice, a hunger for Conscience. They have always kept we Colombians in a hunger strike. No more inequality of information, no more manipulated polls."

Two of the protesters, chained together with tape over their mouths, shielding themselves from the morning sun's rays and the afternoon downpour.

Simon Bolívar looks on, under a Colombian flag. Symbolism much?

Electoral process.

One of Bogotá's finest... One of the reserve police officers currently serving his mandatory term.

Electoral process, pt. 2.

Pre-voting day instructions, widely publicized, stringently directed everyone to leave non-voting persons (i.e., kids) at home. Colombians are, however, not very good at following instructions. Especially if those instructions involve leaving family members at home.

Rafael Pardo, presidential candidate from the Liberal Party, showed up to vote. He managed to win 4.4% percent of the vote last night, or a little over 600,000.

A litle video I put together of Rafael Pardo and his supporters.

Another of Pardo.

A good side-view of the candidate.

Send lawyers, guns and money,
J.

The state of women's rights and gender equality in Colombia

2010-03-10T07:32:00.000-08:00

Rejected title: "XX Marx the Spot." Don't worry, the pun will become evident shortly.

In accordance with International Women's Day, the National Consultancy Center, contracted by the Humanas Corporation--a Colombian human rights and social justice organization--published the results of their Survey of Women's Perspectives on Their Situation and Life Conditions.
The survey was presented to 800 women in 23 municipalities (urban and rural), of varying socioeconomic strata. Leaving aside the question of whether 800 women can truly be a representative sample of a female population of over 20 million, the findings are unsettling at best.

Percentage of Colombian women that feel discriminated against...
•... for their sex: 77%
•... in their place of employment: 92%
•... in politics and political participation: 81%
•... in their sexual freedom: 83%
•... in their family lives: 78%

84% think that Colombia is a sexist/chauvinist country. (The word used is machista, but it doesn't translate directly to English very well.)

18% agree that physical appearance is a key factor in being hired.

The two most significant problems for women at home are:
•Feeling unappreciated for their domestic labors: 34%
•Domestic violence: 32%

This last figure is awfully vague to my eyes. Does it mean that, in their own lives 32% of Colombian women deal with domestic violence? Or that as a problem facing women as a demographic domestic violence is the greatest concern?
This is akin to asking, "What are the worst problems in Colombia?" Personally, I worry about street crime and having my visa revoked, but I think the greatest threats to Colombia as a society are the culture of corruption, impunity for human rights violators and the growing tide of violent crime. Not being specific is poor survey technique.

Meanwhile, according to El Tiempo, only 2% of men share in housework or childcare with their partner; only 13% of men go grocery shopping. (They're a little vague as to where they get this info.)

Disturbing, to say the least. However, 89% of Colombianas say that they feel satisfied with their lives. The question that isn't asked is, "Are you satisfied with your status as a woman in Colombian society?" That seems like a grave oversight to my eyes.

Over three-fourths of women are conscious of their unequal status. The question, then, is what is being done? From my own limited perspective in Bogotá, not a lot. The number of women going to the office in high heels, tight skirts and pantyhose is vastly greater than that of women in sensible pantsuits and flats. If a person does not wish to be judged on physical appearance, one must stop catering to the chauvinistic system--and its individual members--that makes it an unspoken requirement.

I would agree that Colombian women are cognizant of their status as, essentially, second-class citizens. In the words of Marx, all they have left to lose are their chains. To see the injustice that one is subjected to, either overtly or by an invisible system of tacit implications and expectations, and to do nothing is to be an accomplice in one's subjugation. As long as Colombian women accept their place as junior partners, the disparity in gender roles and freedoms will continue unabated. There is no incentive for the chauvinists and the privileged to change without an upset.

Simply put, equality is not a gift nor a concession; it can be neither received nor awarded. It must be asserted. The manners in which to do this are many--I advocate "Un Mes Sin Maquillaje (A Month Without Makeup)" or maybe "To Hell with Heels and Hosiery." Emphasize that a woman's worth has nothing to do with her physical appearance.

At home, a complete housework strike. Dinner? Cook it yourself. Iron your own shirts. Mop the floor if you want it mopped. The best way to make someone appreciate labor is to make them do without it. That is, after all, the whole point of a strike, and it's been working well for the past hundred-some-odd years of the labor movement. (Personally, I find it pathetic that only one in 50 husbands will sweep the floor, wash the dishes or throw a load of whites in the laundry. Did these men live with their mothers until their honeymoon?)

Not that it has been, will be, or should be an easy road. Being a chauvinistic society, support from one's contemporaries and older generations probably won't flow like the spice. In Colombia, "feminist" is equivalent to "ugly man-hating un-marriageable lesbian." However, nothing worth having is easy to obtain, and nothing worth having is ever freely given.

Send lawyers, guns and money,
J.

***Feminism Front Update: For those who love both women's empowerment AND huge honkin' cuddly stuffed animals, check out Squishables. Each month they have a different charity, and they always have a plethora of ridiculously cute, huge stuffed animals. This month, their charity is Dress for Success, a not-for-profit that helps economically disadvantaged women achieve a measure of economic self-sufficiency by providing a professional wardrobe and ongoing career development. Buy a Squishable for someone (including yourself!) and send a photo to HugMe@squishable.com. For every photo they receive, $1 goes to DFS.

I liked "Bodatazo"

2010-03-09T18:25:00.000-08:00

Colombian spanish is by far the most flexible I've encountered--at least when it comes to matters of scandal, drugs, paramilitaries and/or the FARC. The more of those you can combine, the more forgiving the dialect becomes! The ties between Colombian politicians and paramilitary groups? "Parapolítica." The paras-cum-druglords and mafiosos? "Paracos," from Para + Narco.

(Fun with Linguistics: "-tazo" is a handy little spanish suffix meaning a scandal or infamous event that gets thrown around like "-gate" in American journalism. "Bogotazo," the 1948 bloodbath in the capital that kicked off the Colombian civil war. The "Zapatazo," the case of the notorious shoe-chucking Iraqi journalist.)

So you can imagine the uproar and the name-a-thon when El Tiempo, Colombia's leading paper, published a video from the 2004 wedding of one Néstor Ramón Caro Chaparro, a druglord from Medellin. (They finally settled on "narcoboda.") In the video are clearly seen four, count 'em, four high-ranking Colombian Army officers: Col. Juan Castañeda, current Colombian military attaché in Brazil; Col. David Betancourt (ret.) and his brother, Col. Carlos Betancourt, also retired; and Col. Rodrigo Martínez, current CO of the 18th Arauca Operational Command.

Their reasons given for their presence at a known drug trafficker's wedding range from the barely-credible to "Honestly, Officer, these aren't my pants!" levels of ridiculousness. Carlos Betancourt told El Tiempo, "I went to the wedding because I met him in the Military Academy. For 21 years I hadn't known of him until he called me to invite me. If I had known he was in a mess, I wouldn't have gone." In one screencap (captioned "The familiarity of Colonel Carlos Betancourt is evident"), the erstwhile Betancourt is seen embracing the groom/drug baron. I will admit, though, given Latin standards of hospitality and friendliness, that this hardly counts as damning evidence that they were in cahoots.

As for his brother David? He said he was just passing through and Carlos invited him. Carlos seems to have invited quite a few people; Rodrigo Martínez also told El Tiempo that, "Col. Carlos Betancourt invited me to a party, we rented suits and went. But I didn't know who the groom was."

To a one, all four denied knowing that Caro Chaparro was a druglord. It's worth noting that, at the time of the wedding, Caro Chaparro was a recognized and feared trafficker. Eight months before, the US had issued an expedition request and the Colombian government--you know, the political body whose armed wing these men represented--was actively seeking his capture.

Now, there may be some cultural gap, but I go, "Hey! I know that guy!" when I see a former classmate's photo in a local newspaper. I'm fairly certain that seeing the face of a guy i sat next to in Elementary Statistics with the caption "Drug Baron Sought By US" would ring a few bells. Even more so if I sat through said narco's best friend's sloppily-drunk wedding toast the following week.

(Note: These statements are not meant to convey an accurate timeline, nor a realistic depiction of events. No international crime lords have invited me to their nuptials of late, at least to my knowledge. If they have, they've at least had the courtesy to not have their faces and aliases plastered in CAI windows and their mugshot on RCN. So, to make a long story short, I'm hypothesizing and hyperbolizing to express my incredulity.)

To the Colombian military's credit, Martínez has been relieved of his duties and Castañeda has been recalled from Brazil so that the two can offer testimony.
The National Police have ID'd three more individuals from the tape: Major Luis Francisco Mariño Flores of the National Police, and Jorge Celedón and "Poncho" Zuleta, vallenato singers of no small renown.

Celedón defended himself by saying that it's impossible to know the history of everyone who hires him to perform, and that he would have to be constantly requesting background checks.

Personally, I think I would make that part of the standard pre-employment questionnaire:

1. Name of the bride and groom?
2. Location, date, and time of the event?
3. Who will pay transportation, room, and board?
4. Are there any special song requests?
5. Have you been, or are you currently, involved directly or indirectly in the international drug trade of the laundering of funds for organized crime syndicates?

Maybe it's a little uncouth to ask, but given that his compatriot "Poncho" is under indictment at the moment for alleged ties to paramilitaries, ya know, it might be worth the trouble.

Send lawyers, guns and money,
J.

Journalism, encryption, and a healthy degree of paranoia

2009-12-09T14:46:00.000-08:00

As of late, I’ve been re-reading Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon for the umpteenth time. It’s gotten me to thinking about journalism, encryption, and my own level of paranoia when it comes to privacy and data security—which, were I based in a different country, would be considered “near pathological” but in Colombia is merely, as a friend put it, “situation-appropriate risk management”.
In the interest of full disclosure, it must be noted that I am neither a crypto expert nor a truly seasoned journalist. This is merely my own speculation on the subject.
Today when we talk about cryptography (writing codes or encryption schemes) and cryptanalysis (breaking same) we talk about computerized code-breaking, generally speaking. Specifically, I am thinking about individuals or small groups of individuals (as opposed to governments or globe-spanning crypto-cabals) who might have a vested interest in making sure that other people don’t read what they have on their hard drives. I spend a lot of time thinking about journalists, so here we are.
In 1929, US Secretary of State Henry Stimson dissolved a government wire-tapping apparatus, known as MI-8 or the Cipher Bureau. He would later quip in his memoirs that “Gentlemen do not read one another’s mail.” Unfortunately, the world today isn’t too well-populated with gentlemen.
There are two main groups that might be interested in reading journalists’ mail: governments and non-governmental, extra-legal entities. The latter might include organized crime syndicates, militias, rebel groups, or any group that values its privacy (but not, interestingly, the privacy of anyone else).
Governments don’t like crypto, generally speaking. Despite their penchant for keeping secrets, it irks them when non-governments, or, for that matter, other governments, keep secrets from them. Developed nations usually have intelligence apparatuses of sufficient sophistication as to make individual encryption schemes irrelevant. If the NSA, MI-5 or the Moussad really wants to know what you’ve got on your laptop, it’s only a matter of time before they learn what they want to know.
In addition, the United States has a customs & immigration policy where electronic devices can be examined or confiscated at ports of entry. If you don’t give them the encryption key, they’re perfectly within their rights to take it until you do, or until they break it. A terribly clever monkey using some ridiculously difficult-to-break encryption scheme is going to find that his laptop is now an impregnable date fortress-cum-paperweight in some ICE office.
It’s also important to note here, for those who might cry foul, that if customs and immigration agents were police officers, this would be blatantly unconstitutional. Refusing a search doesn’t count as probable cause for cops. ICE agents, however, are to your average shield-carrying protecting-and-serving patrol officer what Judge Dredd is to Barney Fife. (“I AM the law!”) Try and invoke your Fourth Amendment rights, or, as a journalist, your First Amendment rights, and you can probably look forward to a long, unpleasant interrogation, and you’ll still lose your HDD.
On the other hand, developing nations and your less scrupulous developed nations are much more inclined to say “screw it” and indulge in Lead Pipe cryptanalysis. (LPC, a term coined by webcartoonist Howard Tayler, is “where you skip all the fancy hacking and just beat the password out of somebody with a lead pipe.”)
Some other alternatives: There are some encryption schemes that are designed to be resistant to machine cryptanalysis, i.e., setting a few dozen supercomputers to chug through every possible encryption scheme.
There is, however, no encryption scheme that is resistant to LPC. You’ll lose your data and be left wheelchair-bound by some “enhanced interrogation.”
A better policy would be to not keep anything sensitive on your hard drive. If you have the option and trust your ISP, upload any necessary documents to an FTP server that you feel you can trust. However, make sure that the server is not physically located (i.e., in Meatspace, subject to national boundaries) in the country in which you work, in any country which might have a keen interest in what you’ve got on that server, or any country which could theoretically be manipulated into turning over data on that FTP server.
Remember that, at least in the US—and in most other countries where a journalist’s privacy might be in jeopardy—there are no over-arching Shield laws to protect journalists and their sources, and data can be subpoenaed or confiscated.
The best policy? Just as a savvy journalist doesn’t write down anything in a notebook that some nosy entity might want to look at, don’t commit to digital format anything you don’t want to be read.
Send lawyers, guns and money,
J.

God knows a hivemind would help.

2009-11-07T14:24:00.000-08:00

There are some people who will be late to their own funerals. If that's true, Colombia as a nation is going to show up late to the Day of Judgement. The Lord of All Creation will be sitting there on His throne, taping his foot, his (literally) saintly patience wearing then, and the archangels will be blowing their horns with the strident, "Are you kidding me?" tones of an alarm clock that's been set to snooze for the 17th time.
Colombia, not understanding what the big deal is, will answer with an exasperated, "Ya voy! Ya voy!"
I am thus baffled as to how an entire city of 8 million people can be late with a consistency that borders on the pathological, yet conduct themselves with the single-minded fixation on their own affairs usually reserved for insects. (All of the disregard for others, none of the efficiency.)
At times I think the Transmilenio, Bogotá's mass transit system, is a metaphor for my beefs with the city. I love the system; it's efficient, accessible, safe, convenient. My problem is the other god damned people.
You will never have to waite more than 10 minutes for your bus to swing by (usually not even that long) and another will be along shortly. And yet as soon as those doors open, would-be passengers start forcing their way onto the bus like it's the last chopper out of Saigon. Meanwhile, those who want to get off to avoid being trapped forever in public transit perdition, straight out of Stephen King's wet dreams--a chain of endless stops and starts, forever moving yet never going anywhere--have to throw themselves at the crush of humanity like they're storming Omaha Beach.
Never mind that it's quicker to let others disembark first... and you run less risk of sustaining a concussion due to gladiatorial shoving matches. Never mind that the bus is not going to leave without you.
"Marines, we are LEAVING!"

WMD charges: Bone-chilling or boring

2009-10-30T08:54:00.000-07:00

History certainly has a way of repeating itself, with minor variations—sometimes significant, sometimes less so.
When I was working as an editor at my college’s student newspaper, I was shocked to see that a teenager in Chesterfield, S.C. was being charged with planning to use a weapon of mass destruction (WMD) in an attempt to blow up his high school. At the time, I wrote a column wherein I questioned the prosecutor’s decision in charging 18-year-old Ryan Schallenberger with attempted use of a WMD. I argued that applying such a label to a 10 lb. bomb—to be used in an attack on a high school serving a town of less than 1500—might evoke the desired emotional response in the short term, but in the long run would only desensitize the American public to what should be a gut wrenching, cold sweat-inducing term.
Now, a Jordanian man accused of planning to blow up a Dallas, Texas skyscraper has pleaded not guilty to a charge of “attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction.” In a plan reminiscent of Timothy McVeigh’s 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building or the attempt by a conspiracy led by Ramzi Yousef to destroy the World Trade Center in 1993, 19-year-old Hosam Smadi is alleged to have parked what he thought was a car bomb in the parking garage of the Fountain Place building. The bomb was a dummy, sold to Smadi by undercover FBI agents. (The device, predictably, failed to detonate.)
What constitutes a WMD? Federal law is rather vague on this point, perhaps intentionally. As defined in Title 18, Section 2332 of the United States Code, a WMD can fit the traditional, Cold War-era definition of a nuclear, biological, or chemical weapon. Section 921, however, also allows a WMD to be “any destructive device” as federal law defines it—and federal law is, once again, awfully vague. A layman’s reading might yield the meaning of “anything designed, intended, or repurposed to injure or kill a human being.” The U.S. Code does not, however, stipulate a minimum body count or lethal potential for a destructive device to be labeled a weapon of mass destruction, just as the Geneva Conventions are purposefully ambiguous on the definition of “genocide.”
The wide array of possible candidates for WMD status isn’t simply a question of semantics. Since the end of the Cold War, and especially since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, U.S. lawmakers have had to reassess what qualifies as a destructive device or a weapon of mass destruction. A commercial airliner would hardly seem fit, unless it was rammed into a building at over 400 miles an hour.
Legal definitions have been forced to adapt to the changing nature of violence and terrorism. On the one hand, a more loosely defined offense gives prosecutors greater flexibility in charging suspects. On the other, overuse of that relatively-newfound freedom may very well desensitize Americans.
The difference between “destructive device” and “weapon of mass destruction” shouldn’t be merely an academic debate. Words have power, and to inure listeners to the effect of what should be three terrifying words robs those words of their power. What then? We accept, as a society, that some crimes are inherently worse than others. Thus, as a society, we have an obligation to police our use of emotionally-charged language to ensure that a grave charge doesn’t become merely a cliché.

"Be careful with him. He's not a good sort."

2009-10-19T15:51:00.000-07:00

I have new upstairs neighbors. I feel about this situation much the same way I felt about living in a dorm in college.

So far, we haven’t gotten off to a jolly good start. Why, might you ask? It could possibly be their penchant for moving in sometime around 1 am, and spending the next several hours moving furniture and unpacking. All, of course, while yelling across the apartment to each other in a manner that could charitably be likened to the screaming of a crack-addled, unhinged homeless man.

Or it might be the penchant for blasting music at decibel levels usually reserved for the runways of major airports or the decks of WWII battleships.

Or it could possibly be related to the fact that the son of the family was described to me by my Colombian roommates as “not a good sort.”

Here it’s necessary to digress into a discussion of cultural/linguistic subtext. In most parts of the US, a teenager who “isn’t a good sort” might smoke a lot of pot, get into fights at school, get his stepdad to buy him and his friends a thirty-pack of Coors, and spend his weekends cow-tipping or taking a baseball bat to his neighbors’ mailboxes.

A Colombian telling you that someone “isn’t a good sort” could be translated to (North American, Middle-Class, Suburban) English as, “I saw him desecrating the corpse of a golden lab puppy, in honor of the Duke of Hell Beelzebub, while doing a line of coke off the body of a prostitute he had just knifed. Oh, and he was selling heroin to a group of poor-but-with-so-much-potential inner-city teens.”

Now, my roomies are, admittedly, paranoid worry-warts. However, when it comes to my living arrangements, my ideal roommates would be ex-SEALS, and our perimeter security would make the 38^th Parallel look a sunlit field of daisies full of fluffy bunnies and sugar cookies. Since I, too, am more than a little paranoid, we get along just fine.

I have now been cautioned against leaving my window open or leaving the back door unlocked. It is worth noting that the back door opens only onto a patio, and that my bedroom window is an interior window with no access from the street.

The rationale: Someone could, from the 3^rd floor, climb down to our patio or to my window and use it to gain ingress to our apartment. Sound a little far-fetched? Welcome to Colombia. So right now, I’m considering employing the time-honored method of discouraging burglars: shards of broken glass lining the surface that could be used for hand- or footholds. Personally, I’m not ruling out sprinkling the bedroom floor with caltrops. Punji sticks are, likewise, an option. If I wasn’t on the second-floor, I would be writing this post during a break from digging the tiger-trap.

Send lawyers, guns and money,

Clown Parade!

2009-08-10T14:50:00.000-07:00

A new story/photo essay of mine has gone up on Colombia Reports. Click the picture below to go to the story.

As always, send lawyers, guns and money,

J.

A Note on Colombian Rhetoric

2009-07-12T14:22:00.000-07:00

Colombian political phrasing has always reflected the world sociopolitical climate, especially when it comes to challengers to the state’s monopoly on the use of force. During the Cold War, the FARC were “communists,” which was technically accurate. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia were the militant wing of the Colombian Communist Party and were funded, trained and supplied by the Soviet Union.
In the ‘80s and ‘90s, the Cold War drew to a close and the Hemisphere’s attention turned to the meteoric rise of the cocaine trade and the equally astronomical escalation of drug violence. No longer “communists” in political discourse—though still a communist organization—the FARC were labeled “narcos” or drug traffickers. This, too, was an accurate label, since, as Soviet funding dried up, the communist guerrillas secured arms and income through alliances with the ultra-capitalist druglords.
Finally, in the last years of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st, the FARC became “terrorists.” Getting into the appropriateness of that particular term is a political and semantic quagmire; one man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter. If defined as “criminal acts, including against civilians, committed with the intent to cause death or serious bodily injury, or taking of hostages, with the purpose to provoke a state of terror in the general public or in a group of persons or particular persons, intimidate a population or compel a government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act,” (as defined by UN Security Council Resolution 1566) however, there’s a grain of truth to it.
The question in political discourse isn’t the accuracy of the term, but its use in stripping away identity and painting “the Bad Guys” as a faceless, monolithic, puppy-kicking horde of That Which We Most Despise. During the ‘60s and ‘70s, a college professor who was outspokenly critical was a communist. These days, Uribe calls them the “intellectual bloc” of the FARC—which is constantly labeled as a terrorist group.
All of the names that the FARC and others have been called—communists, narcos, terrorists—are true or have an aspect of truth to them, but the choice of words has always been tailored to what the international community (read: the United States) wants to hear. Staging a raid into another country to kill communists in 2008 makes one sound like a crackpot, and bombing drug dealers seems like a military solution to a law-enforcement problem. Killing terrorists, however, is just peachy by current international standards and expectations.

A Continent of Dunces

2009-07-12T14:01:00.000-07:00

Reason has prevailed, at least, in the matter of an Ecuadorian judge’s crusade against former Colombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos. Not on either side of the Colombia/Ecuador border, but on the part of Interpol.
Interpol issued a statement saying that the organization, which promotes cooperation among law enforcement agencies of the member nations, would not be issuing an arrest warrant for Santos, as judge Daniel Méndez requested July 3.
This whole comedy of errors can be traced back to March 1, 2008, when Colombian forces violated Ecuador’s airspace to launch an airstrike against “Raul Reyes,” the nom du guerre of Luis Edgar Devia Silva of the FARC’s Southern Bloc. The attack, dubbed “Operation Phoenix,” succeeded in both extinguishing the life of Reyes and igniting a firestorm of controversy.
Following complaints by the Ecuadorian government about both the lack of notification and the violation of sovereignty, Santos belligerently responded that, eerily reminiscent of the Bush Doctrine, Colombian sovereignty extended beyond geopolitical boundaries when it came to fighting terrorism.
Needless to say, relations between the two nations have been frosty ever since. Just when it seemed that tempers had cooled and leveler heads had prevailed, on July 3, 2009, a judge from the Ecuadorian province of Sucumbios decided to dig up the buried hatchet. At the urging of prosecutor Carlos Jiménez, judge Daniel Méndez issued an arrest warrant for Santos. The charge? The murder of an Ecuadorian national who was in the FARC encampment at the time of the airstrike.
The backlash from Colombian president Alvaro Uribe was swift and vehement. To call the rhetoric “heated” is an understatement.
With the official petition to Interpol for the capture of Santos, “rhetoric” transformed into vitriol. In what could easily be called a diatribe, Uribe condemned the judge, Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa, and the international community in harsh terms. “I don’t understand why, when the [Organization of American States] and the countries of the continent…come out to denounce the coup in Honduras, they maintain silence regarding the coup” perpetrated by the judge, Uribe said Friday to a crowd of supporters in Barranquilla. [Editor’s note: Please forgive the translations; they’re my own.] Uribe went so far as to call Méndez a “supporter of terrorism” and accused him of “aiding and abetting the FARC.”
Could things in this section of the Andes get much more ludicrous? It’s a terrible thing that an innocent bystander was killed—but filing an arrest warrant for a foreign government official is a pointless, futile gesture intended to do nothing more than stir up controversy. Méndez and Jiménez had to have known at the time that this Quixotic crusade was going nowhere—and if they didn’t know, then they’re hardly qualified to dabble in international criminal law.
Frankly, as far as injured parties pursuing criminal proceedings against foreign officials goes, the governments of Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan have a stronger case. One citizen in the middle of an armed camp in the middle of nowhere? One quickly runs out of legitimate reasons why he would have been caught in the crossfire.
Not that Colombia has come out clean in all this. Simply put, this nation doesn’t play nice with anyone, whether its neighbors or its nationals. When Correa accused Colombia of being influenced by its “imperialist” backers, he was right—for the wrong reasons.
Colombia—including Uribe and his likely successor in the presidency, Santos—have been very closely following in the footsteps of the US of 2000-2008. The words and phrases, the assertions of sovereignty extending beyond borders, and the “with us or against us” attitude are all strongly reminiscent of the United States following the September 11, 2001 attacks. [Look here for a note on Colombian rhetoric.]
Luckily, Interpol put a stop to this nonsense .
As explicitly stated in the third article of INTERPOL's Constitution, “It is strictly forbidden for the Organization to undertake any intervention or activities of a political, military, religious or racial character.“ [Emphasis added.]
As noted above, the instigating parties knew from the start that this farce had no hope of succeeding. The only thing to come of it has been regional controversy. It is and always has been a transparently political move. The pretense of a desire for justice is laughable and not fooling any but the most nationalistic flag-waver and sabre-rattler.
Yet another reason why those in charge of the law shouldn’t dabble in politics.

Red, White & The Blues

2009-07-04T17:13:00.000-07:00

Today’s the 4th of July.
It’s an odd feeling, spending my first (real) holiday as an expat. It makes me homesick for reasons I can’t place.
Especially in the later years of my admittedly young life, my patriotism and feelings for the land of my birth have waxed and waned. I’ve never been what the Man in Black called “a flag-wavin’, patriotic nephew of my Uncle Same.”
Moreover, I can’t really remember the last time I really celebrated Independence Day. Mostly it was an excuse to purchase fireworks outside of city limits and set them off (illegally) inside. The last time I went to anything close to a celebration of the holiday was just after I graduated high school, and as I recall a friend and I almost started a brushfire. Most of my fond memories of the Fourth of July are a decade or more old—neighborhood barbecues in Huntsville or catching a Stars or Rangers baseball game mostly to watch the fireworks.
Maybe it’s the condition of being an expat that does it. Far from home, family and old friends—and farther from the culture in which I was steeped for almost all my life—it makes you feel more keenly an attachment to that which no longer surrounds you every second of every day.
It’s also possible that the recent political shift in the US has instilled in me a fresh dose of nationalism. While I certainly don’t agree with everything President Obama’s done (see my upcoming post on Honduras), I remember the hope for the future that I felt on the night of November 4, 2008. I remember feeling like maybe I wouldn’t have to be ashamed or apologetic for the actions of my nation. I’m not about to sport a “These Colors Don’t Run” or “Proud to be an American” shirt, but it’s an improvement nonetheless.
Whatever it is, I feel nostalgia and longing for the Land of the Big PX, as a friend calls it. So here’s to you, Old Glory. I’ll be cooking hot dogs and raising a glass to you this evening.

***Addendum***
Colombia may have its own screwed-up logic to it, but not when it comes to packaging food. Hot dogs (or salchicha) are sold in packs of six. Hot dog buns? Also in packages of six. Brilliant!

Follow-up: Award-winning!

2009-04-26T17:56:00.000-07:00

Kira, being the kind and wonderful friend she is, accepted my award for me last night from the Presswomen of Texas. I won second place for an editorial entitled "Police behavior raises eyebrows, concerns: Treatment of journalists at RNC infringes First Amendment protections". (Appropriately, Kira won first place in the same category with a piece on Sunshine Week.)

Reprinted here is the article for which I won the award, which ran in the Observer on September 17, 2008. All work is my own intellectual property unless otherwise stated.

Police behavior raises eyebrows, concerns
Treatment of journalists at RNC infringes First Amendment protections

It should come as no surprise that tensions and tempers ran high during the Republican National Convention (RNC) that lasted from Sept. 1-4. It was inevitable that such an emotionally and politically charged atmosphere would see its share of violent outbursts, and that the Twin Cities police would step in. That's their job. And putting themselves in the middle of these volatile situations to report the news is the job of journalists.
This responsibility and right of the press tends to lead them into conflict with those charged with maintaining order, and both parties have to toe a very fine line.
The Twin Cities Police Department, however, crossed the line in the case of University of Kentucky journalism students Ed Matthews and Brittany McIntosh and their faculty adviser Jim Winn.
Though not assigned to cover the RNC by the Kentucky Kernel, the university's student newspaper, the two photographers and the Kernel's photo adviser went to Minneapolis to gain professional experience. All were marked clearly with press passes and carrying their photography equipment when they were arrested on charges of felony riot, a felony that carries a minimum of one year incarceration and a fine of at least $3,000.
Winn was reportedly thrown to the ground and arrested at gunpoint, and McIntosh received the same treatment after walking with her hands in the air as police advanced.
A now-infamous photo of Ed Matthews shows him, camera poised, turning his head to avoid a stream of pepper spray fired by police. The Associated Press photographer who captured the image, Mark Rourke, was arrested in the same incident and released within a few hours with no charges filed. Winn, McIntosh and Matthews were released after being detained for two days, with charges pending investigation.
Rourke and the Kentucky journalists weren't the only victims. Amy Goodman, host of syndicated radio and television program Democracy Now!, was arrested for asking two police officers in riot gear about the status of two producers of the program who had already been arrested. The arresting officers cited the reason for arrest as a misdemeanor of "obstructing the legal process."
The policy of "arrest them all and sort them out later" adopted by the Twin Cities Police makes a certain degree of sense; after all, riot situations are by definition chaotic and violent, with journalists wielding cameras rubbing elbows with rioters armed with rocks and bricks. But to detain students and professors for two days for doing nothing more than being journalists is to cross the line from law enforcement into suppression of journalistic freedom. Goodman's arrest, as shown by the footage freely available on Web sites such as YouTube, didn't occur amidst booted feet, riot shields, tear gas and thrown rocks.
Whatever the excesses of the Twin Cities police in dealing with protesters, their conduct and the treatment of journalists was unprofessional and capricious. In the name of protecting the public, those assigned to guard the RNC violated the essential premise underlying the First Amendment: The press, too, exists to safeguard the public, at times from those who profess to serve and protect.

Award-winning!

2009-04-19T12:26:00.000-07:00

I'm now an award-winning journalist! The Texas Intercollegiate Press Association (TIPA) has recognized me with an Honorable Mention for a Feature piece that I wrote for the Observer. Back in late February or March, I received a Second Place award for editorial writing from the Press Women of Texas (PWT).
Sadly, I'm not sure which pieces were so honored. I won't know until later this month, and unfortunately I won't be in the States to receive the awards in person. (Hopefully I can get someone to pimp the site for me: "Justin isn't here to receive this award because he's pursuing his calling in Ecuador, where he owns and operates QuitoPulso.com, an independent English-language Internet news service." But I digress.)
I am an idiot, unfortunately. However, I'm very lucky to have really amazing friends. Since I didn't bother to pick pieces of mine for submission for these competitions, certain very good friends (you know who you are) picked up the slack and submitted on my behalf.

Send lawyers, guns and money,

J.

Copy Editor

2009-04-11T16:45:00.000-07:00

I'm now a volunteer copy editor over at Colombia Reports, the English-language Internet news service where I published my first photo as a Latin American journalist. Once I've got my own site up and running, we'll be doing an exchange of links and pieces--the story from the other side of the border, if you will. (For the geographically-challenged, Ecuador and Colombia are neighbors.)
Go check 'em out--Adriaan and his crew are good people, very much committed to their calling.

Send lawyers, guns and money,
J.

(Update: Look here to see my credit on the site! Check under "Hi, we're Colombia Reports.")

Juan Valdez Cafe

2009-04-11T16:34:00.000-07:00

The Juan Valdez Cafe is the Colombian answer to Starbucks: one on every corner, inside the mall, outside that same mall, occasionally on opposing street corners. A large black coffee (tinto campesino) will set you back about one dollar USD, or 2500 Colombian Pesos. In Colombia, that price is kind of like trying to sell sand to a Bedouin, or brimstone to Satan, at $1000 a kilo.
The difference between JV and Starbucks, of course, is that it's actually decent coffee. (In Colombia, I'd hope so!) And by "actually decent" I mean it's amazing--from someone who hates the taste of coffee. The only reason I could stomach Starbucks in the States was because most of their offerings tasted nothing remotely like coffee.
The other, admittedly tangential, difference is that JV needs no pretentious faux-Italian names for sizes. "Grande" actually means "large" here. A novel concept, no?
Juan Valdez's coffee is damn near addictive. I've had two large tintos in the space of four hours. I'd say that they must spike it with something, but I think that joke might not go over so well here.

(Note: I'm well aware that caffeine is addictive. You needn't tell that to a guy whose stimulant-saturated drink of choice is yerba mate.)

Send lawyers, guns and money,
J.

We Become What We Hate (or at Least Gently Mock)

2009-04-10T15:22:00.000-07:00

I have become what I accused my other journalist friends of being.

I was hanging out in one of the parks downtown, taking pictures and relaxing. Down at the far end of the park, I noticed an ambulance moving through at a not-insignificant rate of speed. It wasn’t hard to notice, of course, what its with white-and-radioactive-green sidepanels and whirling red emergency lights moving through an otherwise tranquil scene of parkbenches and lush greenery.

My first thought? “Thank gods I’ve got my camera.”

Bogotá’s a little strange—all that beautiful, soft grass and an army of “Keep off the grass” signs. There are footpaths aplenty, but they’re circuitous and I had a possible accident to investigate.

Luckily, the footpaths are spaced closely together enough that, using my gringo superpowers—namely, long legs—I leapt from path to path to catch up to the paramedics.

…Who, as it happened, were strolling sedately toward the public toilet.

I felt a flash of irritation. Not, as one might assume, because they could have endangered public safety by rolling through a park at a speed that could be called “brisk” by automotive standards. Though there is that, too. I was peeved by the fact that those emergency lights did not, in fact, signify an emergency.

Yes, I am now an ambulance chaser.

Send lawyers, guns and money,

Press Safety: Cameras & Less-Than-Legal Activities.

2009-04-05T14:21:00.000-07:00

On March 18, a cameraman for a Ecuadorian TV station was assaulted by a mob. He was on assignment, filming a protest by the Quito taxi driver's union that had turned rowdy. Several of the protesters took to vandalizing parked cars, and when they realized they were being taped, the mob turned on the cameraman, took his camera, and destroyed the footage. (Read the full story here.)

Like an anthropologist, a print journalist can promise anonymity to subjects and sources engaged in activities of dubious legality. In most cases, there is something inherently non-threatening about a pen and a notepad. Subjects and sources who are skeptical can be convinced--or they can simply refuse to be interviewed or observed.

A camera changes everything. There is an immediate--at times violent--reaction to being filmed or photographed doing something you shouldn't.

Never mind that concealing the identity of a subject in a compromising situation is a matter of three clicks and thirty seconds in Photoshop or Final Cut. There is something indelible about film, something that is both instantaneous and utterly permanent.

The majority of good, credible journalism doesn't happen in a studio with waivers and forms promising confidentiality. Journalism happens where the news does.

It occurs to me that journalists--or rather the media on the whole--are to blame for this effect. The CNN era of instantaneous reporting from anywhere in the world has increased the audience--and thus the impact--of a single photo or video clip geometrically. Is anyone keen on the idea of having an entire city or an entire nation see them keying cars?

Send lawyers, guns and money,
J.

Liberation (or, the Coyote Solution)

2009-04-03T09:58:00.000-07:00

To get into a college or university in the United States, you have to take a test. There are two tests that are widely accepted as entrance exams: The SAT and ACT. The differences between the two are purely academic. The tests prove nothing, measure nothing except your ability to take that particular test. They're purely arbitrary yardsticks that can determine the course of your life for the foreseeable future.

Getting out of college is a lot like getting into college. Due to pressure from professors, family, friends and, of course, finances, you're forced to pass a ridiculous test which demonstrates nothing except that you know how to give the answer that is expected of you.

This test consists of only one question. You receive no "freebie" points for writing your name.

What will you do after college?

A. Live in poverty to avoid working a job you hate.
B. Take a job you hate. After all, you've got bills to pay, and Sallie Mae's legbreakers just threw a textbook through your window with an Outstanding Interest Statement wrapped around it.
C.) Grad school. It's poverty, but at least it's dignified poverty.

It's a game of blackjack with blank cards, infinite stakes and a dealer who won't stop smiling. The only rules are these: You can't win and you can't break even.

The answer is simple. Choose

Z.) I refuse to play the game.

It's what one of my best friends calls "The Coyote Solution;" win the game by nullifying the rules.

When I graduated from college in January, I was faced with a host of unappealing options.

A.) Stay in Sherman near my people, who will eventually leave.
B.) Move in with my parents until I find a job in the States.
C.) Move in with a buddy and put my name on a lease.
D.) Find a job to pay the bills until I found what I wanted to do.

I put down my pencil and walked out.

I sold my car and my worldly possessions. I borrowed money from my family, bought my camera equipment, and booked a flight to South America.

I chose the Coyote Solution.

It's only been four weeks, but they have been four of the happiest weeks of my life. I am the kind of stupidly, blissfully happy usually reserved for lobotomy patients, the helmet-wearing short-bus crowd, and the newly enamored.

For the first time in God knows how long, I do not worry about anything. This kind of anxiety-free equilibrium with one's circumstances must be what zen masters and opium addicts feel.

I am liberated. I am outside the System. I am where I want to be, doing what I want to do. To paraphrase St. Durden, I refuse to work a job that I hate to buy s*** I don't need. I do what I wish because it makes me happy. As soon as it stops being fun, I'll find something else to do.

That is the essence of liberation in my mind. To let slip the shackles that you've made for yourself and take complete control of your life. Liberation is the establishment of personal sovereignty: to be the only one who decides your circumstances.

Send lawyers, guns and money,

Reflection: One Week Later

2009-03-28T14:53:00.000-07:00

Note: I wrote this on 22/3/09, within hours of taking the photo that was posted to Colombia Reports. (For the original post, click here.) At the time, I wasn't sure what I felt, if anything. Now, I'm still not exactly sure, but I feel more at ease with my reaction and my behavior. This is the life I've chosen, and it isn't necessarily going to get easier with time.

A police officer was hit by a taxi outside my window this morning.

The hood of the taxi was crumpled up, the windshield cracked. The officer's legs were twisted at unnatural angles. His shoulders were hunched upward and inward. His arms would twitch sporadically, fingers making claws. It was raining heavily, so I wouldn't realize until they loaded him into the ambulance just how much blood covered his face and the pavement.

I know this because I watched the whole thing, and photographed it.

I heard a squeal of brakes; a sickening, meaty crunch; shouts and screams. A quick glance out the window: a taxi, skewed across two lanes; an olive-clad form lying on its side, blood trickling from its mouth and booted feet tangential (at the wrong angle) to uniform slacks. I ran to get my camera.

The apartment's patio had an unobstructed view of the scene, of the onlookers lining the street, of the wrecked taxi and its panicking driver. I got out there, camera in hand—and I choked.

I took a couple of shots and went back inside. I'm not sure if the daggers I felt being glared at me were the actual stares of the onlookers or my own self-consciousness. Did they see the bald gringo standing in his undershirt on a balcony, or was that picture only in my mind's eye?

I had no credentials, nothing that said “journalist.” A gringo with a camera is, nine times out of ten, a tourist. A gringo with a camera at the scene of an accident is probably a voyeur.

I fled back inside. Nick was standing by the window, looking down. I mentioned my dilemma to him.

“I can't decide between being a journalist and looking like a decent human being.”

He looked up at me. “Be a journalist.”

I ran upstairs to my room and opened the window so that I could peek out and still get some decent, discrete shots. I told myself that I was being respectful, and that I was doing it for their sake—for the paramedics, for the cop's friends, for the driver and for the onlookers. The objective part of my brain, though, knows that I was doing it so that I wouldn't be thought an asshole gringo.

It's a fear I'm going to have to get over. With a press pass or credentials, I hope it'll be easier. The biggest challenge I have to overcome, every time, is my dread of imposing on others. (Specifically, having others see me as imposing on them.) It happened in Cusco with my research; it happened at the Herald Democrat with interviews for the paper; and it's happening now. In all those instances, I had to swallow my anxiety and get over it. If I plan to make my living as a journalist, it's something I can't tolerate.

As for the officer, I believe that he died. There was a lot of blood on his face, his clothing, the windshield of the taxi. The ambulance took a long time to pull out—not the kind of sirens-blaring exit one would imagine for a badly injured police officer.

Right now, I'm not sure what I feel. I'm not sure I feel anything. The dominant emotion at the time was my own anxiety at being seen as some sick, bloodthirsty tourist. I don't think I've fully absorbed that I may have watched a man die this morning just before lunch.

What put the distance between he and I? I don't think it was the four floors separating us. I worry that it was the camera and all it represents. A 15x optical zoom brings you so much closer to your subject visually but allows you to insulate your emotions from what you observe. I was thinking about angles, getting my subject in the frame, trying for action shots of bicycle paramedics scrabbling in their packs for neck braces or shooing onlookers back another few meters. I wasn't thinking about his wife, the dread the taxi driver must have felt or that of the driver's sobbing family (who rushed over as fast as they could).

It feels like an odd paradox: I'm a journalist to tell people's stories, but today the story isolated me from the people. It's a balance that will only come with time, I think.

In the meantime, however, send lawyers, guns and money.

Colombian Graffiti, pt. II: CliChé

2009-03-26T16:12:00.000-07:00

More photos of street art from my neighborhood in Bogotá, Chapinero Alto.

One of my personal favorites. This is the side of a movie cafe with directors and famous movie covers painted on the side of it. Because it's in Latin America and is even vaguely related to the younger generation, it has to have a picture of Che Guevara.

So someone else came along with a can of blue spray paint and drew a speech bubble: "CliChé." I love it.

Colombian Graffiti, pt. I

2009-03-23T13:07:00.000-07:00

The street corner across from my complex. You might be able to see it in some of the pics, but there's a sign listing it as an area "destinada para graffiti"--designated for graffiti, where anyone can paint without prior authorization and without penalty.

A bit more panoramic view of the street corner. I wish I had changed the aperture and got a bit more motion blur on the car.

A piece of graffiti. I'm not sure if "Soldier n' Saint" is the artist or the name of the painting. Pretty, regardless.

A zoomed out shot of that one.

Published!

2009-03-23T09:55:00.001-07:00

I now have my first credit as a Latin American journalist: a photo credit on Colombia Reports, an English-language Internet news service based here in Colombia.
I'll write more about the story when I have a chance. Click on the photo to go to the Colombia Reports site and see the full-size image.

Send lawyers, guns, and money,
J.