Flying To and Within Colombia
Aug 8th
Your options for traveling to Colombia, as well as within Colombia, became vastly more varied and economical recently. Colombia, and South America in general, is a very lucrative market for airlines, with passenger traffic growing dramatically even during the world economic crisis. Discount airlines have also entered this arena, filling a void and actually increasing demand further for a large segment of the population that couldn’t afford typically high fares. While Bogota used to be the air travel hub in Colombia, there’s more and more flights on offer that will take you to and from other Colombian cities without connecting at El Dorado, the capital’s international airport.
Speaking of airports, it seems most of the old passenger terminals in the country are undergoing a much needed face lift since they were collectively bought by a Chinese consortium. For a time, traveling through these airports can be rather chaotic. I was in Medellin’s Jose Maria Cordova airport in late February, where there was dust and construction throughout, and, horror of horrors, only chemical toilets in the boarding area!
Aires, the homegrown discount airline, has spearheaded the drive to offer affordable travel in this country. It’s now possible to travel between just about any major city in Colombia with Aires for 55 to 65 US dollars (at current exchange rates), taxes included, each way. Aires has also started offering flights to Fort Lauderdale, New York, Aruba and Curacao, but I should point-out that there’s almost always a connection within Colombia and often two or more. Another small local discount airline is Easyfly, which uses turboprops and has only a few national flights. Jet Blue, the American discount giant, serves Bogota exclusively, while Spirit Airways has entered the fray, proffering direct flights from Fort Lauderdale to Medellin, Barranquilla, Armenia, and Cartagena. Note that once you factor in all the extra fees Spirit charges, even for your carry-on bag, your fare probably won’t be such a deal.
The new competition forced the old airlines, such as Avianca and Aero Republica, to begin offering deep discounts on local and international routes. I remember wanting to go from Medellin to Santa Marta two years ago during the off season, only to discover that the return fare with Avianca, the only airline flying direct, came out to about 480 dollars for what amounts to a 40 minute hop. Aero Republica (Copa), the only alternative at the time, seemed to be colluding with Avianca, as their fare wasn’t much better and you had to change planes in Bogota. The same flight now with Avianca would cost me only about 180 USD, and 125 USD with Aero Republica. That’s quite a drop and these airlines must be feeling nostalgic about the good old days when they made air travel the exclusive domain of the Colombian upper class!
While national flights or from the USA are more affordable now, the same can’t be said if you’re coming from elsewhere. Air Canada, for example, has a direct service from Toronto to Bogota, but it’ll cost you around 900 Canadian dollars (about the same in US). In that case, you’re better off flying one of the US airlines, connecting in a major US hub, and save yourself up to 300 dollars.
The Odds of Chavez Invading Colombia Increase
Jul 31st
The news just came in that Venezuela’s strongman, Hugo Chavez, is preparing for war and has ordered his army to position itself across the length of the border the country shares with Colombia. The pretext for this troop deployment is Chavez’s claim that outgoing Colombian president Alvaro Uribe is capable of anything in his final days in office (his term ends August 7), including launching an attack against Venezuela. Earlier this month, Chavez severed diplomatic ties with Colombia when Uribe announced publicly that he had irrefutable evidence that FARC and ELN, the Colombian rebel groups, have bases deep inside Venezuelan territory, and are aided and abetted by Venezuelan authorities.
Chavez’s exaggerated and irrational grandstanding is nothing new, having called for preparations for war with Colombia repeatedly over the past two years. Chavez has continuously referred to the neighboring nation as the puppet of the “empire”, namely the United States. Every leader in history who traveled the road to dictatorship has needed a scapegoat to justify drastic measures or distract public attention from the failure of his policies. Chavez finds himself at a crossroads on September 26 when parliamentary elections are scheduled*. Chavez currently enjoys an absolute majority in Venezuela’s parliament, as all opposition parties boycotted the previous elections in 2005. Chavez’ s opponents have no intention of sitting this one out, and it’s widely believed that his Bolivarian party will lose badly, a direct result of the hardships endured by common Venezuelans, enraged by the collapsing economy, scores of business and property expropriations on Chavez’s personal orders, massive radio and TV station shutdowns or takeovers, not to mention chronic electricity and food shortages.
It is therefore predictable that he might do anything, to paraphrase Chavez himself, to prevent his power base and his plan to transform Venezuela into a Cuba-like state from being eroded September 26. He could corrupt the vote, jail the opposition on trump charges (his favorite is conspiracy to assassinate him), or , and this is what I fear, fabricate a threat to national security that warrants canceling the election. His stars are currently aligned should he choose to do the latter: Uribe, his arch enemy, is about to be replaced by Santos, who has used a conciliatory tone; the USA, his only real military worry, is perceived as being weak under President Obama and doesn’t have the stomach to intervene militarily in the region, especially since Chavez currently enjoys the support of Russia.
Bearing in mind the considerable efforts Chavez has made to undermine the stability of Colombia over the years, one might get the sense that an eventual expropriation of the neighboring country could be one of his Bolivarian plans. There’s little doubt Chavez shelters, finances, and arms rebel groups on a continuing basis, and has intentionally sabotaged commerce between the countries in order to divide public opinion among Colombians (the strategy worked). He also meddled in Colombia’s presidential elections this year by proclaiming that if Santos won, there would surely be war (it didn’t work, Santos won by a landslide). Venezuelan police also regularly incarcerate ordinary Colombians living in, or visiting Venezuela, accusing them of espionage. Lastly, Chavez has relentlessly vilified and insulted Colombian dignitaries, especially Uribe, both on his daily TV show, Alo Presidente, as well as on the international stage.
This is one time I’m hoping I’m wrong, however even if I am about the timing, I have absolutely no fear of equivocation when I say that Chavez will eventually seek to emulate his imaginary mentor, Simon Bolivar, and “liberate” South America.
RCN’s Brian Andrews Chased Out of Colombia — NOT!
Jul 17th
It was to my greatest shock that I learned from the most respected newspaper in Colombia, El Tiempo, that the American expatriate, Brian Andrews, affectionately known as El Gringo by his colleagues at RCN News in Bogota, had his life threatened and quietly made his exit from this country, vowing never to return. Then I visited Andrews’ blog, where he claims the story is a fabrication.
Andrews has been the English voice for the RCN News web site for two years, occasionally speaking in Spanish in his unmistakable thick American accent for the network’s promos on television. While he confirms that he faces a “security situation”, not much else is true and he never spoke to any reporter from El Tiempo, the Bogota newspaper that broke the story.
El Tiempo’s article gives very specific details about Andrews supposed brush with the FARC, Colombia’s drug trafficking rebels. It said he was doing a report on location in Cerrito, Valle, when he was approached by two men on a motorcycle and given the stern warning that if he did not leave Colombia, he would be kidnapped. This, they allege, came on the heels of having been contacted by Interpol and informed that they had credible evidence that he had become a military target for the FARC, the rebel group turned drug traffickers. The story goes on to say that the outgoing US ambassador, William Brownfield, also advised him that he should pack-up and go.
If this is all fictitious, the reporter behind the article should immediately be fired and return to journalism school (if he ever went) and pay special attention to the part about ethics. I admit sheepishly that just before writing this article, I had written another based on the El Tiempo story, posted it here, and syndicated it on two other sites. I quickly had to remove them when I found-out Andrews has a blog and saw his comments on the matter.
We will give Andrews the benefit of the doubt in this matter, but that should not change the rules for all expatriates living here: those of us who have their wits about them know that if you receive a threat in this country, it will be carried out. That is if you even get the courtesy of a warning! As a rule, you do not ask questions of your hosts, as the criminal groups have tentacles that still reach everywhere in this society. The Colombian government has made enormous progress toward improving security here, but there is still a long way to go.
Good luck Brian Andrews!
Colombia: Uribe’s Man Wins Runoff Election
Jun 20th
The polls had been barely closed for 40 minutes when Juan Manuel Santos, candidate for the U (Unity) party was declared the winner in today’s runoff elections. With almost all polls reporting at this hour, Santos leads his rival, Antanas Mockus of the Green Party by a whopping five million votes.
A marked departure from the first vote on May 30th, opinion polls accurately predicted the second round’s outcome, Santos gathering about 69 percent of the popular vote against approximately 27 percent for Mockus. The remaining votes were either blank or disqualified. Many here had expressed the opinion that a headline grabbing military operation last week that liberated four important hostages, including a general, would sway votes in favor of Santos. However, it appears that the landslide victory had been predicated in the first round of voting, where Santos almost attained the 50 percent plus one needed to prevent a runoff. Many who had supported the dark horse, Mockus, had voted for other candidates, perhaps scared by the many controversial statements uttered by the eccentric but charismatic former mayor of Bogota.
Mockus did little to help his cause during the three weeks prior to today, alienating other first round candidates, even those with ideologies compatible with his own. Meanwhile, Santos invited all losing candidates, including Mockus, to join him in the formation of an unity government. The result was that other parties either affiliated themselves with Santos or chose to withhold their support altogether. While the final decision rested in the hands of the voters themselves, Mockus only slightly improved his numbers in the runoff (he had about 22 percent May 30th).
Security during elections has always been problematic in Colombia. Despite the massive deployment of police and military, several incidents marred the day. In the state of Norte de Santander, seven police officers were killed in an ambush near the town of Tibu. The ELN rebel group that operates in that region is suspected of having perpetrated the attack. In the state of Meta, three Colombian armed forces soldiers were also killed in combat operations against FARC rebels.
President Santos will be sworn-in August seventh, and faces many challenges in this country, where poverty still affects almost half the population and rebel groups still roam large tracts of the national territory. Colombians voted for the continuation of the Democratic Security program started by outgoing president Alvaro Uribe eight years ago, which brought the country back from the brink of being a failed state to a nation with high investment potential for its stability and strong economic growth.
Colombia Election Results: No Surprise but Big Surprise
May 30th
Colombians voted today and as expected, no presidential candidate achieved fifty percent plus one, thereby triggering a second round of voting June 20. What was totally unexpected was the way in which the vote was split: the U candidate, Juan Manuel Santos, took the lion’s share with over 46 percent, while the Green party’s Antanas Mockus was a distant second with less than 22 percent, contradicting recent opinion polls that had shown in a dead heat with the Santos. Santos won the vote broadly, leading in every province (departamento) except Putumayo, where Mockus came out on top.
Another surprise is that the Cambio Radical’s Germán Vargas finished third, with just over ten percent, and the Polo Democratico’s Gustavo Petro ended in fourth place with about nine percent. Conservative Noemi Sanin placed fifth with 6 percent, despite having placed consistently third in pre-election polls. The liberal party’s Rafael Pardo garnered less than five percent of the national vote, thereby depriving him of state’s campaign cost subsidy which the top five candidates will enjoy.
Only the top finishers, Santos and Mockus, will be on the ballot in the second round, while the others can now only act as kingmakers, pledging their voter base to one of the two, although in the end, voters might not follow their candidate’s choice. A Santos second round win is almost guaranteed, needing only an additional four percent, while Mockus would have to add almost 29 percent, an almost impossible feat. Any offer Mockus will make to the other parties will sound hollow, while any candidate who walks across the line to the Santos camp is guaranteed real power sharing. Mockus didn’t help his cause by loudly rejecting Gustavo Petro’s offer of a second round alliance prior to the election, despite the fact that the Polo party was the surest bet to align with him. The second round looks to be a simple formality, only serving to reaffirm Santos’ resounding win.
What caused the Mockus support to collapse? Perhaps it was the sum of his many imprudent statements made to the press, including his promise to raise taxes to pay for social programs, made just last week and after the last opinion poll. Perhaps cool heads prevailed today, many Colombians thinking twice about putting an eccentric idealist at the helm of a country still immersed in a bloody battle with terrorists and drug traffickers, preferring to continue with the party that has allowed them to enjoy an unprecedented level of security, letting them continue with their Democratic Security program. It’s not a coincidence that all candidates promised to continue Democratic Security, but in the final analysis, who can best run the program except those who started it, Santos having been an important player in his role as defense minister under outgoing president Alvaro Uribe?
Perhaps the most telling evidence on the effectiveness of the U party’s relentless war on illegal armed groups is that today’s election unfurled without incident, Colombians turning-out to vote in record numbers. No explosions, kidnappings or shootings as in past elections, although the police did detect and disarm a few bombs. The electoral registrar’s system performed flawlessly this time, ballot counts rolling in quickly, with almost all reporting within two hours after polls closed at four pm local time, unlike the recent congressional and senatorial elections which took days to tally and were marred by controversy.
* Election results from the Registradura Nacional de Colombia
Will Colombia Fall for the Mockus Pocus?
May 28th
The Colombian presidential elections are just around the corner and voters seem destined to split the vote between the Green party’s Antanas Mockus and outgoing president Alvaro Uribe’s pick, Juan Manuel Santos. As Colombia’s electoral process requires fifty percent plus one to win, it’s almost guaranteed that there will be a second round of voting June 20th with just the two leading candidates on the ballot.
Photo by Kristen Price
Santos, during his three year stint as Uribe’s defense minister, saw his popularity skyrocket for his involvement in such brilliant military operations as “Jaque” (Checkmate), which resulted in the liberation of the most important hostages held by the FARC rebel group. However, Santos lacks the charisma and oratory skills of his mentor, and this is probably what has contributed to keeping him well below 40 percent in this election’s opinion polls, while Mockus’ numbers have been on the rise. What propelled Mockus to a statistical tie was the ominous threat recently uttered by Venezuela’s dictator, Hugo Chavez: if Santos won, he said, war between the neighboring countries would ensue. Chavez is as feared as he is reviled in Colombia, and has a long history of meddling in the neighboring nation’s affairs.
Mockus was a two term mayor of the Colombian capital, Bogota, who was widely heralded for his innovative social policies. He is also known for his eccentricities, which included dressing up as a super hero, demonstrating in front of the cameras how to shower with a minimum of water, wearing nothing more than a skimpy Speedo, and even mooning an university auditorium audience. His recent wedding was held in a zoo, he and his bride riding on the back of an elephant. Despite his antics, the former philosophy and mathematics professor finds his core supporters among the young, the largest demographic group in Colombia, the country’s population has an average age of 27.6 years, as compared to 36.8 in the USA, or 40.7 in Canada*. Strangely, his popularity is marginal among the country’s poor, the very social stratum most of his political platform is aimed at. The reason for this phenomenon could be that the nation’s disenfranchised are weary of the violence that still stalks their lives, and Mockus has done little to quiet rumors that he would be soft on the rebel groups, narcotics traffickers, and gangs that haunt both cities and rural areas.
Colombia is a complicated country with problems most democracies don’t have to contend with, such as a 48 percent poverty rate** and heavily armed rebel and criminal groups roaming through most of its territory, not to mention continuous threats from Venezuela and its allies. Under the Uribe administration, personal security has increased dramatically, government control having been returned to the major cities and principal highways, as well as vast swaths of rural land. This was achieved via a hard line policy, applying relentless military force, instead of negotiating with illegal organizations. All previous attempts at resolving Colombia’s conflicts by political means have been disastrous. Mockus’ rival, Santos, knows something about such fiascos, as he oversaw former president Andres Pastrana’s ill conceived peace plan that left FARC rebels in control of a territory the size of Switzerland from 1999-2002. This allowed the terrorists to deeply entrench themselves and gain strength, not to mention massacre unprotected local populations. Uribe, who succeeded Pastrana, has managed to disband virtually all paramiltary groups and has severely damaged both the FARC and ELN rebels. All current candidates have pledged to continue Uribe’s “Democratic Security” policy. However, political observers have serious concerns over a possible Mockus triumph.
Mockus has raised alarms with his many shocking statements in front of the press, stirring up further controversy by later denying what he clearly said. One of his biggest gaffes was confessing he admired Hugo Chavez, later claiming he was misinterpreted. In another interview Mockus said the unthinkable: that he if a foreign government (namely Ecuador or Venezuela) called for the extradition of Uribe or Santos, he would permit it should Colombian courts avail it. He also has expressed the wish to transform Colombia into a country without an army, similar to Costa Rica. In a country as embattled as Colombia, musing about disbanding the military may sound insane. In yet another blunder, he asserted that doctors should earn no more than one million pesos a month (about 500 dollars), thereby alienating medical professionals. Finally, he recently said what every politician in the world knows you should never say if you want to get elected: that he would raise taxes! You can show your derriere to the world, but talk of tax increases is like kryptonite! Mockus may have done irreparable damage to his campaign this time.
Colombia can’t risk a four year experiment with Mockus and his Green party at this time, as the security problems of this country are still the main focus and require the leadership of someone who is pragmatic rather than idealistic. An enormous mistake could be made during these elections, thanks to a young population that has a false sense of security and little idea of the fragility of the relatively peaceful times they’re living in, let alone that this only exists because of the hard battles that have been fought over the last several years.
* National average age statistics from the CIA World Factbook.
** 2008 estimate by DANE, the Colombian federal statistical bureau.
Venezuela “Expert” Appointed as the Next Ambassador to Colombia
May 9th
In a move seen as a confirmation that Washington is awakening to the threat posed by the Chavez regime in Venezuela, US president Barack Obama recently nominated Peter Michael McKinley as ambassador to Colombia. McKinley, currently ambassador to Peru, was born in Venezuela, and is said to be an expert on matters regarding Colombia’s troublesome neighbor. His resume includes a book he wrote on the colonial history of Venezuela.
McKinley will replace outgoing ambassador William Brownfield, who is extremely well known and liked in Colombia. McKinley will assume office when Colombia’s new president will be known, which according to current opinion polls may well be the Green party’s Antanas Mockus, a center-left candidate. Mockus has publicly expressed admiration for Venezuela’s dictator, Hugo Chavez, later attempting to mitigate what he had said. Chavez has for several years taken a hard line against Colombia, disrupting virtually all trade between the countries, and recently meddled in the electoral process, claiming that there would be war if Mockus’ main rival, Juan Manuel Santos, was elected. Polls began to favor Mockus immediately after Chavez’ statement.
McKinley will take his post at a time of turmoil, with increasing worries about what Chavez’ next move will be, and an uncertain future political direction in Colombia, the Unied States’ most important South American ally. Venezuela’s military build-up and alliances with Russia and Iran, as well as the spread of his leftist anti-American Bolivarian revolution in Latin America are high on Washington’s list of worries.
Patrick Duddy is the current US ambassador to Venezuela. He was expelled by the Chavez regime in September of 2008 on accusations of planning a coup against the Venezuelan leader. Diplomatic relations with Venezuela were not restored until eight months later, in July of 2009, under the Obama administration, when Duddy was returned to his former post after intense negotiations. In view of the precarious position of the mission in Caracas, having a Venezuela-literate representative in Bogota becomes critical.
The New Face of the Colombian Cocaine Trade
Apr 25th
Colombia has fought and won an arduous battle spanning decades against the cocaine cartels that had at one time reduced the country to a failed state. However, it did not win the war. It’s estimated that more cocaine is being exported from Colombia than ever before. If the ring leaders are all dead or in jail, how is this possible?
Photo by Rotorhead
The void left by the cartels’ dismantling was quickly filled by a multitude of smaller criminal gangs, disbanded paramilitary, as well as the armed rebels of the FARC and ELN, who have formed an alliance. The cocaine trade is far too lucrative to not attract new players, despite the heightened risks. Since their enormous size proved to be the undoing of the cartels, it was only logical that the new organizations would seek to function as a series of disconnected cells, making them less vulnerable. The most fundamental change is the high level of cooperation that exists nowadays among criminal groups. Whereas the cartels feuded constantly in the 80’s and 90’s, often informing the authorities on one another, the tendency now is to network. One organization might specialize in production, another refining, and a series of others handle the distribution. Even the execution of enemies is handled by specialized organizations disconnected from the illegal drug trade, such as the feared Oficina de Envigado.
Another major difference is that the Colombians no longer control all foreign distribution. Home grown traffickers in Mexico, the most important drug route into the biggest market, the United States, have developed organizations so large and powerful that they can only be called cartels. A completely new development is the alliances secretly forged between the armed rebel groups in Colombia, now major players in the drug trade, and the government of Venezuela, and, by proxy, its allies Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Bolivia. The FARC and ELN are known to funnel considerable amounts of drugs without hindrance through Venezuela.
While the flamboyance and brashness of a Pablo Escobar wouldn’t work today, bribery and blackmail are still widely used by drug traffickers to facilitate their business. Politicians, judges, the police and military, as well as ordinary people are still routinely approached with an offer of “la plata o el plomo” (the money or the bullet), despite the Uribe’s government’s great strides in rooting out corruption. It’s no mystery that the routine extradition of captured major drug traffickers to the USA to be prosecuted there is the only way to insure they won’t manipulate the corrupt Colombian justice system rather than a favor to the United States. Even ordinary Colombians are useful to the traffickers, as they cannot only be used to transport drugs, but also to launder money by putting their names to business contracts and property. Every year, billions of dollars in drug money is invested in this way, and it makes it very difficult for the authorities to discover the real owners, despite laws that allow the state to summarily seize such assets once the link is uncovered.
The new Colombian traffickers have become more sophisticated in their smuggling methods as well, building countless million dollar submersibles that can transport a ton of cargo virtually undetected. They’ve also found every unimaginable way to camouflage drugs, including sewing them into the bellies of pets and corpses. For every kilo intercepted, there’s countless others that make it through. Cocaine isn’t the only drug marketed by the drug traffickers, as they’ve diversified into heroin and marihuana, which are also easy to grow in the vast, mountainous tropical forests of Colombia.
The most wanted list of drug traffickers currently features Daniel El Loco Barrera, who is considered the most powerful drug lord in the country, particularly in the north. Barrera has been particularly successful at making alliances with other illegal groups, including the FARC. Another being actively hunted for is “Comba“, who leads Los Rastrojos and controls most of the production centers and routes of the deep south. Others facing capture and extradition are top FARC commanders, including Alfonso Cano, the maximum leader, and Ivan Marquez.
Drug trafficking is still a massive problem for Colombia, hampering its efforts to clean its international image and spur foreign investment, not to mention tourism. Few are those who believe it can ever be eradicated while the drugs are in demand in developed countries, particularly the USA. However, the Colombian government, with the help of the US financed Plan Colombia, now has the upper hand and the country can never again be overrun to its very core by drug lords.
Colombian Peso Exchange Rate
