The Colombian Antarctic?

The Colombian ship ARC 20 de Julio among Antarctic icebergs.

The Colombian scientific ship ARC 20 de Julio arrival in Antarctica made waves back home.

Malpelo Island: Colombia's gateway to Antarctica?

But is anybody asking what in the world Colombian scientists are doing on the white continent? Can Colombians, experienced in tropical research, really contribute anything amid snow and ice, where scientists from the United States, Britain, Russia and other nations have been carrying out studies for decades?

Looking toward Antarctica? A booby bird
on Colombia's Malpel Island.

The expedition's website's slogan is 'In search of our own white south.' Does this mean that Colombia is buying into the bizarre 1956 'Teoria da Defronta��o' dreamed up by Brazilians desperate for a way to claim a piece of the southern continent. The Teoria holds that any South American nation with territory with an ocean sightline to Antarctica can claim at least a sliver of the continent. Colombia's tiny, uninhabited Malpelo Island just barely meets that criteria. No matter that it's thousands of

Malpelo Island. Withinsight of Antarctica?

miles away, north of the Equator and that no flake of snow has ever fallen on Malpelo, some might see it as justifying a claim on Antarctica.

Needless to say, Brazil's Teoria da Defronta��o has not gotten much international legal traction. Antarctica remains a scientific reserve, belonging to nobody.

And it's hard to believe that these researchers couldn't have done lots more valuable science if they'd stayed home and visited Colombia's Amazon, one of the world's most biodiverse places, and one where many or most of the plant and animal species have never been studied.

Colombian jungle. Full of unstudied biodiversity.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogot� Bike Tours

How Quickly Friendship Fades

Side-by-side, but far apart. Presidents Santos and Maduro last year.

In 2010, Pres. Santos angered conservatives by calling Venezuela's then-Pres. Hugo Ch�vez "my new best friend." After all, Ch�vez led a nation which had apparently financed Colombian guerrillas and even threatened Colombia with war just a few years before. But Santos wanted both Venezuela's trade and its support in peace negotiations he hoped to start with the FARC guerrillas.

My, how things change.

Today, those negotiations appear to be on the road to success; Cuba, the negotiations' host, is making friends with the United States, reducing Venezuela's leverage. And Venezuela's economy is in a tailspin, nullifying its political and economic influence.

Visits prohibited? Leopold Lopez turns himself
in to police in Feb. 2014.

That's why Colombia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs finally found the backbone to criticize Caracas's latest disrespect for human rights, when it denied Colombian ex-Pres. Andr�s Pastrana, accompanied by ex-presidents of Chile and Mexico, the right to visit an imprisoned Venezuelan opposition politician.

That politician, Leopoldo Lopez, was mayor of part of Caracas and later become a leading presidential contender. But in 2004 the Venezuelan government banned Lopez from politics using a dubious ruling which has been criticized by multiple human rights organizations. Then, last February, Lopez was arrested on a grab-bag of dubious charges such as 'instigation of delinquency, damage to public property, incitement to riot, homicide, and terrorism', based on Lopez's support of anti-government protests, some of which had turned violent. In most democracies, it would seem, supporting protests is a civil right and those who had committed violence would be prosecuted.

Many human rights advocates have called Lopez's detention politically motivated, and see it as another sign of Venezuela's increasing authoritarianism.

That Lopez is really a political prisoner, even a hostage, became clear a few weeks ago, when Venezuelan Pres. Maduro offered to exchange him for a Puerto Rican independence activist imprisoned in the U.S. Maduro's proposal also erased any doubts that Venezuela's courts are anything but puppets of the president.

And, under both Venezuelan law and international norms, a prisoner has a right to receive visitors.

Maduro accused Colombian ex-Pres. Pastrana and the other two conservative ex-leaders of promoting a coup and being financed by narcotrafficking money. Such wild, baseless, slanderous charges are par for the course for the Venezuelan government, but Colombia has traditionally stayed mute about Venezuela's trampling of its own democracy. This time, however, Colombia's foreign ministry responded by demanding respect for its ex-president, but went on to express hope that Lopez would "recover his liberty as soon as possible."

Opining on Venezuela's internal affairs was certain to ruffle feathers, and it did. Maduro called it a setback for relations. Colombia should not care. As things are going in Venezuela, repression appears likely to grow much worse before things improve, and Colombia and other neighbors will be .morally bankrupt if they do not criticize the situation.

A frightening case in point is this week's resolution issued by Venezuela's Ministry of Defense authorizing the military to "use potentially mortal force, whether with firearms or other ppotntially mortal weapon...to avoid disorders, support the legitimate authority and reject all aggression, confronting it immediately with the necessary means."

That's a terrifying resolution, because it enables an authoritarian government to employ deadly violence against its own people on just about any pretext. After all, the people carrying the firearms will be deciding whether the 'disorders' and 'aggression' require the use of deadly force.

"The only interpretation one can make is that it's an attempt to intimidate the population and impede them from protesting," Roberto Brice�o Le�n, coordinator of the Venezuela Observatory of Violence, said on a Caracas radio program.

Tourists Go Home?

Loving Venezuela? Or loving to escape from it?

Can't help mentioning this. Marketing a nation with one of the world's highest homicide rates and severe shortages of basic goods to tourists must be quite a challenge. So, give the Venezuelans points for trying.

But one of their latest campaigns may have backfired. It shows a young, foreign-looking man being enthusiastically embraced by a woman.

'We love Venezuela because we receive foreigners like one of our own,' boasts the accompanying text.

Inconveniently, however, it turns out that the young man is Miami Herald correspondent Jim Wyss, and the picture was taken when he returned home from Venezuela last November after being detained for 48 hours and interrogated by military intelligence officers.

After Wyss recognized himself in the photo, Venezuela's tourism ministry removed the pic from its website.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogot� Bike Tours

Good and Bad Sexploitation?

 A step up for Colombian women? The new Miss Universe, Colombian Paulina Vega, in all her glory.

The El Espectador and El Tiempo newspapers sold out early yesterday, thanks to the crowning of Paulina Vega as Miss Universe.

Should Colombians be proud that this young woman from Barranquilla was crowned the prettiest

Tabloids celebrate Colombia's
Miss Universe victory.

woman on Earth? Should Colombians cheer that their women are honored for their looks and curves, rather than their brains and abilities?

In response to a question about what women could learn from men, Vega opined that many men do believe in gender equity, and that women could learn that from men. Admittedly, beauty queens are not known for their intellectual depth, but that response strikes me as remarkably off base. Presumably, women should by nature believe more strongly in gender equity and not need to learn that from men. And, by perpetuating shallow, stereotypical images of women, is Vega doing anything to reduce such gender inequity?
Evidently, Colombia's got a ways to go to reduce inequity. The 2014 Social Institutions and Gender Index ranked Colombia 38th out of 108 nations surveyed, but behind most of the other Latin American nations. In 2013, the United Nations Development Program�s Gender Inequality Index ranked Colombia 91st out of 186 nations. And gender violence - most notoriously acid attacks - remains a huge problem here.

And what about the contrast between the celebration of Vega's victory and the (very justified) outrage over the recent Miss Tanguita, or Little Miss Thong, beauty contest held in the town of Barbosa, featuring 6 to 10-year-old girls.

A step forward for girls? A Little Miss Tanga contestant parades before a drunken crowd.

While a world of difference exists between children and adults exhibiting their bodies, the two contests promote the same values of beauty and sexuality. If Little Miss Thong is damaging because of the way it exploits young girls and celebrates the wrong values, can Miss Universe be so different?

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogot� Bike Tours

Bogot�'sPublic Bikes - Stuck in Park

A delivery cyclist rides beside traffic in the Santa Fe neighborhood. Is Bogot� ready for public bikes?

On Friday, Bogot� suspended for at least the third time bidding for a public bicycles program.

Bicyclist fill the street during the Sunday Ciclovia.
Cycling isn't so popular the rest of the week.

The program's non-start is not only a failure of the public bikes program, but another decline in Bogot�'s status as a cycling leader.

Creating a public bikes program has been a long-time dream for sustainable transport advocates here. A few years ago, they even tried out a pilot programs, which revealed interest in the service. Since then, there have been repeated plans and predictions.

However, despite repeated promises, no public bikes have hit the streets. (The District Institute for Sports and Recreation, the IDRD, does lend bikes in a few spots in the city, but their program is limited and not designed for transport. Go figger.)

Public bikes on Jimenez Ave. They are to be used only on specific
streets and are not intended for transport. (Go figger.)

Over the past few weeks, Bogot� put a planned public bicycles system, consisting of some 1,500
bikes, out for bid. However, only two consortia made offers: One of them has little apparent experience in anything; the second's experience is principally in garbage collection, and its owner has a history of corruption problems and recently supplied defective garbage trucks to Bogot�.

To City Hall's credit, it did not sign a contract with either company. But why can't Bogot�, a big city with a growing economy, manage to set up an economically-sustainable public bikes program? After all, metropolises including Buenos Aires, Argentina; Santiago, Chile; Mexico City and even archrival Medellin all have public bicycles.

A cyclist wearing a pollution mask. Dirty air makes
cycling unpleasant - and even bad for you.

Is it because Mayor Petro, a one-time leftist guerrilla leader, suffers particular challenges in working with private businesses? Or do potential bidders, particularly operators of public bike programs in other cities, feel that Bogot�'s crime, weather or vehicular chaos doom such a program to failure here?

Once upon a time, more than a decade ago, Bogot� was seen as a leader in the developing world in the promotion of bicycling. But in the last dozen years cities, Bogot�'s bike lane network has been neglected, public bikes have not materialized and other cities around the region have made strides in cycling.

Sadly, the Colombian capital's inability to get its act together and make public bikes a reality may be symptomatic of a loss of drive and ingenuity from the days when Bogot� was celebrated as a leader in urban renewal.

'Latin America's best cycle paths network.' But other cities are building.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogot� Bike Tours

W.W.1 in Colombia: The Battle for the Transmitter

The battle scene today: Cerro de la Popa outside of
Cartagena still has transmitters on it.
(Photo from El Sol newspaper.)

The First World War, which raged one hundred years ago across Europe, never reached Latin America. Unlike the bigger, bloodier Second World War, during the first war no sea battles were fought off of South America and almost all of the Latin nations remained neutral.

The Transocean newspaper supported neutrality and
opposed Colombia entering the war on the Allied side.
Here, an admiring photo of  German military leaders.
(Photo taken in an exhibition in the
Claustro de San Agustin museum.)

However, the epic struggle of the Allied Powers: England, France, Russia and later the United States against the Central Powers: Germany and the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires, did send shock waves across this continent, including Colombia.

At the war's start, Colombia found itself in a tug-of-war between the two sides' sympathizers. But many Colombians apparently favored the Germans, thanks to prominent German-Colombian businessmen, including Leo Kopp, founder of the Cerveceria Bavaria and strong trade ties. Also, in that era England was the world's great lending nation, and, naturally, there's always resentment against bankers. Thirdly, in 1915 Colombia was still smarting from its loss of Panama, engineered by U.S. Pres. Teddy Roosevelt. So, the natural association of the U.S. and Great Britain also pushed sympathies toward the Central Powers.

Normally, wars mean boom years for natural resource suppliers such as Colombia. However, at the start of the First World War (then known as The Great War), Britain used its fleet to blockade Germany, cutting South America off from one of its biggest customers. Also, with the war's start, credit and therefore trade dried up.

'Defending neutrality.' Colombian politicians opposed
entering the war on the Allied side.

Most likely, Germany's invasion of tiny, neutral Belgium and Geman massacres of civilians in Belgium and France, hardened feelings toward the Central Powers. Eventually, the United States' entry into the war on the side of England increased pressure to side with the allies. But Colombia stayed neutral.

But Colombia did experience at least one conflict between Allied and Central Powers forces, altho not a violent one. In 1909, Colombia had given a 50-year lease of 5,000 hectares in Urab� Department to a German colonization company, the Casa Albingia, which promised to build a huge banana growing and exporting operation there. The Germans set to work preparing land and laying down railroad tracks - as well as constructing a wireless telegraph transmitter on the Cerro de la Popa in Cartagena.

The German operations worried the Americans for economic reasons - they were a rival to the American-owned United Fruit Co., which would play its own notorious role in Colombian history - and they worried the English for strategic reasons: The German wireless station could transmit and pick-up messages from all over the world. Also, Germany had a steamship, the Oscar, nearby equipped with wireless gear capable of monitoring messages from the Panama Canal region.

English and U.S. pressure resulted in the Oscar being brought into port and its wireless gear dismantled. An international oversight team was installed in the Cerro de la Popa. And the Casa Albingia packed up its belongings, laid off its approximately 1,000 employees and departed Colombia. The battle of the transmitter was a clear Allied victory, but in Europe the war would drag on until 1918 and kill some 10 million people.

The First World War's economic devastation caused a huge shift in global political and economic influence from Great Britain to the United States, and its slaughter reduced Latin Americans' admiration for Europe, which many had admired as a land of art and culture.

The Allies, of course, won the war, and Colombia eventually patched up relations with the U.S. The German banana planting operation was never resumed.

Source: Duelo entre Alemanes y Gringos

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogot� Bike Tours

Colombia's Self-Defeating Battle Against Uber

Which is an Uber car? The government order to 'immobilize' Uber vehicles is impossible to enforce.

It was probably inevitable that the arrival in Colombia of the taxi-type smartphone application Uber would generate protests - principally from traditional taxi drivers, who feel their business getting cut into.

The government responded to the taxi lobby the other day by authorizing police to 'immobilize' Uber

By putting more cars onto clogged roads,
Uber can worsen traffic congestion.

cars - an absurdity unless cops are psychic, since Uber vehicles carry no outside markings.

The cabbies' concerns are understandable, but their fight against technology is futile. If not Uber, then another vehicle sharing system will appear...and then another.

On the other hand, government concerns about vehicle safety, tax payments and driver training, are more legitimate. But distinguishing between Internet-based car-sharing and plain old car pooling will be difficult.

Speaking of car pooling, despite Bogot�'s worsening traffic congestion, the city has never seriously promoted ride sharing, either by setting up a peer-to-peer ride-sharing program or by creating car pool lanes for vehicles with multiple passengers.

Bogot� policies to promote car-sharing have accomplished
nothing. But car-sharing apps could be a solution. 

The appearance of ride-sharing applications such as Uber is a great chance for Bogot� and other cities to reduce use of the single-passenger vehicle, which is the least efficient way to use road space.

Uber can worsen traffic congestion by luring more cars onto limited road space and drawing passengers from more efficient public transport. But it can also be positive, by reducing pressure to buy private cars.

By working with Uber-type applications rather than trying futilely to ban them, Colombia might have a chance to reduce traffic congestion.

But it can't do that by blocking change.

The owner of this 'public service vehicle' has a sticker announcing that he's not Uber to avoid police hassles.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogot� Bike Tours