Saturday, May 22, 2010
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Two interviews with Partido Verde in Bogota
Concejal Antonio Sanguino Páez - Head of the campaign in Bogota - Mockus Presidente
Guillermo Bernal - the man behind the Partido Verde website and facebook pages...
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Partido Verde - Antanas Mockus Rally-16May10
Partido Verde: Gran Evento de Jóvenes 16May10 Plaza Lourdes, Bogota
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Perspectives & Scenarios for the Presidential Elections...:
PERSPECTIVES & SCENARIOS FOR THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN
Ruben Dario Utria
The current presidential campaign in Colombia has taken an unseen and still undefined turn towards a significant change in the attitudes and political preferences of the citizens and public opinion in general, as well as in the generational sectors disposed to participate and in the methods of mobilization of voters, including advanced telecommunications and the so-called cybernetic “social networks.”
But knowing the political-electoral history of the country, one can affirm that there are no fundamental motives to hope that such change will come. If the generational air of renovation, agitated for in the media, and the political-electoral usefulness of the cited networks are effective, the traditional oligarchic establishment will not stand by with their arms crossed contemplating the loss of their political and economic power. To the contrary, it is highly probable that they will react as they have for most of the two centuries of republican life: in the first place with civil war, and in second place using one of their three favorite traditional options, which are in full effect.
The first is the use of fraud, the buying and stealing of votes, bribery, the paramilitary territorial control, and the corresponding forced displacement of the potentially adverse electorate, as in the elections of 2002 and 2006. The second is co-optation, which has traditionally consisted in tolerance of the adversary but with conditions, and taking the government from the inside, following the popular tactic of the “Trojan Horse” and inspired by the “Lampedusian” strategy of accepting the change in order to preserve the status quo. The initiation of the National Front that constitutionally excluded during four periods (1958 – 1974) the participation of all the contrary political forces against the establishment. The third is the open use of violence. That is, the physical elimination of the candidate compromised with some grade of political change, as we have seen in the cases of General Uribe Uribe in 1914; Jorge Eliecer Gaitan in 1948; Luis Carlos Galan in 1989; Carlos Pizarro, Bernardo Jaramillo and Jaime Pardo Leal in 1990; and Alvaro Gomez in 1995.
The first option is the most expeditious path because the electoral machinery is already installed and institutionalized from the last two parliamentary elections, as recognized recently by the Electoral Council and the Registry of Voters, and has been denounced permanently in Congress and sanctioned by the judgements of the “Parapolitica.” The second is also viable because it counts on a candidate – Antanas Mockus – with many options provided by the establishment and with an unequivocal right-wing bent, a neoliberal economic vision, addicted to external political and economic dependence, and directly surrounded by known personalities of the same lineage and with electoral patrimony, but whose capacity for action when confronted with the grave national problems and ability to govern is highly doubtful. And the third option counts with the thousands of hired killers, poorly trained and protected, the underlying politics and the infrastructure of rural and urban violence that has abandoned democratic security, the phantasm of international terrorism, the right-wing nationalism against neighboring countries, and the possibility of placing blame on subversives, as occurred in 1948. Additionally, it counts with the institutionalized system of impunity and tolerance of international power.
The first two options are also electorally viable because, on the one hand, the traditional forces and their candidates – Vargas, Sanin & Pardo – have returned to their traditional right-wing fold before the eventual menace to their privileges. On the other hand, Petro – frustrated in his elusive proposal for centrist coalitions – and the other candidates – without options and excluded from the media scene – will have to continue to act as trained bears in a circus. It's also possible that they will be absorbed by the establishment.
Confronted with this frustrating perspective there is little that Colombians can hope for in the current electoral contest because, additionally, there is no alternative political force that can close the path of the establishment. The one force which was developing rapidly – el Polo Democratico – lamentably fractured due to the impact of personal attitudes.
translated by Brian Oelberg
Bogota – 14 May 2010
Ruben Dario Utria
The current presidential campaign in Colombia has taken an unseen and still undefined turn towards a significant change in the attitudes and political preferences of the citizens and public opinion in general, as well as in the generational sectors disposed to participate and in the methods of mobilization of voters, including advanced telecommunications and the so-called cybernetic “social networks.”
But knowing the political-electoral history of the country, one can affirm that there are no fundamental motives to hope that such change will come. If the generational air of renovation, agitated for in the media, and the political-electoral usefulness of the cited networks are effective, the traditional oligarchic establishment will not stand by with their arms crossed contemplating the loss of their political and economic power. To the contrary, it is highly probable that they will react as they have for most of the two centuries of republican life: in the first place with civil war, and in second place using one of their three favorite traditional options, which are in full effect.
The first is the use of fraud, the buying and stealing of votes, bribery, the paramilitary territorial control, and the corresponding forced displacement of the potentially adverse electorate, as in the elections of 2002 and 2006. The second is co-optation, which has traditionally consisted in tolerance of the adversary but with conditions, and taking the government from the inside, following the popular tactic of the “Trojan Horse” and inspired by the “Lampedusian” strategy of accepting the change in order to preserve the status quo. The initiation of the National Front that constitutionally excluded during four periods (1958 – 1974) the participation of all the contrary political forces against the establishment. The third is the open use of violence. That is, the physical elimination of the candidate compromised with some grade of political change, as we have seen in the cases of General Uribe Uribe in 1914; Jorge Eliecer Gaitan in 1948; Luis Carlos Galan in 1989; Carlos Pizarro, Bernardo Jaramillo and Jaime Pardo Leal in 1990; and Alvaro Gomez in 1995.
The first option is the most expeditious path because the electoral machinery is already installed and institutionalized from the last two parliamentary elections, as recognized recently by the Electoral Council and the Registry of Voters, and has been denounced permanently in Congress and sanctioned by the judgements of the “Parapolitica.” The second is also viable because it counts on a candidate – Antanas Mockus – with many options provided by the establishment and with an unequivocal right-wing bent, a neoliberal economic vision, addicted to external political and economic dependence, and directly surrounded by known personalities of the same lineage and with electoral patrimony, but whose capacity for action when confronted with the grave national problems and ability to govern is highly doubtful. And the third option counts with the thousands of hired killers, poorly trained and protected, the underlying politics and the infrastructure of rural and urban violence that has abandoned democratic security, the phantasm of international terrorism, the right-wing nationalism against neighboring countries, and the possibility of placing blame on subversives, as occurred in 1948. Additionally, it counts with the institutionalized system of impunity and tolerance of international power.
The first two options are also electorally viable because, on the one hand, the traditional forces and their candidates – Vargas, Sanin & Pardo – have returned to their traditional right-wing fold before the eventual menace to their privileges. On the other hand, Petro – frustrated in his elusive proposal for centrist coalitions – and the other candidates – without options and excluded from the media scene – will have to continue to act as trained bears in a circus. It's also possible that they will be absorbed by the establishment.
Confronted with this frustrating perspective there is little that Colombians can hope for in the current electoral contest because, additionally, there is no alternative political force that can close the path of the establishment. The one force which was developing rapidly – el Polo Democratico – lamentably fractured due to the impact of personal attitudes.
translated by Brian Oelberg
Bogota – 14 May 2010
Perspectives on the elections: MORE OF THE SAME: SUNFLOWERS vs. NONSENSE
MORE OF THE SAME: SUNFLOWERS vs. NONSENSE
by Ruben Dario Utria
All indicators appear to point out that the current presidential campaign will be another lost opportunity for the country to find a new historic path that would permit the country to escape the profound and explosive institutional, political, social and economic crisis that has been affecting the country for many decades.
Now the debate is taking a turn to candidates previously accepted by the political and economic establishment, and weak concerns about investigations of questionable objectivity, and not about the grave crises of the country on all sides, the causes and actors; as well as the resulting unattainable transformations that this demands. In these conditions, the attention of the electorate and their preferences have begun to turn basically to the political parties, formal attributes and histrionic media displays of the candidates. That is to say that the inherited electoral rights, personal charisma, domination of the political scene, eccentricity and in this case also the circus-like atmosphere. At the same time, we've seen the entrance of pseudo-patriotic tricks of war-mongering confrontations with neighboring countries and the enchantment of the crusade against “terrorism” and the “axis of evil.” Additionally, we've seen the cybernetic mobilization of the so-called social networks, that have allowed the incorporation of hundreds of thousands of youth, politically unprepared and addicted to the internet.
In practice, this aggregation of factors constitutes the smokescreen that hides the real political scene: the desperate strategy of preserving at all costs the political and economic power of the conservative social forces that have maintained and continue to maintain the country anchored in the backwaters of history.
These factors, obviously happening because the present campaigns have pushed to the side the real national drama, of which some of the most critical factors are:
Violence generated by the paramilitary project which surreptitiously armed more than 60,000 criminal mercenaries in order to dissappear more than 100,000 Colombians.
Forced appropriation of more than 5 million hectares of agricultural land.
Forced displacement of 2.5 million farmers.
Assassination of thousands of teachers, social movement and union leaders, human rights activists, judges, academics and many other Colombians.
Institutionalized and generalized impunity, estimated to be more than 95%, which hides the hundreds of mass graves and more than 400,000 civil victims spread across the country.
Growth of common delinquency and urban insecurity about life and property.
Privatization and commercialization of social services.
Destruction of the social and labor successes of the working class.
Systematic generation of open unemployment, that reaches 15%, and the growth of the informal economy that now surpasses over 40% of the workforce.
Destabilization and precariousness of work and the minimization of salaries, as well as the amplification of poverty and homelessness, that in real terms is over 60% and 20% respectively.
Annihilation of trade unions and legislation against social protest.
Deterioration of the urban centers and depredation of natural resources.
Incompetence and backwardness in indispensable infrastructure for development and corrupt management of respective contracts.
Rampant institutionalized public corruption.
The continuation of narcotraffic and growing narco-addiction of Colombian youth.
The shameful deals between the national congress and other organs of citizen representation and the known associates of the paramilitary and narcotraffickers, as well as professionals in electoral fraud.
Flagrant violation of human rights and the disappearance and executions known as “Falsos Positivos” officially condoned as part of the politics of “Democratic Security.”
Illegal interception of personal communications of members of the opposition, including magistrates, journalists, academics, and diplomats.
War-mongering against neighboring governments trying to find political alternatives for transformation of their respective countries.
Military attack against a neighboring country.
Destabilization of the institutional system, seeking authoritarianism, and the fraudulent attempt to stay in power using the frustrated illegal referendum and the fascist thesis of “state of opinion.”
Escalation of armaments which has converted Colombia into the country with the largest armed forces in the region.
Unpatriotic and anti-constitutional exchange of national territories for the installation of foreign military bases.
To all this, add the violence generated by the leftist insurgency, although it's real impact is quantitatively insignificant in the national statistics, compared to the bloodbath carried out through forced disappearances, organized crime, reorganized paramilitarism, narcotraffic cartels, hired assassins, juvenile gangs, and the generalized impunity and common urban delinquency that has corralled the Colombian citizenry.
But the Colombian drama doesn't end there. It also includes the disaster of the national economy, which has receded in the last twenty-five years, pushed by the ruinous neoliberal doctrines, and has returned to the old model of “primary exporter”; the alienation of the best national activities and the ever-growing deals with privileged foreign capital for the politics of “investor confidence” that has empowered the financial and speculative commercial activity, and basically financed with the credit resources of Colombians. Neither have jobs been generated, it is uncompetitive and it has lost it's best markets as a consequence of the systematic turpitude of the government in international relations. The IMF recently announced that the national economy has and will have one of the lowest standards of living in the region, marked by the management of the actual international economic crisis.
These and other connected factors have converted Colombia into a violent country, internally convulsed, characterized by the most social inequality in the region and also for criminal impunity, institutionalized corruption, mistreatment of children and women and the lack of protection for victims; without hope for the youth and working people, which are then obliged to emigrate or incorporate themselves in the violence: the military and police forces, the leftist insurgency, narcotraffic, paramilitarism, or common delinquency. Maybe because of this, we appear before the world as a pariah nation, and we find ourselves virtually isolated on the continent. Disconcertingly the debate about this situation doesn't appear to constitute the axis of the actual electoral campaign.
And in all this political disaster for the country there appears to be no alternative: Liberalism has dissolved into its ideological limbo and its crisis of leadership; and the left – that finally had the historic opportunity to constitute itself into an alternative for national transformation – has fractured and appears to deviate towards the attitudes, practices and proposals of the traditional electoral politics.
Translated by Brian Oelberg
Bogota – Abril 23 de 2010
Friday, May 14, 2010
Interviews
Rubén Darío Utría, Colombian academic, author and urban planner.
Raul Alameda - Economist and author.
Eduardo Gomez - Poet and author.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Graffiti in Bogota
 |
| Graffiti en Bogota |
Bogota graffiti blog: http://elblogcanalla.com/archive/
Mas grafitti:
de Mexico:
http://picasaweb.google.com/
y de Ecuador 2006:
http://picasaweb.google.com/
Some numbers
Some numbers on Colombia (from RevistaHekatombe.blogspot.com)
- 2nd highest level of social inequality in the Americas, after Haiti.
- 22 million people living in poverty...close to 50% of the population
- 10,000 disappeared persons
- 8 million indigent/homeless
- 62 years of war and social conflict
- Minimum wage is about $50/month
- Only half of the workforce makes the minimum wage.
- Over half of the workforce seeks a living in the underground economy: vending in the street, crime and prostitution.
- 1,800 "falsos positivos" murdered and claimed as FARC combatants by Santos.
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