Riot at Colombia’s National University
SUMMARY: Pictures and video of a riot at Colombia’s national university.
Alternate Title: My 2nd Time Tear-Gassed in Colombia
While Universidad de los Andes is the most prestigious in Colombia, the national university is actually ranked higher. One of the national university’s claims to fame comes from its former rector and recent presidential candidate, Antanas Mockus. He once mooned a disorderly crowd of students. … Read more
The Mick Throws a Party
SUMMARY: The Mick throws a party, slaps a guest.
April 30 I moved out of my Chapinero apartment. I moved my heavy things into The Mick’s apartment. After we finished moving my things, I treated him to dinner. We got drunk on aguardiente and hit on chicks around Carrera 8 south of Calle 60.
May 1 I woke up on his couch around 10am. He was having a beer and rolling a joint. I couldn’t go anywhere because it was pouring rain. We got stoned. Pechonorme showed up around noon. She invited us to lunch. She took us to Paisa Consulado, a seemingly authentic Antioqueño eatery on Carrera 11 south of Calle 72. I had a delicious bandeja paisa, which I noted cost over 20,000 pesos. While enjoying my food, I decided to have sex with Pechonorme to positively reinforce her buying me lunch. … Read more
FARC, Guerrillas, and Paramilitaries in Colombia
SUMMARY: Brief history written by Michael Reid’s Forgotten Continent on the armed conflict in Colombia involving FARC, ELN, paramilitaries, and of course the Colombian state.
Democratic security in Colombia
At first glance, San Vicente del Caguán looked like any other small cattle town on the fringes of the Amazon basin. On its stiflingly hot, bustling streets, lined with half-finished houses of concrete and brick, Japanese pick-ups and motorbikes jostled with horse-drawn carts. From early afternoon, Mexican rancheras blared out from the loudspeakers of the numerous brothels. What made San Vicente unusual in 2001 was the presence in the main square of a small office of the FARC – the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the largest and longest-lasting leftist guerrilla army in Latin America. For three years, the government of Andrés Pastrana allowed the FARC to control a Switzerland-sized swathe of mountains, jungle and grassland around San Vicente. The FARC had demanded this ‘demilitarised zone’ as a condition for getting peace talks going. But the talks made little progress. The FARC used them for propaganda purposes. They held public hearings on how to reduce unemployment, while carrying on their war with increasing savagery. … Read more
Cocaine Cartels and Economics in Colombia
SUMMARY: Overview taken from Michael Reid’s Forgotten Continent on the history of the cocaine industry in Colombia and its economic implications.
‘Lead or silver’
Enrique Low Murtra wanted nothing more than to leave his job as Colombia’s justice minister to open a law office and return to his previous career as a university teacher. ‘I would like to imagine that vengeance is not eternal. To be exiled, like Scipio, from one’s own country seems to me to be an injustice,’ he said. A gentle, avuncular man who had once been a supreme-court judge, he was still only 49. He spoke softly as the rain pattered down outside his office in a colonial mansion in Bogotá in March 1988. But he would indeed suffer exile – and worse. Two months earlier, on the instruction of Colombia’s president, Virgilio Barco, Low Murtra had signed warrants for the arrest and extradition to the United States on drugs charges of the five leading members of the ‘Medellín Cartel’. They included Pablo Escobar, perhaps the world’s most ruthless and notorious drug baron. Faced with constant death threats, the minister sent his daughter out of the country. ‘Even going for a haircut has become a problem,’ he said. So intense did the threats become that, in July 1988, Barco sent him to Switzerland as ambassador. That did not save him. In 1991, he was back in Colombia, working as he had hoped as a law professor at the University of La Salle. No longer in government service, he had no bodyguards. He was gunned down at the entrance to the university. … Read more
A Shower of Cocaine and Shady Colombians
SUMMARY: I got drunk and did cocaine with a couple shady people in a shady club.
Saturday night I went out drinking with an American guy, a Colombian-American girl, her boyfriend, and a few of her local cousins. We started drinking at Pola Rosa and then moved to Irish Pub. The girls wanted to dance so we went looking for a club.
We paid 10,000 pesos to go into a place offering an open bar, but they ran out of booze just as we got in. It was a hip hop scene packed with 18 year-olds. So we left. At the next club we danced and drank aguardiente. I was quite drunk so I don’t remember why we left the second club, but we found ourselves standing in the street. I somehow met a guy on the street named Silvio. He told us about a club that’s open late, so we all jumped into a taxi and went. Silvio plus our original group of 7.
My 1st Time Tear-Gassed in Bogota
SUMMARY: Short dittie about my first whiff of tear gas during a small riot in Chicó.
I got a small dose of tear gas for the first time in my life today. Late for a class, I was speeding north on the Carrera 11 bike path. When I pulled up to Calle 72, I saw there was a small but common riot outside Universidad Pedagógica Nacional. Pedestrians blocked the sidewalk near the intersection so I had to slow my bike to a stop. There was no car traffic as the coppers had blocked off 11 and 72.
Being in a hurry, I quickly sized up the situation. Facing north up 11 from the south side of 72, I saw the rolito rioters standing on the median on the other side of 11. They were throwing rocks at the riot police who were holding their position north of 72 next to the Porciúncula church. This picture was my exact view of the northwest corner.
Contributed Story: Hangin’ Tough in La Candelaria
SUMMARY: Christopher K from Colombia gives his advice on how NOT to get robbed or bothered in La Candelaria section of Bogota, Colombia.
I also stayed on the 3rd floor of Aragon and walked to the Platypus to use the internet. I made the Plat-to-Aragon walk at all hours: day, night, 3am, whenever, and always with my laptop. Of course, locals say this is crazy stupid, but there’s a knack to it.
The first skill you need is to read body language on the street, and I mean from two blocks away. I can tell an armed thief from a harmless bum in La Candelaria from at least one block away. What’s he doing, where’s he looking, how’s he carry himself? … Read more
