From Colombia

El Dorado is a legend place sought unsuccessfully by Spaniard and English explorers for centuries. Many of them died in the attempt. It was suposed to be a place with gold-paved streets with huge reserves of the precious metal, located somewhere in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela and Brazil. DreamWorks produced an animated movie about El Dorado (The Road to El Dorado) but it was located erroneously in Mexico. There are several version of the legend in different places but the most accepted is the one in Colombia where in a lagoon nearby Bogota (39 miles) the chief of Muisca indians used to be covered in gold dust on a rift, in a rite in which he and other indians paid tributo to the Mother Earth by throwing gold and emerald pieces into the lagoon.   After many years of wanting to go to get to know the Muisca sacred lagoon, and despite the close it is to my hometown, yesterday I went with my family and got surprised of the much I learned about my ancestors. The first s...

'Colombia, the only risk is wanting to stay' is tha name of a campain designed to promote this country as a tourist destination for the rest of the world. It metions 'risk' refering to the security matter, that is one of the first that come up when Colombia is the topic. The question is: could a country be safe when it is known as one of the most violent in the world, faces one of the longer armed conflict in the western hemisphere and whose crime and kidnapping rates increase and the higest rate of death is killing? Beleive it or not, the answer is yes. And I tell you why: Although the left-winged Revolucionary Armed Forces of Colombia FARC has been fighting governments for more than four dacades, its atacking power lowered in the last eight years thanks to the former president Alvaro Uribe's Democatic Security policy. The new government, whose president is Juan Manuel Santos, in two months in the power has hit FARC hardly. Even though FARC is still alive, it is re...

Mono jojoy, aka Jorge Briceño, whose real name was Victor Julio Suarez, the FARC's military chief pulled down by the Colombia Armed Forces, was the second top leader of the left-winged guerrilla but the one who led its military operations. He was nicknamed Mono Jojoy after a species of worm from the Amazon, called mojojoy, which is very skilled at scaping. In Spanish mono means 'monkey', in Spain 'pretty' and in Colombia 'blond'. Mono Jojoy joined FARC in 1975 and soon he beceme a cuadrilla (a sort of brigade) leader because of his ideals, radical stances and methods which got him several arrest warrants for rebellion, kidnapping, narcotraffick, extortion, terrorism and murder among others. He was implicated in the bombing of Club El Nogal in Bogota in 2003 that killed 36 people and injures more than 100, he was accused for participating in the kidnapping of Ingrid Betancour and the assessination of the journalist Diana Turbay, he was charged for recruting c...

General Mendieta is a Colombia National Police commissioned officer who was recently rescued from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia FARC after eleven years of kidnapping. He was took prisoner in 1998 in the city of Mitu, in the Colombian Amazon, when he was practicing as the commander of city police bureau, in the rank of litenuant colonel. During his captivity he was promoted by the Colombian Government to the the ranks of colonel, Brigade General and Major General. Mendieta was rescued with three more Armed Forces of Colombia members by Colombia Army through 'The Chameleon Operation'. Until that day General Mendieta was the police and military force kidnapped the with the highest rank in the world. Two facts involves me with this. The first one is that I produced a journalism report on it as a prelude of General Mendieta's rescue. It was by the way of his last promotion which was particular due to the general's obvious absence. Then, I attended the ceremony ...

During a meeting with children and youngster who were once in gangs and drug trouble, the American rock band Aerosmith received a plate that appoints them as Guest of Honour of Bogota, Colombia's capital city, from the mayor hours before a concert the band performed in this city. In exchange for the plate Aerosmith gave the mayor a baseball cap of the band which he put on inmediately. Aerosmith arrived in Bogota two days before the concert to, according to its vocal leader Steven Tyler, get to know the city and its young people, so the band members could talk to them. Aditionally, Tyler said that they were pleased to be in Bogota and could not wait for the concert. In the meeting one of the kids asked Steven Tyler if he was a professional musician, what he answered that one never ends learning that art because everybody can teach something new. The band members encouraged the children to explore the music's wolrd because "every one has his rythm". I was invited to the...

Antanas Mockus is a Colombian politician who is currently running for president and who is considered an electoral phenomenon because of the great rally he is performing in these days what positions him on the top of the electoral surveys above the candidate of current president Alvaro Uribe's party, Juan Manuel Santos, who is second. But what besides makes Mockus a political phenomenon, almost a political freak, is that he is a particular character due to the wierd ways he acts and his genuine policies. Aurelijus Rutenis Antanas Mockus Šivickas is not a Spanish language name although he was born in Bogota, his parents emigrated from Lithuania and he attended primary and secondary school also in Bogota. He has a Bachelor degree in Phylosophy and Mathematics, and a PhD from French universities and a Master degree from the National University of Colombia. He has been twice mayor of Bogota, the capital of Colombia, and has run twice for the precidency of Colombia. He belongs to a new...

Today we, the inhabitants of Bogota, are facing the fourth day of a public transportation strike due to a series of facts that are going on in this city. One of the longest and the gravest in the last times. The reason: the desagreement between the government of the city an the trade whose representatives are in these days negotiating the new public transportation integrated system (SITP for its abbreviation in Spanish) which includes the integration of the city's bus system, the metro (not built yet) and the suburban train. Yeah, believe or not, in full 21st century, Bogota does not have a metro system yet! In order to stablish the new transportation system, the city's government is taking measures which the transportation trade weighs up affects them. That is the apple of discord because the system will belong to and run by the government and not by the transportation trade who has been doing that since the stablishment of it in Colombia. This is a kind of struggle for the po...

Her name is Piedad Cordoba. Although she belongs to one of the traditional parties in Colombia (Liberal), she is opposite to government and, according to some sectors of the country, she sympathizes with the left-winged guerrilla FARC. The Colombian authorities have done research into her for supposed links with FARC. She leads the humanitarian group Colombians for Peace, and she certainly simpathizes with Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez. Piedad Cordoba has become well-known internationally because of her intermediary work in the Humanitarian agreement of kidnapped people and FARC prisoners, between the Colombian government and the guerrilla. In early 2008, she, together with the Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, achieved the release of six kiddnaped politicians. Because of this, she won the Prince of Asturias Prize. Even when Colombian president Alvaro Uribe din not authorized Cordoba's intermediary work anymore, she achieved again the release of three kidnapped policemen and o...

Juanes is a Colombian pop music songwriter, singer and guitarplayer who has sold more than 14 million copies of his albums in Spanish and has won one Grammy Award, 17 Latin Grammy Awards and 9 MTV Latino Awards. He is also a declared social and humanitarian activist who holds a fundation for victims of antipersonal mines named Mi Sangre (My Blood). He is the author of the civil initiative called Paz Sin Fronteras (Peace Without Borders) which consists of free music concerts performanced by him and any other famous singers and musicians, as a way of appealing for peace by ignoring the political differences . There has been two so far, and the second one caused some controversy between the involved parts. Paz Sin Fronteras II was carried out in Havanna, Cuba, for the people who live isolated in the island under the comunist governmnet of Fidel and Raul Castro and the US economical blockade. These people and the Cuban government and its political allies welcomed the concert but the oppos...

A group of Colombians who live in Bogota organized through the social networking websites Facebook and Twitter a march for today in order to demostrate against the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, because of his repeated interventions in the Colombian political, economical and social affairs. In fact, they are many marchs hold in more than 100 cities of more than 30 countries of the five continents. Something more or less like the March Against FARC made in last year's Febraury. The march was named "Chavez No More" In the last days, Chávez kept on giving his opinion about the Agreement of Military Cooperation signed between Colombia and the United States, even when he atended, as the other twelve presidents of the South American countries, the last UNASUR's (Union of South American Nations) summit in Argentina a week ago where the topic was discussed. He did not say anything remarkable there but as soon as he got back in his country he started to blame Colombian p...

In 1821, two years after their independence from Spain; Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Panama became La Gran Colombia (The Great Colombia), a whole nation that lasted less than two decades due to the disagreements of the two political trends, Federalism and Centralism, and the regional tension. In 1829 Venezuela became independent from Colombia followed by Ecuados in 1831. In 1903 Panama separated from Colombia, being backed by the United States who was concerned in the zone because it wanted to build up the Panama Canal there. Since then the diplomatic relations between Colombia and each one of the separated nations has been relatively good with some border brushes with Venezuela;but we Colombians consider Venezuela, Ecuador and Panama "Sister Nations". But things have changed in the last years regarding to Venezuela and Ecuador. They do not seem to be sisters of Colombia since their governments have moved away from ours. In 1999 Hugo Chavez, a Venezuelan Army colonel, be...

Today expires the ten-years agreement that the governments of US and Ecuador signed in 1999, in which the Southamerican nation allowed the Northamerican one to build up and have a military base in the city of Manta to fight narcotrafic. The agreement was not extend because the current Ecuatorian government called for a plebiscite where most of the people voted for not to extend the agreement. Some reports about violation of human rigths in the area may have had an influence on the people's desition. Since then the US began to look for a new place where to move the base over in order to continue the figth against narcotrafic, and the most suitable place was Colombia because its geographical position and because it is a great ally of the US. Besides, The Plan Colombia has not expire. And in fact, it happened: the governments of Colombia and the US has just signed a pre- agreement in which the American military will move from Manta to three Colombia Air Force bases in Colombia. When t...

20th century in Colombia started with a war between the two unique political parties, conservador and liberal, called "the 1000 days war", and that confrontation lasted throughout most of the century. In 1953 an Army general gave a coup to the State and was president for three years. After that, he handed over the power to a militar junta called "National Front" for one more year. Then conservadores and liberales dealed to alternate the power in four-years periods, which did not allow any other politicas options but allowed the birth of left-wing guerrillas such as ELN and FARC. In 1970, due to the insatisfaction of some sectors because of the result of that year elections, a new left-wing guerrilla was born as M-19, fact that brought more vilolence and kidnapping to the nation. Narcotraffic showed up in the middle of that decade with moree violence. At the beginning of the 80's the drug dealers decided to fight the guerrillas by creating the self-defences grou...