Colombia EnMotion

Romeo Langlois: the price of freedom

I found this a very strange title** from the Washington Post for their piece on the release last Wednesday of French reporter Romeo Langlois:

"Freed French reporter has no apologies for covering Colombian conflict from all sides"

What apologies should there be, I wonder, from a journalist for trying to cover his topic from all sides ? Isn't it exactly the duty of any journalist to try and do so and shouldn't those who try to live by this deontology not rather be lauded instead of being expected to offer apologies ? I truly wonder what the WaPo was hinting at here, but it does give a feel for the complexity of the situation on the ground in Colombia and for the personal situation of Langlois in particular.

Photo: Associated Press

 

It was a bit of a coïncidence that I was just reading Garry Leech's "Beyond Bogotá: Diary of a Drug War Journalist in Colombia", which narrative is centered around the capture of the author in August 2006 for eleven hours by members of the FARC, right on the day when French reporter Romeo Langlois, working in Colombia for television station France24 and newspaper Le Figaro, was also captured by the FARC during a firefight with the Colombian military. While Leech at the time was reporting on the consequences of fumigation of coca crops in eastern Colombia, Langlois was embedded with an army platoon that, on April 28 last, went out on a counter-narcotics operation to destroy some drug labs that had been discovered, when, on their mission, they were attacked by rebels of the FARC. In the shoot-out between the two camps, several army soldiers got killed (4 according to army sources, up to 17 according to FARC reports) at which point Langlois, who got shot himself in the arm, allegedly threw off his helmet and bullet-proof vest, apparently to make himself known as a civilian, and ran to the FARC attackers. That was the point where the world lost track of him, until the FARC officially announced on May 6 that the reporter was in their custody as a "prisoner of war".

Europe and the FARC: a cosy relation ?

Update: this article was cross-posted on the English language website "Colombia Reports" under the "Perspective" section on May 16, 2012. With thanks to Adriaan Alsema, founder and Director of CR for publishing it.

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I was thinking of writing about something totally different for my next article on this blog, but then, a little while ago, a Facebook friend told me something that, at first, merely sounded surprising, yet, the more  I thought about it, actually became a quite offending piece of information. He told me that in Colombia there's allegedly quite a number of people who actually seem to believe that Europe is crowded with FARC supporters. Now I don't know enough Colombians (yet) to establish whether that is true or not, but let's say I very much trust the source who shared this with me.

Then a couple of days ago, to my even greater consternation, I also found out that it's not only Colombians that seem to think this way. I witnessed an online discussion related to this article from an excellent blog whereby an American magazine editor made the following statement:

"You know there are people out there who romanticize guerrillas, particularly purposeless Europeans who have the government making all their decisions for them and thus have no challenges and nothing to conquer and nothing to do".

The word "slander" came to mind. I'm willing to take rightful criticism from anyone who has a valid point to make, but when a whole group of people, in this case Europeans, get linked to terrorism based on such pitiful argument as "the government [is]  making all their decisions for them", I get slightly upset. I readily admit, hearing this from an American "intellectual", enraged me many times more than the idea some Colombians seem to have on us, Europeans. But let's get back to the issue at hand.

I took some time to let that information go down and digest. Now why would Colombians think such a thing ? Of course, there's the well-known case of the Dutch Tanja Nijmeijer, who actually joined the ranks of the FARC and became a close aide to former FARC-leader Mono Jojoy. She presumably is still out there in the jungle. But that just as well seems shallow evidence to base such an opinion upon, unless you hold on to the proverb that one scabby sheep spoils the whole flock. But then again, here is a case of a sheep that left the flock, and because of what she did, has very little chance of ever being taken in again by that flock.

Der Himmel über Villavicencio

"A hero is a man who does what he can."

(Romain Rolland, French writer)

 

A while ago, I came across this 25-minute report from Al Jazeera on "The daredevil pilots of Colombia". Sitting through it, it felt like I was watching a combination of "Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines" and "The Flying Doctors".

According to Wikipedia, "production of civil DC-3's ceased in 1942". We are now exactly seventy years later, yet in Colombia's Villavicencio's airport, there are some thirty of these workhorses from the Douglas factories still in commercial use, to transport passengers and bring necessary supplies from this city to the isolated towns and villages in the vast Amazonion hinterland of Colombia.

As seems to be generally acknowledged, the DC-3 is the airplane par excellence to serve such remote regions where storms, mountains and the ever present Amazonion jungle form just as many perils. It is kind of odd that in our modern, high-tech world,  virtually none of the existing Boeing or Airbus jets would be able to land on airstrips that are mostly made up of not much more than grass or earth pitted with holes. Pilots, trying to bring their machines on the ground, have to make sure they hit the "runway" at the very beginning for fear of running, like in the case of Miraflores, into a ravine at the end of it if they can't bring the plane to a timely stop. No automatic pilot to do the job for them, no control tower to guide them: the planes are landed purely on sight.

The images you get to see in this report are sometimes of an other-worldly dimension, when you live in  highly organised, highly regulated Europe. How about a bunch of kids running along (some even right under the wing) of the plane preparing to take off ? Or how about the engine repair shop at Villavicencio's airport, where a mechanic, when there's a power outage, continues working on a broken engine by the light of ... his mobile phone ! Or the flight where the cargo haul door is taken off, because the plane is transporting highly combustible barrels of fuel and they want to avoid gasses building up inside the plane ... There's quite a number of the most unusual sights bundled into this highly entertaining report.

Paranda, Rum y Mujer

Born in 1907, Francisco "Pacho" Rada Batista, died at the age of 95 in 2003, only two years after his marriage to his third wife. His hometown: El Dificil, a name given to the place by his father. His offspring: more than fourhundred children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and great-great grandchildren. His legacy: inventor of the Colombian "Son".

In the year 2000, German director Stefan Schwietert planted his camera's in El Dificil to log the days of this vagabond that eventually became known as the "King of Son". The result was "El acordeón del diablo", a heartwarming docu about the roots of the Vallenato music and the musicians that play it. Having the godfather Pacho Rada himself at the center of the narrative, the movie also follows his youngest son Manuel Rada Oviedo and his cousin Rafael Valencia on their trip to the city of Maicao to buy a new accordeon,while en route recording some dazzling performances from other greats of vallenato music such as Alfredo Guttierez and Israel Romero.

Yet, as much as this movie may be about the music, it also goes a long way to show why a country like Colombia was able to produce a writer of the status of Nobel-prize winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez, when you see the material that he has at hand. Dream, reality and myth seem to shake hands in this backward spot off the Magdalena river.  Seeing the faces of Pacho Rada and his first wife Maria Ospina, seeing the scenes in the streets of El Dificil and the other places shown in the docu, there is no trouble at all to reminisce con gusto on those pages that brought us José Arcadio Buendia, the patriarch of this unworldly place called Macondo,  and his wife Ursula Iguaran, made legendary in "One Hundred Years of Solitude".

The most striking example of this cross-fertilization between reality and myth is this local story about Francisco, "El Hombre", and his meeting with the devil, told by Pacho Rada himself in this movie. One late night, as he was riding home on his donkey, he started playing his beloved accordeon. From some distance, another accordeon seemed to answer him. At first, Pacho thought it was a friend on a parallel road going in the same direction, but soon he figured this sound couldn't be produced by a human. It was then he knew he was in a duel with the devil himself ... and he won, by singing the lyrics backwards, which the devil couldn't do. It made Francisco "El Hombre" into a living legend.

Do The Right Thing !

(picture taken from report "Avances en Defensa de la Libertad - Balance de la lucha antisecuestro - Octubre de 2010" by organisation "Fondelibertad")

 

Good news reached us from Colombia.

In a statement from the 26th of February*, titled "Declaración Pública: Sobre Prisoneros y Retenciones", the FARC announced on it's website:

"Mucho se ha hablado acerca de las retenciones de personas, hombres o mujeres de la población civil, que con fines financieros efectuamos las FARC a objeto de sostener nuestra lucha. Con la misma voluntad indicada arriba, anunciamos también que a partir de la fecha proscribimos la práctica de ellas en nuestra actuación revolucionaria ( Transl.: Much has been said about the retention of people, men or women of the civilian population, for financial ends for the FARC to sustain our fight ... With the same will expressed before, we announce that from this date we forbid this practice in our revolutionary conduct)."

(* interesting fact: the communiqué is back-dated ten years, by mentioning at the bottom the year 2002 instead of 2012)

This announcement could mean the FARC-EP is putting an end to a vile practice that has tarnished the reputation of South-America's longest guerilla insurgency maybe even more than it's involvement in narco-trafficking: kidnappings. For already decades now, the FARC-EP has engaged in kidnappings of politicians (the "high-profile" prisoners, of which Ingrid Betancourt was probably the most notorious one until her rescue in 2008); of police officers and army soldiers (the so-called "prisoners of war") and of civilians, who are held for purely for ransom. When the FARC, at it 's Seventh Conference in 1982, decided to change it's name to FARC-EP (Ejército del Pueblo or the "People's Army"), it proved to be more a token name than a reality on the ground. The FARC, at no point in time, have been able to stir up under the masses of campesinos or urban poor the same sort of revolutionary zeal like Castro and Che managed to do in Cuba or Mao in China. Oppositely, civilians of all ranks for years have served as trump cards to fund the money-hungry operations of the insurgency, by kidnapping them.

Hunt for the Red October, November, December, January ...

I'm almost sure that those of you that ever visited Paris, like me at so many occasions, will have taken a leisurely stroll through the long-stretched Jardin des Tuileries, possibly on your way to the Musée du Louvre. On a spring or summerday, it's pure bliss to walk these gardens or simply to watch the other passers-by from one of the green metal chairs, strewn randomly in the vicinity of a round pond with a fountain that sits about right in the middle of the gardens.

 If the weather is fine, you will find a little push-cart on wheels next to this pond, carrying a whole set of colourful wooden miniature sailboats, that come with a stick. When you rent one of those, you can have your little ones (or yourself, if you prefer) let these boats set sail for the "vast" expanse of the pond, with the help of that stick. The always present wind in the gardens, helped by the spraying water of the fountain, will have the boats reach the other shore in no time ... where your kiddo can push them back  out to "sea", waiting for the next return ashore. There is some very simple and pure beauty in watching those boats on that pond and so, on any sunny day, you're sure to find the place crowded with Parisians and tourists alike.

My thoughts were drifting away to that peaceful scene when I was reading about the next semi-submersible that was captured near Buenaventura in Colombia, just before it was ready to go on it's maidentrip, transporting several tons of cocaine up north across the Pacific.

Bogota's Difficult Choice

As I expected and stated already in one of my previous posts, the municipal elections in Bogota are turning out to be a most interesting spectacle, but in a much different way than I had expected.

Where I had anticipated originally a neck-to-neck race between the two candidates that, among themselves, have covered three legislatures (from 1995 to 2003) as Mayor of Bogota already, i.e. Enrique Penalosa (once) and Antanas Mockus (twice), the latest polls now show the former M-19 guerilla and Polo Democratico candidate Gustavo Petro to be firmly in the lead, Penalosa being the runner up trailing behind his opponent with roughly six percent and Mockus having withdrawn his candidacy and gone into an alliance fronted by independant candidate and ex-senator Gina Parody.

Furthermore, Penalosa saw two of his closest campaign aides, Hector Riveros and Diego Laserna, walk off as he engaged controversial Venezuelan publicist J.J. Rendon to steer his campaign.

No lack of drama, with only one month to go before the election on October 30 !

I did some "guess-alising" on why it now looks entirely possible that on October 31, Bogota will wake up, having a Mayor different than the two I thought were going to have a homerun and fight it out among themselves. Not so !

Coffee Break

"If you can't beat them, join them"

But since I can't join them for now either, I just drink them :-)

War from the drawing table - "Pequeñas Voces"

 

If there's anything that can be named to have survived and outlived all civilisations, from man's very beginning in prehistoric times to the  time of today, it must be war. We have fought each other relentlessly for a myriad of reasons, one even worse than the other  and we still continue doing it, as if we can never have enough. 

However, this human obsession with war, which at certain times and in some -ever shifting- places seems to have become it's very "condition humaine", also has given rise to a whole compendium of artistic production that is trying in all different ways to dig into the underlying reasons, the mechanisms and the influence on our lives of this monster we abhorr but can't seem to do without at the same time. All living creatures wage war in their struggle for survival, yet none seems so addicted as man, so when it comes to subject matter, there really is no question of lack, there's only a problem of choice.

Libraries worldwide have miles of shelves filled floor to roof with literature and research on war. Museum walls are covered with paintings, sculptures and photographs on the subject. From the earliest troubadours to the latest rockbands: all have been singing out loud their experience and their views on war.

Equally so has cinema, this youngest offspring of the Art family, not been able to contain it's fascination with the drama of war and all things related to it. From Hollywood to Bollywood and beyond have directors taken their war stories to the silver screen and helped to reflect on and document our beautifully atrocious human history.

Almost as many as the different faces presented by war have been the cinematic representations of it: from shorts to full-length feature films, from documentaries to novel adaptations, from the mute cinema of the early days to the talkies of today ... none have skipped the subject.

In this post I would like to highlight three movies that have forcefully captured my attention, because of the peculiar and rather uncommon way they are bringing the war experience to the big screen. I'm talking about animated or cartoon movies.

(On a sidenote: the funny "petite histoire" here is that it was my Colombian friend that recommended the two foreign ones to me, yet it had to be me to introduce the Colombian one in this little series to her).

70 percent right, 30 percent wrong

"Mao Tse-tung, who for decades held absolute power over the lives of one-quarter of the world's population, was responsible for well over 70 million deaths in peacetime, more than any other twentieth century leader."

(opening line from: "Mao: The Unknown Story" by Jung Chang & Jon Halliday, UK, 2005)

 

 

 

There's several things that strike when you enter Tian'anmen square in Beijing, it's sheer size being one of them, for instance. Another one is definitely the portrait of Chairman Mao, looming large over the gate that gave it's name to the square in front of it, the Gate of Heavenly Peace, the entrance to what once was the Forbidden City. It's just one of those weird things in China, that it should be the über-Communist decorating the entrance to what for centuries had been the palace of the chinese emperor.

If the above estimate of the number of deaths is correct (and there is a growing consensus that the figure may not be too far off the mark), then that would make Mao Zedong a worse villain than Hitler or Stalin. To be sure, Lao Mao (as he is called in China) didn't kill anyone himself, yet his policies did. Campaign after campaign, from the "Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom, Let a Hundred Schools of Thought Contend" (1957) to the"Great Leap Forward" (1958 - 1961) to "The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution"(1966 - 1976), disaster, famines and civil strife ravaged the country, with the incredible number of casualties as a result. Yet, it is still his portrait that decorates the worlds' biggest square, it is his mausoleum that stands in the middle of that same square and it is still his picture that is dangling from the mirror of numerous taxi drivers in the capital.

The Chinese Communist Party got it all nicely spelled out: Mao did make mistakes, but the final assessment is that he was "seventy percent right and thirty percent wrong", because Mao's doings is much of what their legitimacy depends upon still today. It's nice to have a clear picture, isn't it ?

So how come I'm again back to my chinese references ? Because I had to think of this while pondering on this peculiar guy called Uribe.

Some time ago, I read an interview with Steve Jobs about this huge success story called Apple and what he thought was the key to this success. Jobs pointed out that for every new product launch, he forced his engineers and designers to think of the three key features that would make the product sell ... Three ... Not four, not five, but three. We all know how that worked out.

  
   
I tend to see Alvaro Uribe as the man who pulled an even more stringent "Steve Jobs"-analysis on the Colombia he inherited from Andres Pastrana in 2002 and decided that internal security was THE main "feature" his fellow countrymen were longing for most and decided to chase that target with all his power. From what I have read and heard, he did a magnificent job in delivering against that promise. Across the country, the FARC guerilla's suffered severe blows, the AUC got demobilised (well, sort of ... ), people were able again to travel over roads that before had been considered too dangerous and so on and so forth. Uribe's "Democratic Security" policy, in it's core element, i.e. re-instating a sense of security for large parts of the population, was a tremendous success. His image of being a workaholic, working day and night to achieve his goals and going out into the country on meeting after meeting with the local populace, helped him earn the enormous popular support he has held throughout most of his two tenures as president of Colombia.