“I was arrested on June 10th, 2004. I was having a medical examination at some private clinic in Comeo when three men in plain clothes came into the consulting room and dragged me out by force. They were armed. They said I was detained.” This is how Mauricio Avilez, a 26-year-old from Barranquilla who worked at the Cedernos human rights group at the time of the arrest, recalls the first events that led him into serious troubles. “They dragged me out of the consulting room, and there was a car, a Mazda without number plates, waiting for me outside. This set me thinking. If they are in plain clothes and with a Mazda without number plates, then this can't be a real detention. And when I asked them to show me a warrant, they showed me nothing. After seating me in the car, one of them said to me, ‘Mother fucker, you are a guerrilla. All those of human rights are guerrillas.'”

     Mauricio was arrested by soldiers. They took him to Barranquilla’s 2nd Brigade barracks where he was thoroughly grilled in “a small, dark room.” They were threatening him, saying things such as “If you don't talk, you'll regret it afterwards”. They did not beat him, but for 24 hours he stayed illegally detained in the barracks, until he was – at the insistence of various NGOs informed about the event by Mauricio's doctor - finally transferred to a proper detention centre.

     During the trial that followed, Mauricio had to face a long list of charges, which included, among other things, rebellion, terrorism, blackmailing, and murder. “Those charges were based on the bombings of two shopping malls in Barranquilla, presumably carried out by the FARC. They said I had been involved in those attacks, and that I was the third most important man in the FARC unit operating on the coast,” said Mauricio. Furthermore, prosecutors also argued that Mauricio had diligently worked as a recruiting agent for new guerrilla members and as a propagator of radical leftist ideas at the university where he studied. The office where he was working was said to be just an astute cover for FARC’s operations on the coast.

     The case went on for four months, and it finally came to an end only when judicial authorities admitted to having no solid evidence to sustain the accusations.

     Uribe's “democratic security” era

     “This government wants to increase the number of detentions,” said David Martinez, the coordinator of the Bogotá-based Observatory of human rights and humanitarian law. In his view, it was President Uribe’s speech to the coffee industry businessmen on December 10th [by the way: the international human rights day], 2003, the one that provided the first glimpse into an era where massive arbitrary arrests would play an important role. It is well worth to recall once again the President’s words: “Last week I’ve said to General Castro Castro [the head of Colombia’s police forces] that in this region we cannot continue every Sunday with massive detentions of 40 or 50 people, but of 200 people, if we want to accelerate the imprisonment of terrorists and crack down on those organizations.” This statement was referring to the western part of the Caldas region, but it nevertheless soon became evident that it was adopted as a guiding principle all over the country. According to Martinez, a new trend gradually developed during Uribe’s term: “In the past, arbitrary detentions were more individual but under this government massive detentions of the population have gained momentum.”

     Data gathered by the Observatory confirm the advent of a new era. According to these figures, an exceptional increase in arbitrary detentions came into sight immediately after 2002, the presidential election year that brought Álvaro Uribe Vélez to power. From August 7th, 2002, to August 6th, 2004, at least 6332 people were detained arbitrarily in Colombia, while in the six years going back from June 2002 to July 1996 only 2896 citizens were held under arrest without any substantial evidence. From these figures it is possible to conclude there is a direct link between Uribe’s political activity, which promotes itself through a program known as “Democratic security”, and the violations of human rights in terms of arbitrary detentions.

     On a chart showing the number of detentions for each single year, the year 2003 – with more than 4000 arrests - dramatically surpasses all others. What caused this record breaking number? “The detention in Arauca, with more than 2000 people closed inside a stadium, took place,” explained Martinez. “They [the police] charged some of them, and held under arrest the others for 12, 14, even 36 hours with the excuse of checking their records.”

     The Pacheco case

     An ex-prosecutor from Sincelejo, Orlando Pacheco, still vividly remembers some details of a massive operation in which 156 people were detained, an operation which dramatically changed his life: “The raid took place on August 17th, 2003, and it involved the police, army, marines from Corozal, prosecutors, the whole world… save three or four officials from the public prosecutor’s office. It happened between 3:30 and 5:30 in the morning. They violated the rights of peasants, of the civilian population.” The case was assigned to the then prosecutor Pacheco, and after he realized that all those people had been detained without any acceptable reason, he set them free. “On the basis of a report made by informers it was concluded that they [the police, army…] would find kidnapped persons, explosives, subversive propaganda, and firearms. But none of those raids gave a ‘positive’ result since nothing was found,” Pacheco explained which was just one of the factors that convinced him to release all those taken into custody.

     Yet, as it soon became painfully evident, it was precisely the fact of acting according to law that brought Pacheco unexpected troubles. “After I had released those people, the general public prosecutor began to talk on national media about my immediate removal. And then came the minister of defence Marta Lucia Ramirez, today an elected senator from Uribe’s party U, and said that judicial measures to detain yet again all those released by me had already been taken. That was a clear, inappropriate interference of the executive branch in judicial matters,” observed Pacheco who after those events also started to receive threats from local paramilitary groups. To stay safe, he had to move to Bogotá, where he still lives with his family.

     The then general public prosecutor, Luis Camilo Osorio, ordered to his subordinates to investigate Pacheco’s approach to the case which resulted in a charge of neglect of duty. Moreover, as part of the measures taken against him, Pacheco also had to spend some time under house arrest. The litigation went to the Supreme Court where it ended abruptly after the arrival of a new prosecutor. The newcomer realized there was no real evidence against Pacheco so he withdrew the charge and asked for exculpation. This was delivered by the Supreme Court on March 23rd, 2006.

     Arbitrary detentions, Colombian-style

     The principal allegation used against citizens arrested in massive raids is the collaborators-of-the-guerrilla-movement cliché, although many difficulties arise when this allegation has to be supported by plausible evidence. Numerous irregularities occurring during detention operations as well as subsequent show trials indicate that involved officials operate in an extremely capricious fashion. Martinez gives some examples: “In many cases there is no warrant. In some cases we noticed that they wrote the arrest warrant during the course of the military operation. For example, prosecutors follow the army, identify people and then issue a warrant. Or, as it happened in many cases, a warrant is written after the operation in order to legitimize the activities of the public forces.” Moreover, judicial authorities frequently use information from intelligence service’s reports as evidence on trials, a practice deemed unlawful according to Colombian Criminal Law.

     “One example of arbitrary detention occurring in the armed conflict is also the detention of the peasant population, of adult men and women, teenage boys and girls, in order to use them as guides of the security forces during military operations,” observed Martinez. Over and over again, army members detain locals who know well the environment where the operation is taking place, and they force them to help orientating the troops. “They can detain him [a local] for two days, which is a clear example of an arbitrary detention since there is no reason to hold him.” It seems that in these cases the act of detention is probably the last thing worrying the guide since the fact that he worked for the army brings forward much more serious concerns. Guerrillas usually interpret such actions as collaboration and target those involved.

     Informers

     “The state has recently made some very negative decisions. It has entangled civilians into war through a program known as civil informers. These informers don’t work for judicial entities but for the armed forces, which means they have a military function,” noted Marco Romero, president of the COHDES human rights group. The introduction of civil informers into army operations is a new phenomenon that also emerged during Uribe’s presidency, and has already brought about some adverse consequences. According to Romero, informers gain a lot of power in their communities since they can use information selectively and sometimes accuse people arbitrarily. As a result, a deep feeling of mistrust permeates the communities: everyone is suspicious, anyone might be a spy.

     Martinez said that not only civilians work as informers. The majority of them are “reinsertados, people who were actually or presumably members of the irregular armed groups, above all guerrilla groups.” Ex-guerrillas are supposed to possess a great deal of information about their still active colleagues, so the army uses them in massive detention operations. In these operations, informers, usually covered with balaclavas, indicate to soldiers who are the persons that have to be detained.

     Many times informers also take part in trials where they testify against the detained. “We noticed a lot of inconsistencies,” said Martinez. “For example, one person who works for the public forces has testified on a trial in Barranquilla, then in Cali, then in Bogotá, and then in Villavicencio. How can this guy have information about such different guerrilla groups? Are his accusations genuine?”         

     The Padilla case

     When Amaury Padilla returned from lunch on December 26th, 2003, four agents of the Department of Administrative Security (DAS) stopped him in front of the Conventional Centre in Cartagena where he worked. The agents showed him an arrest warrant. He was accused of rebellion and collaborating with the FARC guerrilla.    

     When the case came to court, mysterious informers supposedly possessing a great deal of knowledge about Padilla’s double life begun to pop up. What kind of evidence did they submit? “No evidence,” said Padilla, “everything was based on the arguments of these supposed witnesses who saw me in places that I had never been to.” Padilla’s lawyers successfully impugned all these false statements, but when they disproved one informer a new one quickly appeared. “I started with two witnesses, but ended up with five,” said Padilla.   

     However, Padilla’s court nightmare came to an end on June 4th, 2004. He was released when the authorities moved the case – at the insistence of a group of NGOs’ - from Cartagena to Bogotá. After getting the case into his hands, the prosecutor in the capital quickly grasped that there is no evidence against Padilla, so he not only asked the Supreme Court for his release but also for his reintegration to his previous job and the restitution of the material damage caused to him because of the illegal detention.        

     Unfortunately, Padilla could not continue living in Cartagena for he started to receive anonymous threats, while on three different occasions unidentified men waited for him in front of his house. According to Padilla, on the last occasion “four men on motorcycles who didn’t show their faces” were waiting for him. Who was responsible for these threats? Who wanted to get rid of him? “I can’t say who it was for I never got to know that,” said Padilla. Only an assumption can be made: “Investigations published in the Semana weekly said that the director of Bolivar’s branch of DAS, who was of course also involved in the trail against me, was the boss of the death squads in the region.” So this is where the menace supposedly came from.  

     Because of all these problems Padilla had to leave the country for a year; he moved first to Uruguay, and then to Chile. Now, he is back in Colombia, working at a Bogotá-based NGO called Minga where he is making an effort to help war-afflicted indigenous tribes in Putumayo.  

     Political witch-hunt

     Since Padilla had an important political function – he worked for Bolivar’s governor, where he, among other things, coordinated the office for national and international cooperation - at the time of the detention, his case needs to be put in a broader political context. When I asked him what had been, by his opinion, the reason that provoked such an evidently unfair campaign against him, he started to talk about what was going on at his working place. “We openly fought against the politics of militarization, the politics of freedoms restrictions, against all politics of power abuse by the army and marines, which were made possible in the region by the national government,” said Padilla. They also opposed the coca-plants fumigation project since it had been destroying not only the illicit crop but also the entire environment and, therefore, peoples’ lives depending on it. All these initiatives were trying to provide a critical view on Uribe’s government policies, which is why, according to Padilla’s supposition, the fake accusations aimed at discrediting him surfaced. Padilla says there are no certainties, just a hypothesis: “I believe that the position of direct antagonism that we adopted triggered the detention.”

     “The use of detentions and show trails became extensive in many sectors of the population, but in the last decades these measures were used especially against those who were identified by them [the government] as the so-called internal enemy, i.e. union leaders, leaders of the opposition, human-rights activists, peasant leaders,” said Martinez. This trend only intensified under the Uribe administration

     It is worth mentioning that the link between human rights activists and guerrilla terrorism has been promoted from the very top of Colombia’s currently governing political entity. Once again we should recall the President’s message: “I also observe writers and politicos that finally serve only to terrorism when they cowardly shield themselves behind the flag of human rights. […] Politicos at the service of terrorism who cowardly wave the flag of human rights in order to give back some space to terrorism in Colombia, a space which was previously taken away by the public forces and citizens.”

     First detained, then murdered

     “We had a friend, Alfredo Correa, a professor who worked in Cartagena and who was a man of theory in cultural matters, which means that he was totally incompatible with a pragmatic guerrilla as we have here in Colombia,” told Romero. Professor Correa was detained arbitrarily in 2004 but when it became obvious that accusations against him were unfounded, they released him. “He returned to Barraquilla, the city where he worked, but soon afterwards he got killed,” said Romero. He was supposedly murdered by members of paramilitary groups.

     Martinez said the number of arbitrary detention cases that ended with an assassination is not negligible. “We have information about 40 cases.” According to him, it is very difficult to prove who is responsible for these acts, but it seems that “the security forces hand over [the victims] to paramilitaries or coordinate these actions together with paramilitaries.”

     No disciplinary proceedings

     “The 95 per cent of people who had to be released prove beyond any doubt that mechanisms used during detentions are clearly arbitrary and of very bad quality,” Romero indicated how high was the percentage point of those who were detained and later set free for lack of evidence. But if so many violations of rules that regulate criminal procedures during and after detentions are committed, do the authorities at least investigate them? “The number of investigated cases is minimal,” responded Martinez. It seems that authorities have no time to investigate disregards occurring during arbitrary detentions, or to launch disciplinary proceedings against those who breached the law. And what is the exact number of investigated cases? “I know of three cases,” said Martinez.

     “People are afraid. They don’t want to say anything against the state; they don’t want to file demands against the government. This [arbitrary arrests] became almost such an ordinary thing that for human-rights activists is not so bad if they get detained for it is much worse if they get killed,” said Padilla who nevertheless decided to file a demand to clarify his case. He also expects a reimbursement of the financial damage that was caused to him during his long calvary. “More than being repaid, I hope that it will become clear what happened,” he concluded.

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Colombia Tierra Querida

Este mensaje me fue enviado por mi hermana Nelly E. Bueno y la verdad es que mas que reenviarlo en correo, lo pongo para que todos mis lectores lo puedan disfrutar.

MIGUEL ÁNGEL BUENO PÉREZ

I am the son of the man that though the computer screen got its color from the ink, in the ink cartridge, in the printer.

I am the son of the woman who like All other colombian women is obsessed with dying and keeps threatening "un dia me voy a morir y que van hacer?!"
I am the cousin of the guy who lived with us in Los Angeles and now has an obsession with Tortillas and nacho cheese while living in Colombia.

I am the cousin of the girl who got knocked up by her driving instructor, was sent to us in Los Angeles and then went home and told the family we were mean to her.

I am related to the shortest family in the southern hemisphere, I visit Colombia and i become a giant, its good for my ego.

I am the son of parents who kept telling me that our family in Colombia was so poor and needy yet when i went to visit, my cousin was wearing Diesel jeans and Hugo Boss shoes.

"Ud., sabe para que se han creado estas instituciones?., sin no sabe le contamos, existen para proteger y blindar a las entidades Financieras y Empresas de sus clientes, sí, de los delincuentes que se aprovechan de cualquier situación para generar el fraude ó de las personas que no han podido responder por una obligación y comparten esta información para que no vaya a realizar lo mismo en otra institución. Es muy sencillo, las entidades y empresas afiliadas, lo que hacen periódicamente es “reportar” a las centrales las novedades de apertura de cuentas, incremento cupos, servicios, no pagos, etc., de los ciudadanos que diariamente realicen una “novedad” a su historial financiero crediticio ó no cumplan con sus obligaciones financieras.

Pero, quien nos protege a nosotros los ciudadanos?, nos toca a nosotros mismos; si hemos sido víctimas de un estafador y nos han suplantado, primero que todo, no nos damos cuenta, y cuando nos damos cuenta es demasiado tarde, nosotros mismos tenemos que proceder con un abogado, derechos de petición, etc., a demostrar que hemos sido víctimas para demostrarle a la entidad que hemos sido víctimas de una suplantación de identidad y que ellos han sido estafados. O si hemos entrado en mora, cobros jurídicos y hemos respondido, ya saben Uds., que el proceso para que lo “saquen del reporte” es bien dispendioso.

La solución está en manos de ellos y es muy sencillo; para lograr acceder a cualquier servicio financiero, comercial, nos hacen firmar una autorización de consulta y reporte ante las centrales de riesgo, hasta ahí todo está bien porque lo estamos autorizando, pero si lo hacen a nombre  nuestro (suplantación) cómo nos damos cuenta? y si el Banco está siendo estafado menos; pero sí existe un proceso de notificación que es lo  planteado; que sea un servicio para la ciudadanía en general en el cual la persona se inscribe, y solicita que le sea notificado cualquier “novedad” a su historial crediticio, esta notificación puede ser dependiendo del servicio, al celular con un mensaje de texto, a un correo electrónico ó a ubicación telefónica. Esta es la única forma de blindarlos ante un intento de suplantación ó  robo de nuestro  buen nombre.

Teniendo en cuenta esta consideración, es la razón para que alguien se preocupe por el ciudadano, si las entidades y empresas están blindadas, nosotros tenemos el mismo derecho.

Solicitamos el favor de su opinión  sobre esta propuesta que está radicada y en proceso de implementación. Esperamos sus comentarios."

"Quedémonos con los tres puntos, que son lo mejor del partido. Todo lo demás hay que olvidarlo" (Gigi Buffon).

• Argentina 1-1 Paraguay

• España 1-0 Bosnia

• Chile 0-3 Brasil

• Malta 0-4 Portugal

• Liechtenstein 0-6 Alemania

• Andorra 0-2 Inglaterra; Macedonia 1-0 Escocia; Eslovaquia 2-1 Irlanda del Norte; Gales 1-0 Azerbayán

• Colombia 0-1 Uruguay

• Austria 3-1 Francia

Have you read or seen the play Pygmalion, or the film My Fair Lady ? I had to deal with a phonetician of sorts. If you English speakers out there have ever tried learning Spanish, you have most likely endured the challenge that is the double-r. It, too, was my enemy.

My mother would take me once a week to a phonetician. A lady in her thirties, maybe forties. She would sit me down and begin by making me speak in English. She made me speak a language I already knew. She wasted my hours and my days saying words and sounds I already knew. How I wanted to yell at her, tell her to teach me to speak Spanish. I was tired of being mute in this new country. I was tired of being unable to communicate with children my own age. I was tired of being abandoned in the playground during recess because I couldn't distinguish between the words "hurt" and "smell" (duele and huele).

I would argue with my mother, telling her I hated going to those classes. She told me I needed them, I said I didn't. That woman was not helping me. Only later did my mother learn that the phonetician wasn't teaching me Spanish.

Eventually, by myself, without help, all alone, abandoned, isolated on the school playground, I learned to pronounce the double-r correctly. No thanks to that phonetician.

But when it came to Spanish, a decision was made, I was to waste my extra time learning Spanish. Understandable, right? Well, the way they decided to teach me made as much sense as cutting my legs off and jumping in a pool full of sharks. During the school day, after an hour or so, we were given a fifteen minute break. Students just ate snacks, sat outside, talked. Nothing special. Meanwhile, I was shown to the door and walked towards a small closet-like office placed under some stairs, were an old woman waited for me. She was the equivalent of the mother superior of my elementary school career. She would sit me in this room, by her side and made me read cards, made me tell her if that word was a verb or noun, she made me read stories out of books and answer questions at such a fast pace. I detested those fifteen minutes, I sat in a small, hot room, hungry, while my peers socialized and ate outside under the warm sun. Life sure knows how to treat me well.

My first grade English teacher once saw me writing the number six. She froze, as if I had just proved to her Kennedy was shot by Hoffa who was living on a secret military island in the Bermuda Triangle. She asked me to rewrite the number six, I did. I started from the center, as opposed to the standard way of starting at the end. She gave of a sigh of relief, it all made sense now, my ugly handwriting was not entirely my fault, it was my previous teacher.

Next time I arrived at the closet, I saw a giant scroll of paper, the largest sheet of paper I had ever laid my eyes on. The next time I would see paper rivaling that size, I was to be touring the local newspaper's printers. I knew something bad was going to happen. The lady sat me in front of the paper, handed me a pencil and said to me something about repeating the characters of the alphabet. My heart sank into my stomach and drowned, my lungs collapsed upon themselves, my intestines tangled themselves up in an attempt to run away. I wanted then and there to die. I grabbed the pencil, looked at the paper and allowed myself to feel as miserable as possible. I began with the letter "A." I wrote that damn letter until I could have closed me eyes and written Macbeth without even noticing I was writing. I could have picked up a pencil with my other hand and written out the complete works of all the Beat writers and poets. My hand was pounding with pain, asking for a break, and the breaks only came when the pencil needed to be sharpened. I must have wasted more pencils that year than most people did in their lifetime. I felt like a medieval monk copying the same Biblical verses over and over. I do remember one time breaking down when I walked in there, I refused to work and sat there staring out the window, watching people walk by and the grass sing in the sunlight. I cried, I wanted out I wanted out I wanted out. I was hungry, I was unhappy, I wanted out. After a while, I began my work became more and more mediocre as a I realized that I was bound to waste my year in that room no matter how hard I worked. Once I reached the letter "Z" I almost shouted with joy, I finished it faster than usual. I thought I was free, my days as a printing press was over. How naive. The lady pulled a new sheet and commanded me to start all over again, I must have cried.

When I returned to class, I walked in with my head down. Tired of working for a heartless woman. I loved the English portion of the day, I zipped through it with ease. But then the Spanish teacher walked in and I knew my day was going to get worse again. She would take all the other students to a large table were they would read. I sat at my desk simply doing nothing, sometimes crying. I wanted to be there, but I couldn't. Once I tried to ask her to go to the restroom, I couldn't speak Spanish. I tried asking for her permission to go, but she didn't speak English. There is nothing more frustrating than trying to communicate an idea to someone who cannot understand. I made a fool out of myself in front of my classmates and the teacher. I went back to my desk, put my head down and cried.

Don't get me wrong. As arachnophobic as I can be, I'm quite fond of Spidey. Okay, so he's not up there with Batman, and he demands the suspension of a hell of a lot of disbelief (I always feel like I could take him with one hand tied behind my back), but when the boy swings, he really swings -- and there's a lot to be said for that.

Another two films on top of the three that have already been made, though? That just seems to be pushing it, from where I'm sitting. But then, that's Hollywood. Like a three-year-old that gets a laugh, it continues to do more of the same, only bigger -- little guessing that less is more.

That said, I suppose the $2.5 billion grossed by the first three films must make it pretty bloody tempting.

I wonder if they're looking for a writer...

© 2008 Gary William Murning

Não foi possível de imediato ter uma versão do governo ou de Restrepo sobre o que seria a primeira menção oficial de uma busca de contato direto com os chefes guerrilheiros por parte do governo do presidente Alvaro Uribe, informou a AP [Associated Press].

Segundo o jornal, Restrepo declarou pela manhã que "há duas pessoas com todo o apoio logístico do governo, dedicadas única e exclusivamente a manter o canal de comunicação... com Alfonso Cano e Pablo Catatumbo".

O funcionário, contudo, esclareceu que até agora não havia logrado nenhuma forma de contato com os chefes insurgentes, mas que simultaneamente estava "fazendo um trabalho persistente face às frentes guerrilheiras que mantêm seqüestrados em seu poder", incluindo três políticos e mais de 20 militares e policiais, alguns com 11 anos de cativeiro.

"O governo mantém aberto o caminho do diálogo e se o senhor Cano quer se reunir comigo, estou disposto", adicionou Restrepo.

Restrepo explicou na entrevista que os esforços do governo estão orientados a "oferecer alternativas de reincorporação, legais e também econômicas", porque considera que é o caminho mais adequado no momento.

Assegurou que o governo tomou nota de que "não há uma mudança na política das FARC. Seguem sua posição intransigente e obstinada". Mas, apesar disso, disse Restrepo, o goberno "está disposto a avançar nos caminhos da liberdade".

Cano assumiu o comando das FARC em março passado, após a morte do chefe e fundador das FARC, Manuel Marulanda "Tirofijo".

O comissário expressou que as FARC sempre mantiveram uma dupla mensagem: "por um lado, internamente, visam a uma linguagem de guerra, e para fora, uma linguagem de diálogo".

Também afirmou que a informação que ele tem "é que dentro das FARC há um enraizamento da posição terrorista".

Traduzido de: EL UNIVERSAL. Informan que gobierno colombiano busca acercamiento con jefes de las FARC. 30 ago. 2008. Disponível em: <http://www.eluniversal.com/2008/08/30/int_ava_informan-que-gobiern_30A1954479.shtml>. Acesso em: 7 set. 2008.

Video del concierto Acustico de Alex Campos El sonido del silencio Bogota Colombia ... Alex campos el sonido del silencio. Over 2 1/2 million views on youtube.

I know very little Spanish. I have been away from Bogota for almost a year now. There is something about the music that I love. I really miss it. Hopefully I will be in Bogota in January of next year.

Lunch was fairly standard fare, though we had a much greater selection in Bogotá than in Cartagena or Santa Marta - there were more cosmopolitan, experimental places (not terribly so, but enough to put a little dazzle in your lunch, rather than the Ecuadorian style meat-rice-potato combo). Lunch usually consisted of juice, soup, and main course. A salad may be included, and dessert could often be had in Bogotá - not so much in the other cities. Also, the non-capital cities tended more towards simpler drinks than fruit juice - soft drinks, water, or a delicious drink made of cane sugar and water whose name I can't recall at the moment. One constant that kept up the tradition we had found all over - it filled you up!

Dinner was pretty much the same as lunch - a selection of typical, cheap plates. Being that it was near the end of our trip, we were stretching pennies, so we didn't go in for any of the fancy dishes, always settling for these standard dishes. Still, you got soup, some veggies, a good helping of delicious beans (our favourite part), beans, rice, and french fries. It filled you up. The meat was less than inspiring, but it had been all along, and actually, the Colombians could cook meat decently (we've have some pretty bad stuff in some places). They also tended to have liver on the menu, which I really loved. At times, it was even done with tomatoes, a great way to take the edge off if you're a liver-hater. The flavours blend quite nicely!

We did get one special lunch when we were in Cartegena, on the way back from our mud volcano adventure. Fresh-caught fish with the typical trimmings, only this rice was cooked in coconut milk. We had both been really hoping to have more of this up on the coast, but apparently it's only in the higher-priced restaurants, because this is the only place we got it. The fish was delicious and the rice was heavenly - each bite tasted like a coconut-flavoured angel. Probably the best rice we ate on the continent.

I'll finish off with a signature Colombian dish - sancocho. Really, it's just a soup full of STUFF - meat, vegetables, yuca, and a few spices - but everyone does their own and I always enjoyed it. Another recipe that I'll post when I get the chance to translate it, although it has a list of ingredients as long as your arm. It's the kind of thing your grandma always makes because she has an entire day to prepare a soup.

All of it was good though, especially after the disappointment of Ecuador. I'm glad we finished here, in Colombia. It wasn't quite everything I had hoped it to be, but it was damn close, and it kept me satisfied.

Breakfast has been an interesting affair down here - up to Colombia, it existed, but typically the same things were eaten as at lunch and dinner. At least, the same ingredients were used. Rice, eggs, french fries, vegetables, empanadas (well, salteñas in Bolivia) - all of these were fair game for breakfast.

In Ecuador, however, things changed. People still sometimes have those things, but coffee, eggs, juice, and bread is much more common. The bread is called Pan de Ambato and can be found at any breakfast restaurant. I loved it. It was often served with the slightly salty white cheese they use so much with everything. I have a recipe and will post it if I have time to translate it. I can't do off-the-cuff so well anymore!

In Colombia, we lost the bread, but arepas made their way into our diet. They can be eaten at any time of day (and are!), but are often found hot at breakfast. They're as if cornbread and pancakes had a baby (that's from Chris. She has a way with words). You can buy them just plain (often from bakeries like this) or with cheese cooked between them. If you get them this way, it's usually fresh off the grill with a little butter and salt on them. Wow, was this good, way better than I thought. I hope we have a recipe for that somewhere...

Lastly, yogurt made an appearance in a big way, starting in northern Peru. All different flavours as well, different to us, but that's because they were done with local fruits. Mulberry/blackberry and custard apple were two new ones for us (in addition to 'regular' flavours'), and Christine took a shine to a cinnamon oatmeal drink, as it was called. It was like thin oatmeal and really quite tasty. So many good ideas down here only available to us for a short time! Such is travel.

Colombians like to snack. At least, that's the impression I got from walking around snacking here. There was a lot of non-heavy food available that was obviously not meant to fill your belly (and some that was a little heavy). Here is a short list of what we encountered and scarfed.

Pastries and sweets! There were some terrific bakeries here that make some top-notch desserts. Tarts, small cakes, éclairs - we tried a couple of things from a little place around the corner from our hostel and were not disappointed in the least.

Fried plantains were a favourite of mine from the first time I tried them in Peru. They're almost always available on the street, they're crunchy, they're salty - perfect in my books! Plantains are not sweet, either, so they're not the dried-banana taste which, though I love them, can get to be too much sweet when I eat too many. (Granted, too many is a LOT of banana chips.) I don't know if I could eat too many fried plantains.

Ants were not a snack that I would indulge in too much, but we tried them anyway! As you may guess, I was the instigator here. They only come from one province in the country - not the capital - but we found a store selling them and decided to try them. Hormiga culona, as they are known. They tasted meaty and buttery. I wasn't a huge fan - that richness was a little too much for me. It may not have helped that we were sampling them for breakfast.

Street pancakes - as I have no idea what else to call them - were paper-thin pancakes smeared inside with your choice of toppings then handed to you, about to drip. The fun was eating it without getting it all over yourself. Typical toppings were chocolate, raspberry, manjar blanco, and cream. Definitely snack food, as they were not filling at all. I enjoyed my cream and raspberry.

Cartagena yielded a large number of snacks that we came back to day after day. These women (there were a very small number of men) would hang out just inside the old city in the shade with carts carrying glass jars filled with different kinds of candy. Many of them were coconut based, but there were others. The picture, starting upper left, going clockwise: coconut with guava flavours, a molasses and sesame ball, coconut with pineapple flavour, peanut brittle, and 'chocolate balls' (made from corn flour, nutmeg, and powdered cacao bean). The coconuts were delicious and there were many more flavours. The peanut brittle was like good peanut brittle, but I love that stuff, so I ate it with gusto. The sesame balls disappeared quickly as well. The chocolate balls were the real surprise. They tasted like Christmas - it was the nutmeg. There was a lot of it, at least at our favourite vendor (we tried others and it was much more subtle). There was no sugar - the cacao was pure. Really, really tasty candy. No wonder we went back every day!

Of course it wasn't available anywhere in the country, but we did sample some origin chocolate sold in the airport. I don't recall where in Colombia it was from, but it was tasty. This one was with little bits of passionfruit, which was absolutely delectable - little sweet, tart bits with every bite of yummy dark chocolate. Very much worth picking up, as everything here was!

Well, this will be the last South American fruit entry, unfortunately. We've seen (and tasted!) a lot and it's been a wonderful time. Colombia still held new fruits for us, surprisingly, and some were really different!

First up was the feijoa. Apparently very healthy with tonnes of Vitamin C, this crunchy fruit was a little tart and kind of tasted like a tart, hard cucumber. I enjoyed it more than Christine (that tart/sour thing again), though I don't know if I'd eat it regularly.

Next up was the mamey, which was quite sweet. A little mealy, it was like a very sweet sweet potato. We only tried it once, as neither of us was terribly into it.

Mamoncillos, on the other hand, were one of my favourites. These little marble-sized fruits were a thin, sweet membrane of fruit (rather like lychees) covering a large seed and boy were they tasty. Christine likens the taste to stringy, sweet clouds - very soft. Great for sucking on while laying out at the beach reading a book. I ate bags and bags of these.

Asaí berries could be bought at markets, so we bought them. They are not, however, meant to be eaten straight - we encountered a few fruits like this. Typically, these fruits are used in juices (like the noñi) or are boiled and frozen (this is how the asaí berries are typically eaten. The berries themselves have a leathery covering and are REALLY sour. You know how cartoon characters pucker when they eat lemons? You do that for real when you eat these. The frozen juice treats made from them are delicious, however, having just a touch of sugar and a lot of water added.

Lastly, the insidious plum label reared its head again, this time in Cartagena. I have no idea what they are in reality, but the guy we bought them from would only call them plums. They are very juicy, quite sweet, and really quite tasty. I didn't see anything made from them, so I assume that they are eaten only as fruit (at least, that's the most conventional way of eating them). We enjoyed the bag that we bought, ripe as the plums were.

And that brings our fruit discoveries here to an end. 29 brand new fruits by the end, I believe, and many more that we had only tried once or twice before. I'll be sad to leave many of them behind, but you can't have everything! Thanks, South America, for your delicious fruit!

When we arrived on the coast up in Santa Marta, we were virtually inundated with delicious seafood. The shrimp cazuela, shown here, contained more shrimp than I have ever seen in one dish in my life. I think back home it probably would have cost upwards of $20. Here, it was about three or four. That was for a half-order. There was no way we could eat a full order, accompanied, as it was, by rice and french fries. Really tasty and creamy without being fishy, this dish was a winner and brought us back (the litre of juice for three dollars did as well.)

Every evening, as well, we would walk down to the beach and get a cup of seafood cocktail made with your choice of octopus, shrimp, manta ray, and/or scallop and their special sauce. Sitting on the ocean wall with one of these and a cold beer was about the best way to see the sun go down. There were vendors selling rice pudding as well for dessert if you could catch them. Tropical heaven? I'd say so.

We'd been missing empanadas for a while - the last ones we had were the salteñas in Bolivia which, while tasty, were not the empanadas that we had been gorging ourselves on for the last year and a half. We were eager to try Ecuadorian empanadas, having heard that there were new varieties. I don't know if we arrived at the wrong time or what, but they were not as...available as I had hoped. We were constantly disappointed in trying to get ahold of them.

Our first empanadas tried (not pictured) were sweet ones in Loja in the south. Filled with manjar blanco (Peru/Ecuador's sub-standard version of dulce de leche - sorry, it's just not as good!), they were a dessert empanada. Nothing to write home about.

The empanadas chileñas  (shown here) that we tried at the Ecuatorial Monument were the empanadas that we were raised with in Argentina, if not a left on the shelf a little too long and cooked a little too much. I believe we got beef and chicken. Dry and not terribly spiced in any particular direction, they tasted like cheap, corner-store empanadas. Still, they fulfilled the longing, if only just a bit.

We also tried an empanada de morocho. I have no idea how it translates, but it was barebones beef and rice inside an empanada that had been made from corn flour. This made the dough very crunchy. Really, it was like eating an empanada made from corn chips. Again, not great, but I think there was potential there. We'll see about experimentation in the future.

One empanada that we never got to try in Ecuador that we saw on every menu but not one restaurant seemed to stock was the empanada de verde. This one is made from plantain, I believe. Since I love plantains (one of my favourite things about the meals here are the cooked plantains on the side. I usually steal Christine's), I was really looking forward to them and really disappointed by the complete and utter lack of them. Boo Ecuador! Give me more empanadas!

Into Colombia, the first thing I wanted to try was their empanadas. We had sampled them in Argentina but I was eager to taste the real thing. They were made with corn flour, but they weren't crunchy like the empanadas de morocho. They were almost soft and chewy, but not in a flour dough kind of way. The insides were most commonly beef (unspiced), but man, these empanadas were stuffed! Full of filling, they were the easy the most-stuffed empanadas I've ever had. It must be the corn flour, because with wheat-flour empanadas, no matter how much you stuff them, there's reduction. While they may not have been the tastiest empanadas we found, they were probably the most filling. We didn't eat them all that often, but they were enjoyable.

So that's it for empanadas. We didn't get to try empanadas chileñas, which was disappointing, as every place that we tried what was listed as them on the menus, they came stuffed with everything - raisins, olives, onions, all sorts of good stuff. None of this one-by-one thing. The winner of our sampling, however, was Argentina by far. The most varieties, the best dough, the care put into them. Empanadas argentinas will be the recipe we take with us and spread wherever we are. Thanks to all the countries that participated, all entries were appreciated. Stay tuned for empanada experiments in the future!

Hace seis meses nuestros hijos Juan, Fernando, Verónica y Soren fueron asesinados a causa del cobarde bombardeo perpetrado en territorio ecuatoriano por tropas colombianas, contando con el apoyo de armas y aviones norteamericanos junto con accesoria de la Mossad israelí. Hace seis meses que arrancaron la vida de cuatro jóvenes mexicanos que se acercaron a un campamento de las FARC-EP ante su inquietud de comprender un conflicto social como el colombiano, se acercaron a un campamento ubicado fuera de territorio de guerra, un campamento que realizaba labores de paz.

En ese mismo lugar la joven mexicana Lucía Morett logra salvar su vida, no sin antes ser herida, acosada y hostigada por el ejército colombiano. Al día de hoy Lucía se encuentra refugiada en Nicaragua y junto con otros 15 ciudadanos mexicanos son perseguidos por un grupo de ultraderecha en México conocido como "El Yunque", así como por el mismo gobierno mexicano a través de una denuncia penal.

A seis meses de la cruel masacre, los Padres y Familiares de las Víctimas de Sucumbíos, junto a amigos y conocidos, junto con jóvenes estudiantes de la UNAM e IPN, junto a diversas organizaciones sociales, con el apoyo de la LIMEDDH (Liga Mexicana por la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos A.C.) y frente a varios medios de
comunicación nacionales y extranjeros nos dimos cita frente a la embajada de Colombia en México para hacer patente nuestro reclamo de exigir justicia y buscar el castigo de los asesinos de nuestros hijos, para lograr que Lucía pueda volver a su país sin riesgo de ser detenida y para detener la campaña de difamación, persecución y criminalizaciòn de la solidaridad. Actos similares se llevaron a cabo en las embajadas de Colombia en Madrid España, Roma Italia y en el Consulado de Colombia en Barcelona España.

Con este acto se dio inicio a la jornada permanente "Cada Uno Por La Justicia" que incluye la elaboración y entrega de un boletín mensual con el mismo nombre, esta jornada busca ser un espacio de denuncia de las constantes violaciones a los derechos humanos y para mostrar nuestra solidaridad con el hermano pueblo de Colombia; es también un medio más de exigencia para lograr el castigo a los asesinos de nuestros hijos y como un mecanismo de repudio al actual embajador colombiano en México: Luís Camilo Osorio Isaza al ser el articulador de una política injerencista de los serviles intereses de Alvaro Uribe en México al intentar calumniar a nuestros hijos, así como por sus claros vínculos con el paramilitarismo por lo que se busca que se le declare persona non grata en nuestro país.

De este modo realizaremos mes con mes actos frente a la embajada de Colombia en México contando con el apoyo y solidaridad de otras protestas en varias ciudades del mundo y se hará entrega del boletín "Cada Uno Por La Justicia" en las embajadas colombianas hasta que logremos el castigo a los asesinos, la salida de Luís Camilo Osorio de México, el regreso a salvo de Lucía y el desistimiento de la acción penal en contra de ella y de varios mexicanos más.

Seguimos adelante con todo el amor que nuestros hijos nos dieron y que sembraron en nuestras vidas, ese mismo amor que profesaron por Nuestra América Latina y que será el que nos aliente en esta lucha de justicia y libertad.

Todos los documentos entregados en la embajada de Colombia junto con el boletín "Cada Uno Por La Justicia" No. 1, se encuentran disponibles en: http://espora.org/limeddh/spip.php?article331

ASOCIACION DE PADRES Y FAMILIARES DE LAS VICTIMAS DE SUCUMBIOS ECUADOR

http://asociaciondepadresyfamiliares.blogspot.com/

A Fantastic result for La Celeste as Uruguay bring home 3 glorious points which moves them a step closer towards qualification to South Africa 2010. El Maestro Tabarez selected an awesome team which played positive and were always looking to win the game.

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Eliminatorias CONMEBOL: Colombia vs Uruguay (Video en Vivo) - 01:20 CET - Mundial FIFA 2010 (Clasificatorias CONCACAF): Colombia-Uruguay
Mundial Sudáfrica 2010.

Sabado, 6 de sept., 01:20 CET - 23:20 GMT - FIFA 2010 (Elimin.): Colombia-Uruguay>

Video en VIVO del partido Colombia vs Uruguay, rumbo a Sudáfrica 2010.

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