Barges and cargo ships dot the distant horizon off the white shores of Santa Marta. Seated on the Caribbean Sea between sandy beaches, small fishing villages, and the Sierra Nevada mountain range, Santa Marta was destined to be a centerpiece of Colombia’s growing...
Month: November 2013
Join the March 2014 IFOR Delegation!
There's no better way to improve your understanding of active non-violence in Colombia, to demonstrate international solidarity, or to get to the heart of the global issues that are effecting the organizations and communities we work with, than by coming over and...
Empires of Gold and Colombian Extractivism Today
By Luke Finn Before there was Colombia, there was the extractive industry. The legend of El Dorado stems from a Spaniard, Juan Rodriguez Freyle, watching a High Priest of the Muisca getting covered in gold dust and jumping in Lake Guatavita, near Bogotá, in a...
Aerial Fumigation and its Discontents
By John Lindsay-Poland Once the signature program of the U.S. drug war in Latin America, aerial fumigation of coca leaf crops is finally in deep trouble. Fumigation’s crisis comes in a moment when coca growers, like other farmers throughout Colombia, face an economic...
A Hunka Hunka Burning Blog
By Luke Finn As anyone who has eaten a hamburger in Colombia will know, simply adding good things, one on top of the other, often results in a whole that is somehow less than the sum of its parts. The standard combination of lettuce, and tomato, and onions, and...