Colombia Reports is a monthly series I’m starting focusing primarily on politics in Colombia. Not so much economic news although I’ll include a small blurb on it at the beginning of each post.
Colombia continues to suffer the economic effects of oil deflation. The Colombian peso remains at all time low versus the dollar and national wages have reached one of their lowest points. Back in January talks between employers and labor representatives (as required to be held by law) about how much minimum wage would be raised this year broke down; resulting in a default judgment that saw a paltry rise. The nations left-leaning attorney general denounced the judgement and started proceedings against the judgement.
The “News” was broke late last year. Vicky Davila; reporter for RCN’s LA FM claimed that the national Police was illegally spying on her following her recent reports on the alleged “Community of the Ring” active among the general forces.
The “Fellowship of the Ring” arose from a variety of testimonies indicating that there is a massive gay prostitution ring within the ranks of the national police academy and that the young upcoming officers who are groomed; and allegedly raped by several key and influential leaders in the upper echelons of the National Police organization. In return these prostitutes have been allegedly given a leg up to the higher ranks of the organization.
The issue came to a head with when the head of the Colombian National Police General Rodolfo Palomino renounced his position earlier this month. But Wednesday’s events shown a new and worrying light on the entire case; which has only become more convoluted and complex.
La FM journalist Vicky Davila released a very explicit video of a member of the national police; and a former Senator discussing gay sex in a very explicit manner. The video of Carlos Ferro; viceminister of the interior, outed the married Ferro to his family and forced him to immediately resign; in a event that seemed to play out as a very ugly attack against current president Juan Manuel Santos cabinet.
Davila claimed the video showed proof of connections between Senators and the “Fellowship of the Ring.” But by mid-day social media and the general public were having none of it; claiming the video shows zero evidence of any involvement in prostitution; and calling her out for publicizing very private matters of professional politicians. Yesterday Vicky Davila was fired from La FM as a response to her actions.
To be fair; Colombia is a bit different from the United States. As this excellent analysis from La Silla Vacia points out; Colombians don’t care about the private life of their politicians, and could care less if a politician’s daughter is pregnant out of wedlock; or son is gay, or who their mistresses are. In fact the identity of mistresses of many politicians is well known by the press who chooses specifically to not report it.
There is further concern that the goal of Davila; was to embarrass the president at a crucial time during the current peace talks. Following the hacker scandal of the last election in which a video of Uribista Presidential opposition candidate Oscar Ivan Zuluaga meeting and discussing hacking the emails of known FARC members in order to gain a political advantage during the election was leaked to the press, the political events in Colombia have grown increasingly more complex.
Vicky Davila has claimed that the police who have been spying on her have been doing so with the goal of protecting the peace process. Colombia has had recently history when it comes to illegal wiretapping of opposition candidates and journalists during the presidency of Alvaro Uribe.
To be fair the issues at hand are very serious; the claims of the existence of the “Fellowship of the Ring” come from former officers, and the parents of officers who have committed suicide while in service to the national police. The allegations have pitted oligarch against oligarch; and it is difficult to know who is telling the truth and why due to that.
President Santos is a former Journalist himself and son of a very rich and influential media oligarch. He himself criticized the reports by Davila strongly saying that it was bad journalism. One of the biggest fear among the LGBT community in Colombia is this scandal will taint recent movements towards LGBT equality in the country.
The other big story this week is the FARC rally that took place in the Guajira yesterday. Some background: La Guajira is a desert on the northern tip of Colombia and the border with Venezuela. Recent weather trends have caused major droughts there and several children died in a very publicized issue last month due to malnutrition. The FARC have seized on this humanitarian crisis to form a political rally to promote the peace process and their hypothetical entrance into the political space following the approval by the Colombian people in a national vote.
The Guerilla were armed to the teeth and this has caused quite a bit of consternation to put it lightly. The event is threatening to break up the peace talks which are at a critical stage; less than a month away from the final signing. In fact nearly every political sector has attacked the actions of the FARC and many have publicly stated they fear this is an example of the exact kind of politics that the FARC will use; those of fear and intimidation.
These kind of events have already happened before. La Silla Vacia has published 5 very salient points learned from this outing that provide some very keen insight to the peace proceedings and the governments attitude towards the FARC.
It will be interesting to see what happens. The Colombian opposition has been saying since the last electoral cycle that the President and current Government of Colombia has sold out the Colombian people to the FARC and their demands and events like yesterdays rally play right into their hands. The fact that the FARC will not face jail time as a result of the talks; and likely be able to stand for office very soon after that further provoke the fears of the general populace.