Photo: Flickr.com

Barranquilla hotels full for carnival

Adriaan Alsema

Hotels in the northern Colombian city of Barranquilla have filled up completely for the four days of its annual carnaval. The city will be the center of Colombia until Tuesday.
The pre-carnavals started weeks ago already, the preparations for the highlight of the city's culture way before, but Saturday until Tuesday is the Big Carnaval. The streets will be filled with dressed up people dancing cumbia.
The official start is teh traditional Battle of the Flowers, a parade of more than 400 traditional dance groups showing their art on Vía 40, popularly renamed Cumbiódrome.
Large metal constructions on the side of the road should give the tens of thousands of visitors a chance to see the beauty passing by.
Barranquilla authorities have 1,500 police officers ready to secure the safety of those visiting the carnaval and 450,000 condoms will be given away for free to those who want to take the carnaval back home or to their hotel.
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I think Carnival would be an absolute blast and I hope to experience it one day. It sounds a lot like Mardi Gras but with a Latin twist to it. I wonder if there are a lot of encounters with the police during these types of events. I also found the part about the distributed condoms quite interesting. It is interesting how they handle sex so openly compared to the U.S., I am not sure that condoms would be handed out at Mardi Gras but I don't know.

Calls for an investigation into the killing of Indigenous People in Colombia
16 February 2009

The Colombian authorities are being urged to initiate an investigation into the killing of 27 Indigenous Awá People in the department of Nariño this month.The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla group killed 10 Awá on Wednesday, according to the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (ONIC).
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FARC is also reported to have been responsible for the death of 17 Awá on 4 February. There are also reports that an unknown number of Awá have been abducted.In a public statement on Friday, Amnesty International called for an immediate and thorough investigation into the killings and for those responsible to be brought to justice.
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"If verified, these killings represent yet another tragic example of the numerous serious violations of international humanitarian law and human rights abuses committed against Indigenous communities by all the parties to Colombia's long-running armed conflict, including guerrilla groups, paramilitaries and the security forces. The deliberate killing of civilians is a war crime," said Marcelo Pollack, Amnesty International’s Colombia Researcher.
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Amnesty International called on the Colombian authorities to guarantee the safety of the humanitarian commission which is seeking to travel to the area to verify the facts. The organization also called on the guerrilla groups to prohibit the deliberate killing of civilians and to free all Awá and other civilians they hold captive.

http://www.amnestyusa.org/document.php?id=ENGNAU200902169441&lang=e&rss=recentnews

This is yet another instance the FARC are reeking havoc in Colombia. They are killing and abducting innocent civilians for no apparent reason. The problems with the FARC in Colombia have gone on for way too long and they need to be stopped for their recklessness. Though the Colombian government is an active force against the FARC they are still a powerful entity that needs to be stopped.

FARC History

Photo: AP

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) started during the civil war in Colombia from 1948- 1958. The war was between the Liberal and Conservative political parties and it devastated Colombia. The war was sparked when members of the conservative government assassinated the leader of the liberal party, Jorge Eliecer Gaitan. The civil war was the cause of more than 200,000 deaths and the spawn of a guerrilla group known as the FARC. The FARC make most of their money off of Colombia's flourishing drug trade which gives them the ability to acquire firearms and new recruits. The FARC is considered a terrorist group in Colombia and the Colombian government continues to fight against them.

CLICK HERE for more information on FARC history