Colombia Calling - The English Voice in Colombia

As there are now a growing number of people considering moving to Colombia, and where better than the country's enticing Coffee Region, we decided to focus on this topic for this week. Known for its natural beauty and landscapes, lush countryside, friendly and hard-working people...it's an easy sell. But what happens when you are ready to take the next step beyond internet research and start the actual process of moving your life to the cities of Manizales, Pereira or Armenia or a pueblito nearby? This is where Erin Donaldson comes in! A long-time immigrant to the Eje Cafetero and now resident in Manizales, Erin knows the whole area like the back of her hand and can furnish anyone with all the information necessary:...taxes - no problem, healthcare - easy days, travel and transport - piece of cake. She'll help you make that transition from expat to immigrant. Enjoy this engaging conversation and check out her website: https://coffeeaxistravel.com and there find links to all of her other social media platforms including her YouTube channel. The Colombia Briefing is reported by Emily Hart.

The aim of "Colombia at a Crossroads" is designed not only to focus on Colombia’s politics and history, but also to celebrate her culture and society and this is the reason it’s divided into several parts and includes contributed essays by experts in their fields. This is not a guide book, nor a travelogue and nor is it a list of dry facts, but it has a heartbeat as the author has been located in Colombia for almost two decades. Writing this has been a multi-year challenge and the hope is to create something which is more of a summary of Colombia, something with a pulse. In keeping with the idea that this book has a “heartbeat”, there are chapters and essays contributed by: Adriaan Alsema, Nicolas Forsans, Andrei Gomez Suarez and Peter Watson amongst others. There are also collections including forgotten histories in Colombia, curiosities, further anecdotes and some articles which have been published in the mainstream press as well, all of which add to the colour and depth of the book. The publication of this book has been delayed due to the election of Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s first leftist president and "the Last South American Guerrilla", it makes sense to begin with an overview of his first year and a half in power 2022-2024. A word of advice to the reader is warranted as well. It’s a herculean task to separate Colombia and Colombians from the conflict and this makes writing a book of this nature a dangerous venture. One must remember and be very aware that the violence has spread through every level of Colombian society and in every corner of the country is of course not without its consequences. Available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Colombia-Crossroads-Historical-Social-Biography/dp/B0D3681YKG/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2KW73AWMCF36Y&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.Oqkbz2vU-PEZFkC6yphpZFgV8BTm3Sodyi2IC9jJ-RnGjHj071QN20LucGBJIEps.y1QoKOQKQZfeQEUEaEyZFqi2ezVjLsdwkAk31RJVCKI&dib_tag=se&keywords=colombia+at+a+crossroads&qid=1718056872&sprefix=colombia+at+a+%2Caps%2C259&sr=8-1

Colombian writer, journalist, philosopher and art dealer Juan Pablo Plata joins us on this week's Colombia Calling podcast (Episode 427) to discuss Colombia as a literary experience and how literature in Colombia has been defined over each decade by single-crop farming (monocultivo) and extractive industries. Perhaps, says Plata, we can look at Palm Oil, Coca (for cocaine), Bananas, Coal, Oil Coltan, Rubber and beyond as defining literature in Colombia depending on the era? And certainly, Jorge Isaacs, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Laura Restrepo and others can be linked directly to this phenomenon. "We already know that the best Colombian history is written by anglosaxons," said Plata. We discuss anglosaxon literature on Colombia, such as by authors such as Malcolm Deas, Davd Bushnell and Wade Davis before plunging into Colombia's new literary frontier of ELO (literatura electonica colombiana). Check out Juan Pablo Plata on Twitter: @jppescribe and his literary magazine: Colina Revista - https://revistalcolina.blogspot.com Colombia News Brief from journalist Emily Hart.

Following up from the immensely popular episode No.407 in January 2022 in which Emily Hart and Richard McColl took your questions about more or less anything Colombia-related, we thought that it was time to put together Part 2. We discuss Colombia's political climate, the upcoming presidential elections, who might win: Gustavo Petro or Federico Gutiérrez, the tourism industry, the upturn in violence - are the news reports to be trusted?, carrier bags, bilingualism and...cheese! Tune in for a great conversation about Colombia. And thank you to all those of you who sent in your questions. If you feel like it, please check out our Patreon page and consider backing the Colombia Calling podcast. https://www.patreon.com/colombiacalling

What were the "false positives or falsos positivos? Adriaan Alsema of Colombia Reports joins us on this "explainer" episode. This is the name given to the killings of young men - mainly from humble families - carried out by the Colombian army to inflate numbers of "neutralized" guerrilla combatants during the long-running conflict. The Colombian army's aim was to pass them off as left-wing rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) to boost its kill rate and give the impression it was winning the armed conflict against the group. This past week, several members of the Armed Forces guilty of this heinous crime stood before family members of those killed in a hearing hosted by the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP, which was created as a result of the 2016 peace accords) in the town of Ocaña, Norte de Santander. The JEP is designed to pursue transitional and restorative justice and the military officials confirmed their participation in the practice known as false positives from luring out of work young men from Bogotá, Soacha, Bucaramanga and other regions of Colombia, to areas of conflict with the promise of work. This hearing, which was televised, has revealed just a tiny percentage of the crimes committed which has resulted in 6,402 confimed assassinations of civilians so far during the mid-2000s. Tune in to hear about the False Positives, the hearing and what may happen next.