El rediseño de Benjamin Villegas

¿Cómo capotea la crisis el dueño de la editorial independiente más exitosa y persistente de Colombia? Por Lorenzo Morales.

Foto: Camilo Rozo.

Benjamín Villegas duerme mal pensando en libros. En un libro sobre mariposas, en otro sobre el páramo, uno sobre pájaros, otro sobre Bogotá a vuelo de pájaro. Coge ideas del aire o de oídas y las garrapatea en libretas que deja tiradas en los taxis. Cada idea la vuelve una obsesión que empieza a tomar forma, peso y color en su oficina de la calle 82. Allí tiene un pequeño hogar autosuficiente que él mismo levantó, con baño y una especie de diván que puede hacer de cama y una mesa de juntas que puede hacer de comedor. No tiene escritorio de mandamás sino una mesa cuadrada con cuatro sillas. Las paredes son una muralla de libros.

Durante el día suele estar prendido al celular en su papel de telefonista ilustrado o un piso abajo, con sus diseñadores. “Ese color está muy saturado”, dice mientras revisa unas pruebas en pantalla. “Mire si le puede bajar un poco”. “Achiquite esa foto”, ordena, muy rolo, en su uniforme de trabajo: corbata y un saco en V de lana. “Súbale al carmelito”. Está pendiente de cada detalle, examina cada foto, lee cada texto, relee cada pie de foto. Con frecuencia es el último en apagar las luces y el?último en cerrar con doble llave, y a oscuras, la puerta de Villegas Editores. Por estos días también duerme mal pensando en el futuro de su empresa.

Students demonstrate in Colombia

 











Tens of thousands of Colombian students have joined demonstrations across the country against government plans for educational reform. FSRN’s Lorenzo Morales reports from Bogotá.

The students claim the reforms amount to partial privatization of public universities and will make education too expensive for the majority. They also want a voice in any reform process.

“We believe education shouldn’t be a commodity you can trade, but a right the government must guarantee to the people”.

This student was of the 150,000 who gathered at the Plaza de Bolivar, near the Congress and Presidential house in the capital. Video posted on YouTube by citizen journalist pacocoltv.

On Thursday, president Juan Manuel Santos offered to withdraw the proposals if students call off a month-long strike and return to classes, but the offer had little effect. Demonstrations have been growing in number and intensity since last April, when the government first announced reforms. Lorenzo Morales, FSRN, Bogotá.

El oro verde de las selvas de Colombia

¿Quién quiere prometer amor puro y eterno con una argolla hecha de un oro que ha causado explotación, severo daño ambiental e incluso violencia?

Por: Lorenzo Morales
Especial para BBC Mundo, Colombia
Para los pocos que se hacen esta pregunta, Américo Mosquera, un minero de oro artesanal que vive en la selva tropical de Chocó, al noroeste de Colombia, tiene una inusual respuesta.

Él, al igual que otros mineros afro-descendientes de esta región, ha sustituido el uso de químicos tóxicos y la tala masiva de la selva, por técnicas artesanales que aseguran una explotación sostenible del oro, un mineral que se ha extraido aquí desde tiempos de la colonia española.

Su pequeña mina está en medio de la selva, a unos 10 kilómetros de Tadó, uno de los principales poblados mineros de esta zona. Para llegar a la mina de Américo hay que recorrer trochas estrechas en medio de una vegetación abundante y caminar entre riachuelos de aguas cristalinas, rodeado de aves de cantos exóticos y plumajes coloridos.

Una cicatriz que se cierra

"Si esta mina no fuera trabajada artesanalmente sino con maquinaria esto seria totalmente horrible", dice Américo, mientras escarba entre el barro rojizo de su mina, en el corazón de una de las regiones más biodiversas del planeta.

Américo, de 53 años, apila la tierra que remueve de su mina en terrazas donde las plantas crecen de nuevo. Así, las zonas que ya han sido explotadas vuelven a cubrirse de vegetación, como una cicatriz que poco a poco se va cerrando. Para separar el oro de las impurezas, este minero de brazos fornidos, usa un jugo viscoso que extrae de las hojas del árbol de balso.
Siga leyendo el reportaje en BBC Mundo haciendo click aquí.

Fighting to Protect Colombia's Water Supply

Colombia’s Massive Floods and the Reasons Behind Them

by Lorenzo Morales

Colombia is going through one of the most severe rainy seasons in decades. In twelve months of downpours, more than one million hectares (2.47 million acres) of productive land have been flooded, roads have been erased by mudslides, and big and small cities have been isolated and heavily damaged. So far, 428 people have died and 77 are reported missing, according to official figures. About 2.9 million people (6.4 percent of the total population) have been directly affected in 28 of the country’s 32 departments, according to the National Statistics Department.

“This is the worst natural tragedy in the history of the country, considering the number of people affected and the extension of the catastrophe,” said President Juan Manuel Santos. “It’s something like when Katrina hit New Orleans a few years ago, but this time we are talking about a whole country.”

The government estimates that this unprecedented rainy season, caused by the La Niña/El Niño weather phenomenon, could cost some 2.5 percent of the GDP. This is comparable to the destructive power of the country’s three most damaging natural disasters of the last 30 years: the earthquake in Armenia in 2001 (1.86 percent of GDP), the volcano eruption in Armero in 1985 (0.29 percent) and the earthquake in Popayan in 1983 (0.45 percent). But this time it’s all happening in one year.

Unpredictable forces of nature are in play in Colombia’s current disaster. No one can be blamed for that. But as national and local authorities wash their hands of responsibility, they persist in sponsoring policies and projects that alter (and sometimes destroy) the mechanisms that can both trigger or turn off such forces.

Seguir leyendo en Amercias Quarterly.

Chasing Illegal Miners in Colombia

by Lorenzo Morales

An unfortunate series of events last week turned my last blog post -Colombia’s Readiness for the Mining Industry- into a warning that has now become reality.

On February 1, five miners were killed in an explosion at La Escondida coalmine, near Sutatausa, a small town north of Bogotá. According to official reports, the explosion was caused by the accumulation of gases—mainly methane—in the tunnels. Floresmiro Olaya, the only survivor of the explosion, said to a local newspaper that the mine lacked proper ventilation, the tunnels didn’t have shelters in case of a collapse (like the one that saved the 33 Chilean miners) and no inspection was conducted by authorities. The families of the killed miners announced they will sue the government for poorly enforcing safety measures in the mine.

This tragedy came only a week after another explosion killed 21 miners in a coalmine in Sardinata, Santander, in the northeast of Colombia. It, too, was apparently caused by a buildup of methane gas.

Click here to keep reading this story in Americas Quarterly as it ran.

Colombia’s Readiness for the Mining Industry

by Lorenzo Morales

Political institutions tend to respond slowly in adapting to challenges. Longstanding problems typically arise and evolve long before policymakers and government officials are able to identify them. And when they do, they are generally ill-equipped to devise proposals to solving these problems. One of the more telling examples is happening in Colombia—where not only the mining industry is impacted but strategic assets like water are being put at risk.

Colombia is the largest coal producer in Latin America, and after Venezuela and Brazil, the third-largest for crude oil. The exploitation of gold, silver and rare earth minerals such as coltan (a combination of columbite and tantalite) is growing exponentially. Must of this activity is driven by foreign direct investment (FDI); between 2008 and 2009 alone, the percentage of investments in mining projects out of all FDI skyrocketed from 17 percent to 43 percent—from $1.8 billion to $3.1 billion. The figure is expected to further increase in 2010.

Click here to keep reading this story in Americas Quarterly as it ran.