Here's how Colombia works

Here's how Colombia works. It's perfectly laid out in today's El Tiempo, the last large paper in the country, if I can just deconstruct for you what's actually going on.

For the ninth year now, Bogota, a city of over 8 million people, is having a no-car day. That means that private vehicles are outlawed from 6:30 am to 7:30 pm. The info-graphic above tells us that 1.2 million cars will stay in their garages, or their owners pay a $100 fine. Only the red articulated buses and taxis are allowed access to the streets (the picture above is from last year) -- oh, and anyone with a licensed bullet- or bomb-proof car, or anyone with security escorts. Over 300 kilometers of designated paths will flood with bicycles today. The air will be noticeably cleaner. The mayor will push his entire fleet of 1000 buses into the network, and in general it will take half the time it normally takes to get from here to there.

Some people will grumble, but for 13 hours, a general sense of solidarity and accomplishment will be spread across the plain.

Tomorrow, the gridlock returns. In the mean time, Bogota is just mad-cap enough, just authoritarian enough to pull this off, and Colombians are Catholic patrician enough to be told what to do.

And while this is going on, the top report above announces that the US military, counter-narcotics and now counter-terrorism aid to Colombia, known by the Clinton-era name of "Plan Colombia," will be funded at 7 times what it was worth in 1999. Not an escalation, but an augmentation. Phase 2, with greater emphasis on humanitarian aid, economic development and refugee relief, had to be made palatable to the new Democratic-led Congress. But it's a reminder that the war's not over.

And below the fold (article circled in red), the real Colombia of paramilitary bosses and revenge killings:

Desde su asistencia a la primera versión libre del ex jefe paramilitar, en diciembre, comenzaron a llamarla para que se quitara del camino. Ayer, con seis tiros, dos sicarios sellaron las amenazas.

Yolanda Izquierdo acababa de salir a la puerta de su casa del barrio Rancho Grande de Montería, un humilde sector de la margen izquierda del río Sinú, para recibir a su esposo Francisco Torreglosa.

Dos hombres en motocicleta se les acercaron, cruzaron varias palabras con ellos y luego el parrillero disparó.

Ever since her attendance at the first open hearing against the former paramilitary boss [Salvatore Mancuso], in December, the calls began to come in telling her to get out of the way. Yesterday, with six shots, two assassins followed through on the threats.

Yolanda Izquierdo had just emerged from the front door of her house in the Rancho Grande neighborhood of Monteria, a humble part of the left bank of the Sinu river, to greet her husband Francisco Torreglosa.

Two men on a motorcycle approached, exchanged a few words with them, and then the man on the back began to shoot.

Izquierdo represented 700 peasants who had been forced to sell land to a faction of the largest paramilitary group in Colombia.

It's the third attack against paramilitary victims in 11 days, El Tiempo reports. (Where is the US press?)

And to the left of that report:

What can you do to stop Global Warming?
deck line: Use your iron less and open your refrigerator less frequently.