Sex and poverty
To understand a criminal code it is less important to know the crimes than to know how they are ordered according to crime severity, from the most serious to the most soft one.
Read MoreThe art of banning
Parents know very well that when it comes to banning something it is better to remain silent than to impose a sanction that children will not comply or that they will not be able to impose.
Read MorePicture of pain
BY THESE DAYS I have been following the fate of the 33 Chilean miners of the Atacama Desert.
Read MoreLand and Bicentennial
To the surprise of all Colombians, the Minister of Agriculture has said the government wants to put forward an agrarian reform.
Read MoreDetails of democracy
IN SOCIETIES THAT HAVE Latino heritage, like ours, there is a particular liking for abstract discussions.
Read MoreMauricio García Villegas’ intervention in the debate “And they refounded the homeland…”.
Mauricio García Villegas’ intervention in the launch of the book “and they refounded the homeland… On how the mafia and politicians reconfigured the Colombian State”.
Read MorePresidential inauguration and protocol
DURING THE PRESIDENTIAL INAUGURATION OF Juan Manuel Santos, Armando Benedetti, the new Senate president, began his speech by lamenting that Colombia was one of the most unequal countries in the world.
Read MoreThe people grateful with Uribe
TODAY, LAST DAY OF WORK OF President Uribe, the most popular governor in recent decades, I am reminded of the following sentence from Plutarch:
Read MoreRoad Intelligence
BY THESE DAYS there is an advertising campaign which talks about the epidemic of excuses that we Colombians call on when we are in public thoroughfares. “There are behaviors that make us act irrationally,” says the advertisement, and to avoid them “we must use our road intelligence.”
Read MoreCountries and butterflies
When a child asks how long a horse lives, some old people in Antioquia still answer this: see millet, a chicken lives three years, a dog three chickens, a horse three dogs and a human three horses, count yourself. I thought of this explanation last weekend when celebrating the Bicentennial. And how long does a country lives?
Read MoreMore Scandals than Institutions
One of the most visible things in a democracy that works properly is is the clear division that exists between the subjects that are object of consensus and dissensus.
Read MoreThe International Criminal Court Arrives to Colombia
With the visit from the International Criminal Court (ICC) I ask myself what are thinking the analyst who celebrated the decision from the government to extradit the paramilitary chiefs. Since then, many of us adviced that with the take of of the para-charter the right to the truth, justice and reparation of the victims smear.
Read MoreNetherland Radio Interviews Camilo Sánchez on the ICC
The prosecutor from the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno Ocampo, arrives today to Bogotá. He is searching for the nexus between the political elite and the chief paramilitaries that have committed crimes against humanity, who after negotiating with the government penalties no greater than 8 years in exchange to confessing and repairing the victims, were extradited to the United States where they are being convicted for drug trafficking.
Read MoreDefending Who?
In studies about justice, usually there is made a differentiation between the most visible justice – which is the judicial cases of major impact as parapolitics – and the routine justice, that decides over the judicial cases of the common people such as robberies and divorces.
Read MoreProcurator to the Constitutional Court Asks for Health System Intervention
For considering that in the country there is a continuous violation of the right to health of the colombian citizens, Edgardo Maya recomends to impose a “declaration of emergency”.
Read MoreCheckmate, International Humanitarian Law
After so many ferocious acts from the FARC as the recent bomb in Ituango, the abuse of the use of the Red Cross sign in the ´Check operation´ can be seen as a minor and excusable fact, that won’t deserve any more comments on the matter. Over all if is taken into account that the operative achieved without gunfire, obtained the liberation of the kidnapped that stayed for years under FARC control in atrocious conditions.
Read MoreWe Reserve Admission Rights
We all have seen the odious signboard at the entrance of restaurants, bars, discotheques and public establishments of all the country. “We reserve the admission right”, reads the announcement that puts our luck in the arbitrary hands of the turn doorman.
Read MoreRuling Confirms Discrimination in Discotheques
The route for slavery
Six afro-Colombians presented a lawsuit against 3 public establishments that impeded their entrance, according to them, because of their skin color.
Dream and Reality in Pekin
In Shakespeare´s Tempest, Miranda says the following: “O, wonder!/
How many goodly creatures are there here!/
How beauteous mankind is!/ O brave new world,
That has such people in’t!/”
Those Who Wear Tennis Shoes Do Not Enter
In many bars only those that can demonstrate that are identified with certain mark of clothes, shoes, accessories, and own gestures characteristic to a social class can pass the entrance examination.
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