So the American government usually advises its citizens to
steer clear of any political demonstrations when traveling in other countries .
To hell with that! I seek them out. To be honest, I’ve encountered few, but
when I do come across them they certainly raise my interest to follow them and
report on them. I had one such experience in San Sebastian in the Basque region
of Spain in support of Basque separatism, but it was mostly a prelude to a
football/soccer match. Then there was a time in Mexico City when I thought
there was a massive political march coming at me from the Plaza de Republica,
but it turned out to be 200,000 Mexican zombies trying to get into the Guinness
Book for the world’s biggest zombie crawl.

So my plan for my first day in Bogota (predicted to be a
chilly rainy washout) was to hit as many of the city’s multitude of museums as
possible. Try to spend as much time as possible indoors, right? Well, it was
about mid-morning when I was in the center of town near the Museo de Oro when I
noticed a some kind of march taking place on a main street. I was naturally
very interested.

Sometimes it’s a little hard to figure out what it’s all
about when the slogans and chants and signs are all in a different language,
and sometimes it turns out to be something of only local and limited interest, such
as a nurse’s strike or a protest against raising electricity or water rates,
but this looked like something much bigger . And the crowds marching looked very
middle aged and middle class overall. It didn’t take too long for me to figure
out that they were protesting the current president’s peace negotiations with
the FARC and ELN rebels. Well, that was the primary issue, but all political
demonstrations usually lose their specific focus and include various other
causes as well, in this case other gripes against the administration of
President Santos, in office since 2010, including corruption, tax increases,
and a weakening economy.

It turns out the demonstrations and marches were part of a
national day of protest and were taking place in cities across Colombia, called
for by conservative former president Alvaro Uribe who is opposed to any
negotiations with the left-wing terrorists responsible for over 250,000 deaths
and over 50,000 still missing since it began in the 1960s. The FARC and ELN
have lost much of their control and ability to inflict damage across most of Colombia,
but they still operate in several remote parts of the country, including along
the Venezuelan border where they are believed to get support from that’s
country’s left-wing government .

Anyway, this was not a crowd an American tourist had any
reason to be afraid of, a huge mass of the Colombian version of Republicans –
flag-waving, anti-communist, anti-socialist, anti-tax, pro-American
conservatives who are against Castro, Chavismo, and Mdurp as well as their
current center-left president. Not a grungy Che-loving hippie type in the
crowd.

I could tell the march was heading towards the Plaza Bolivar,
Bogota’s central government square beside which the parliament is situated. So
I decided to follow it there and try to get a good spot close to the podium. I
think I was probably the only foreigner in attendance as the square filled up
with many thousands of protesters. There were lots of political speeches, most of
which I could understand pretty well since the highland Colombian accent is
fairly clear and well-enunciated. The national anthem was sung with gusto, and
the crowd was whipped into an excited frenzy with chants in support of Uribe
and against Santos, called a communist, a bandido, a traitor, and a terrorist .

I don’t have any strong opinion on the Colombian government’s
peace talks with the FARC or ELN. They’d be a good thing if the permanently
ended the violence in Colombia. On the other hand, I understand peoples’ anger
against a peace with any kind of amnesty for the terrorists who have inflicted
so much damage on the country over the last half century? Would Americans be
pleased if their president entered into peace negotiations with Al Qaeda or
ISIS to trade a ceasefire for amnesty?

Anyway, the demonstration made my day and also got me much
wetter than I had planned since I was standing out on the square in a steady
rain for most of two hours without an umbrella.