Brazilian soccer club Chapecoense arrives in Medellín on Thursday, September 24, for a four-day visit marking 10 years since the LaMia air disaster in La Unión, Antioquia. The visit is part of a program, announced by the Honorary Consulate of Brazil in Medellín in a September 22 release, that runs through September 29 and includes the unveiling of a memorial at the crash site, a groundbreaking for a larger monument in the town, and a friendly match against Atlético Nacional at Medellín’s Estadio Atanasio Girardot on Saturday, September 26.

On the night of November 28, 2016, an aircraft of the private Bolivian airline LaMia went down on a hillside in the vereda (rural district) of Pantalio, in La Unión, near José María Córdova International Airport in Rionegro, which serves Medellín. The crash killed 71 of the people on board, who were Brazilian, Bolivian, Paraguayan and Venezuelan nationals, as Chapecoense traveled to face Atlético Nacional in the final of the 2016 Copa Sudamericana. Six people survived. Colombia’s Aeronáutica Civil (Civil Aviation Authority) later concluded that the aircraft had run out of fuel. At Atlético Nacional’s request, CONMEBOL declared Chapecoense the 2016 champion, according to El Deportivo. The consulate describes the match as a tribute to the Campeones del Cielo (Champions of the Sky), the name given to the victims.

The visit also includes a cornerstone ceremony for a larger, second monument in La Unión that, according to the regional sportswriters’ association ACORD Antioquia, is financed by a group of Brazilian and Colombian companies. Builders affiliated with Camacol Antioquia, the regional chapter of Colombia’s construction chamber, are also backing the project, according to the consulate.

Airport Reception and a Ceremony at the Crash Site

The delegation will be received on Thursday afternoon at José María Córdova airport by staff of Airplan, the concessionaire that operates the terminal, whose employees supported the survivors in the hours after the crash, according to the consulate. On Friday morning, Atlético Nacional will hold a ceremony for the visitors at its training facility in Guarne, in eastern Antioquia.

That afternoon, the Brazilian delegation of players, coaching staff, club directors, press and invited guests will travel to Pantalio, to the hill where the aircraft came down, which the consulate says was renamed Cerro Chapecoense shortly after the accident. The ceremony there includes a prayer, the unveiling of the first memorial to the victims, remarks by local and Brazilian officials, and the raising of the flags of Brazil, Chapecoense and the municipality of La Unión. The memorial is a monolith clad in black marble and inscribed with references to the tragedy. It was donated by the Eco Parque Chapecoense, according to ACORD Antioquia.

The Fuerza Aeroespacial Colombiana (Colombian Aerospace Force), known as the Fuerza Aérea Colombiana (Colombian Air Force) at the time of the crash, led the rescue of that night’s survivors and the transfer of the victims’ remains. The consulate said the force may fly over the site during the ceremony if weather and operational conditions allow.

The altimeter from the LaMia aircraft, kept by residents of La Unión and being donated to Chapecoense. (Photo courtesy Honorary Consulate of Brazil in Medellín)

Residents of the area have kept components of the aircraft in a Chapecoense museum in La Unión. At the ceremony, they will donate to the club the aircraft’s altimeter, which the consulate says carries symbolic information from the moment of the crash. The instrument will go to the club’s own museum in Chapecó, Brazil. ACORD Antioquia reported that club president Alex Boff Passos will receive a piece from the local memorial museum on behalf of Chapecoense.

Groundbreaking for the Memorial La Unión–Chapecó

From the hillside, the delegation will move to the 19 de Diciembre sports complex in the center of La Unión, where the Alcaldía de La Unión (La Unión Mayor’s Office) has designated land for a larger monument, the Memorial La Unión–Chapecó. Camacol Antioquia is organizing the cornerstone ceremony with the mayor’s office, the municipal council and the consulate. The sculptors who worked on both memorials will attend.

Design renderings and a reference image for the Memorial La Unión–Chapecó. (Image courtesy Honorary Consulate of Brazil in Medellín)

ACORD Antioquia reported that the project has been led for several years by Sergio Escobar Solórzano, whom El Colombiano identified as Brazil’s honorary consul in Antioquia. El Colombiano reported in May that the design includes a circular plaza for commemorative events, a wall of plaques, 71 beams of light projected into the night sky, one for each victim, and a park of Colombian and Brazilian flags, and that sculptors Nelson Agustín Agudelo and Carolina Castaño would build it. Under that plan, Camacol Antioquia would supply materials and design, the municipality would provide labor, and Brazilian manufacturer WEG (B3: WEGE3; OTC: WEGZY), which the newspaper said has offices in Rionegro, would contribute energy components. Ferney Lotero, first vice president of the La Unión municipal council, told the newspaper: “Hay muchas empresas que van a aportar” (Many companies are going to contribute). The target then was completion by the 10th anniversary in November, and the newspaper reported that the final budget had not been set. The consulate’s release does not give an updated completion date or budget.

Site plan and aerial rendering of the Memorial La Unión–Chapecó prepared with Camacol Antioquia. (Image courtesy Honorary Consulate of Brazil in Medellín)

The Partido de la Amistad Eterna at the Atanasio Girardot

Atlético Nacional and Chapecoense meet on Saturday, September 26, at 3:30 p.m. in the Partido de la Amistad Eterna (Match of Eternal Friendship), which its organizer has described as a reunion that transcends soccer. The consulate’s release and the promotional poster list a 4 p.m. start, while ACORD Antioquia and Deportes RCN report 3:30 p.m. Tickets are on sale through Atlético Nacional’s Tribuna Verde platform. Deportes RCN reported single-ticket prices, including service and delivery charges, ranging from $44,648 COP for the gramilla (field level) and the north and south stands to $190,230 COP for the platea (premium seating) section, with lower prices for season-ticket holders.

Promotional poster for the Partido de la Amistad Eterna between Atlético Nacional and Chapecoense. (Image courtesy Honorary Consulate of Brazil in Medellín)

Before kickoff, organizers plan to recognize people the consulate calls the “invisible heroes” of the night of the crash, followed by remarks from local and Brazilian representatives.

A Documentary Trailer and a Donation to a Rural School

On Sunday, September 27, at 11 a.m., Medellín production company Roca Films will present the trailer of the documentary Chapecó: El último sobreviviente, nace una hermandad (Chapecó: The Last Survivor, a Brotherhood Is Born) to the Brazilian delegation and the press. According to the consulate, the film reconstructs previously unpublished details of the tragedy and honors the survivors, in particular one of the club’s players, who will attend the screening. The film’s poster credits Edison Vanegas Álvarez as director. In November 2017, Noticias Caracol reported on a 42-minute documentary titled El último sobreviviente, directed by Edison Vanegas, then head of communications for the Policía Metropolitana del Valle de Aburrá (Valle de Aburrá Metropolitan Police), about the rescue of Chapecoense defender Helio Zampier Neto.

Poster for the documentary Chapecó: El último sobreviviente, nace una hermandad, produced by Roca Films. (Image courtesy Honorary Consulate of Brazil in Medellín)

The final event takes place on Tuesday, September 29, when Colombian and international companies with ties to Brazil will donate a set of kitchen appliances to the Centro Educativo Rural La Almería (La Almería Rural Education Center), at its Pantalio campus, for use by its students, teachers and staff. According to the consulate, residents along the road leading to Cerro Chapecoense have decorated the route in the colors of the Brazilian flag.

Headline photo: The black marble monolith memorial to the victims of the 2016 LaMia crash, to be unveiled at Cerro Chapecoense in La Unión, Antioquia. (Image courtesy Honorary Consulate of Brazil in Medellín)

The competition, which also features the United States national team along with five other guest nations from the CONCACAF federation, features dozens of games during nearly a month of sporting action across 14 cities in the United States.

The Copa America 2024 final, on July 14, will be held in Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium. Other key matches are being contested in Atlanta, Charlotte, and East Rutherford (New Jersey).

“That Delta and the LATAM group — the airlines that best connect South and North America — are the sponsors of the Copa America 2024 is the perfect example of how both regions are destined to be together,” said Soledad Lago Rodríguez, director of communications for Delta. “Both airlines share a vision and commitment to deliver an exceptional travel experience to all fans who travel to cheer on their national teams.”

To further promote the event, LATAM will transform its airport lounges across the region into a space where fans can enjoy matches of the tournament on a giant screen while accessing comfortable spaces, cocktails, food, and WiFi.

“Athletes and attendees from different countries of the continent will travel to compete and enjoy this great sports festival, so good air connectivity is essential for the success of this tournament,” said Constanza Pizarro, corporate communications manager of LATAM Airlines Group.

Photo: James Rodríguez will star at Copa America 2024 as captain of the Colombian national team. (Credit: @jamesrodriguez/X and Adidas)

Luis Manuel has been detained for six days since he and the football player’s mother, Cilenis Marulanda, were kidnapped on Saturday from a gas station in their home department of La Guajira by National Liberation Army (ELN) guerillas, according to the Colombian government.

Marulanda was released a few hours later, but the status of Luis Manuel remains uncertain.

“Today we have official knowledge that the kidnapping of Luis Manuel Díaz and Cilenis Marulanda, father and mother of soccer player Luis Fernando Díaz Marulanda, on October 28 in Barrancas, department of La Guajira, was perpetrated by a unit belonging to the ELN,” said the statement signed by Otty Patiño, chief government peace negotiator with the ELN.

In a statement, the Colombian government added: “To the ELN, we demand the immediate release of Mr. Luis Manuel Díaz, and we remind them that it is their entire responsibility to guarantee his life and integrity … We remind the ELN that kidnapping is a criminal practice, in violation of international humanitarian law, and that it is their duty in the development of the current peace process, not only to stop carrying it out, but also to eliminate it forever.”

The Ongoing Investigation for Luis Manuel 

General William René Salamanca, director of the Colombian National Police, announced a reward of up to 200 million pesos for providing information on the whereabouts of the soccer player’s father. 

Salamanca also posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, that a special unit, including canines, are searching for Luis Manuel. 

“Laticha and Tekila, canine experts in tracking human beings, joined today the search for Mr. Luis Manuel Díaz, in the vicinity of the #Perijá mountain range, under the protection and leadership of guides from the Special Emergency Operations Unit.”

There are, according to Salamanca, 130 men of the Colombian Police looking for the father of Luis Díaz, and authorities have told the footballer not to travel to Colombia due to security issues. 

An Outpouring of Support for Lucho

From Liverpool to the Caribbean coast to fans across the world, the Colombian star known as “Lucho” continues to receive an outpouring of support and compassion. 

On Sunday, 31 minutes into the first half of a match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest, the Portuguese Diego Jota opened the scoring and in celebration took out a Díaz jersey. He held it up and everyone in the Anfield Road stadium applauded.

The Colombian national team posted this message across its social media channels: “We ask the kidnappers of Luis Manuel Díaz, father of @LuisFDiaz19, to release him soon, without conditions. Soccer is peace, Lucho we are with you, Colombia is with you.”

https://twitter.com/kienyke/status/1718679674451112319

The Kidnapping and Search in La Guajira

The place where “Mane,” as Luis Manuel is called, was kidnapped is a difficult area with little law enforcement. The Serranía del Perijá is a thick mountainous jungle where the state has never had a presence, it is on the border with Venezuela and criminal gangs fight for the transport of drugs and contraband.

“The criminals began to flee in the car of the relatives of Luis Díaz,” reported Colombian magazine Semana. “When they were surrounded, they used three motorcycles, two of them stolen. Finally, they left by the trails. The authorities are investigating another vehicle, a gray, armored Mazda, of Venezuelan origin”

“We are with the teams on the ground in La Guajira, we are with the director of the CTI, the deputy attorney general is also in charge of the operation,” said Colombian Attorney General Francisco Barbosa at a recent press conference.

“We hope that the National Police with the Army will continue this search, but unfortunately there is also the possibility that this person could leave or could be taken to Venezuela. And in that case, if there is a transfer of Luis Díaz’s father to Venezuela we will have to ask President Gustavo Petro to help us, because he is the one who has contact with those authorities,” Barbosa continued.

(Photo courtesy of the Federación Colombiana de Fútbol)

Click above to play the video

Also in this week’s Colombia Business News Recap:

• Is Mayor Quintero to blame for this year’s lame Feria de las Flores in Medellín?
• Irene Vélez on her way out as Minister of Energy & Mines after allegedly using her influence to circumvent migration laws for her son.
• President Petro appoints paramilitary mafia don as “peace emissary”
• Colombian highways 5^th most dangerous in the world.
• F-AIR international airshow returns to Medellín after pandemic pause.
• Colombia’s women’s soccer team upsets Germany 2-1
• Kudos to Vostock Capital for the 5^th Oil & Gas Congress in Bogotá

Notes:

• Hoosegow, American slang, comes from Spanish “Juzgado” meaning “having been judged.”
• Nicolás Petro was unfaithful to Day Vásquez with her friend, the actress Laura Ojeda. Petro and Ojeda are now expecting a son together.
• Day was apparently involved with Juan Manuel Cortés, congressman from Santander.
• Yes, the word is “forgiven,” not “forgived!” Not worth doing the whole thing over…FORGIVE me!

While over the past decade, Avianca has supported various sports initiatives throughout Costa Rica, El Salvador and Colombia, including various FIFA soccer initiatives, this is the airline’s first major sponsorship in the US, or related to North American style NFL professional football.

“We are elated to partner with Avianca in support of our engagement with Dolphins fans in Latin America and beyond,” Miami Dolphins Vice President of Corporate Partnerships Katharine Bohlmann said. “With a shared commitment to the South Florida and Latino community, this collaboration will contribute to the expansion of football in addition to elevating the fan experience, bringing the sport to new horizons.”

The Dolphins’ home of South Florida, including Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and suburban cities such as Doral and Weston, is home to the largest community of Colombians in the US, and has for a long time been the most important US destination for Avianca.

“For the past 100 years we have dedicated ourselves to being the best at what we do, and that’s why we partner with brands and people who share our values, our dedication and who bring us together with people in many places,” said Manuel Ambriz, Avianca’s chief commercial officer. “That is the magic that makes it possible, both in sports and in Avianca, to achieve the extraordinary, and this collaboration with the Miami Dolphins demonstrates it.”

Photo courtesy Avianca

Skipping town before victims could catch up with him, he took his act to Santa Marta, Colombia’s third largest city on the Atlantic coast, and also an attractive tourist destination. His scam was working on established businesses, reluctant to create a bad name for themselves by tangling with a celebrity—as Colombian airline Avianca recently learned by enraging Colombian TV sports commentator Carlos Antonio Vélez—but was brought to an abrupt halt when a group of prostitutes contracted by Verhagen demanded “Cash On Delivery.”

Police quickly appeared and had to save Verhagen from a lynching by the indignant crowd that the prostitutes had organized.

When Verhagen couldn’t come up with the cash, the prostitutes became hostile and called on a crowd of bystanders on Santa Marta’s upscale Rodadero beach to assist them in obtaining justice. Police quickly appeared and had to save Verhagen from a lynching by the indignant crowd that the prostitutes had organized.

When police took Verhagen into custody, they learned from Interpol that the culprit had already been convicted of fraud in Denmark and had been charged with the kidnapping of a Chilean,but had no active arrest warrants.

“He showed electronic receipts of the transaction, but it was always pending, and he explained that the money, because it was a weekend, would take up until Tuesday to reconcile because it was an international money order,” said Santa Marta’s police commander, Colonel Oscar Solarte.

The police indicated that eventually they had to release Verhagen because there were no formal charges pending against Verhagen, but Solarte issued a plea to any affected business to come forward and present a case so Verhagen could be charged and possibly detained.

As for the prostitutes, according to Colombian daily EL Tiempo, they got to keep Verhagen’s personal belongings that they had stripped from him during the altercation as compensation.

In Colombia, prostitution itself is not illegal, however any organizing or prostitutes or control of their activity, “pimping,” or procuring, is strictly illegal. Contracting a minor is a serious crime and will lead to prison time in Colombia for foreigners. Hotels and any establishment formally serving tourists are required by law to report suspicious activity.

Update: Verhagen Is In Custody

Colombia’s migration authorities detained Verhagen last Tuesday afternoon in a luxury apartment building Barranquilla. Even that property had been obtained through fraud, according to Colombian daily El Heraldo, that also reported that attorneys contracted to represent Verhagen also received fraudulent wire transfers. Verhagen was taken back into custody after The Netherlands issued a Red Notice for his capture. He is now being held in Cartagena, and will be processed for extradition to face charges for scams he perpetrated in Europe and Africa.

Photo: Twitter

The report touches on everything from the COVID-19 Pandemic, the implementation (or lack thereof) of the historic 2016 peace accords, political corruption, and who might run for president in the next election.

The report’s co-author Cameron Wilson took time to speak with Finance Colombia executive editor Loren Moss about the many points covered by the report, including what to expect in the second half of Colombian President Ivan Duque’s term.

Finance Colombia: I’m here with Cameron Wilson, who along with Sergio Guzman, just completed an in-depth report on Colombian president Iván Duque’s midterm performance, his challenges and opportunities for the remainder of his administration. Cameron, thank you for joining us.

Cameron Wilson: Thanks for having me with you.

Finance Colombia: Let’s get into this fascinating in-depth report, obviously guys you spent a lot of time on it. First tell me a little about your background and how you came to be affiliated with Sergio and Colombia Risk Analysis.

Cameron Wilson: I grew up on the US east coast in Connecticut, and at the moment I’m a student at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, which is one of the handful of policy schools that people go to study international relations, economics, do some language training, it’s called SITES for short, it’s in DC, and it’s part of the community of Georgetown, Columbia, Harvard Kennedy School, and I wound up with Sergio because I was looking for something to do over the summer, like a work experience. This pandemic has upended all of our lives, I was going to be in Bogota for 12 weeks or so, basically helping this company with the product they put out on a monthly, sometimes a weekly basis, then I did some translation work as well, and that’s how I ended up with Sergio, looking for that opportunity over the summer.

Finance Colombia: Good, well it’s obviously a first-class report, let’s start into it. Colombia is a politically polarized country, you have a group of hard-left politicians and their supporters, you have a group of hard-right politicians and their supporters, and then you have a large maybe non-aligned electorate that seems to largely be fed up with both camps. So, can Duque get reelected in short and how? If he can.

Cameron Wilson: Well, to clarify, I think you’re probably asking more if a right-wing candidate can get reelected given that now presidents cannot be in consecutive terms, which is sort of an interesting wrinkle. In Colombian politics he could run again in the future, but not in 2022. He’d have to sit out and run again in 2026, I guess would be the earliest possible opportunity. But that seems very unlikely at the moment, given his approval ratings are at historically low levels and over the next two years it’s hard to view a scenario in which he will be able to attract more favorable public opinion, even if he somehow reaches out towards the middle from his sort of hard-right party, the Centro Democrático (political party established by former President Alvaro Uribe) so at this point it seems like a long shot that even if he would stand to reelection in 2026, or frankly that even his party would have even the successful side in the next presidential election.

Finance Colombia: We already saw one Centro Democrático senator announce that she was going to run, is there a chance? Could Uribe conceivably run? (Editor’s note: This interview was conducted shortly before Uribe was detained under house arrest on witness tampering charges)

Cameron Wilson: Well, I think that at the end of the second term back in 2010, there was a little legal wrangling over his ability to run again, and popular as he might have been at that moment, I think by and large Colombians were glad that he couldn’t stand for a third term, so he cannot run for a third term and also, the days of, like even president Juan Manuel Santos having two consecutive terms, those days are over as well, now for presidents to stand for a second term it has to be a non-consecutive term.

Finance Colombia: You know, I am here in Medellín and Uribe still has quite a considerable base of supporters.

Cameron Wilson: Yeah, it seems like his supporter base, for the most part, is socially conservative, a little bit older and probably had more experience with the massive disruption that was long-standing in the insurgency, on the lives of Colombians everywhere, and I’m sure you and most people that have seen this episode are sort of familiar with his biography, but that played a big role in his early life, and for better or worse the Colombian electorate now is sort of younger, the average age is around 30, and  so as we move on, one thing that sort of emerges is that the new population has less and less experience of the hardship that was caused, and that might be one reason why Uribe and his party’s demand for  retribution, there may be a little bit more discomfort with a transitional justice scheme for FARC dissidents, all of that makes them more uncomfortable in a way that’s less common for the people of my age I must say, and it’s only going to continue to be that way.

Finance Colombia: It sounds almost like you’re mirroring like the situation with Cuban-Americans in Miami, where there’s a generational divide between the older generation of Cuban people, who escaped, suffered first, and then maybe their children, the older generation had more of an emotional attachment, I think there’s a younger generation that seems to be more flexible, but they’re not necessarily pro Castro, but they don’t have the emotional role in his response, and are open to at least some kind of dialogue, even though that doesn’t mean they’re normalizing relationships or anything like that.

Cameron Wilson: You know, I don’t have any experience with that community, I haven’t been to Cuba in the way I’ve been to Colombia, but it sounds very similar, that’s interesting.

Finance Colombia: Yes, I think there’s a difference because I think you have people here, and I talk to people, even neighbors and if they’re older, let’s say older than 50, and they lived in those troubled times, then they have maybe especially—it also depends on if they were put in a rural area as well, because maybe Uribe, or the military or the government of that time came in cleaned up where you lived…or maybe they came and cleaned OUT where you lived, right? And so you can have a completely opposite perspective on things, if you look at the still unresolved case of a false positive and things like that, and even, really right now this week is the Supreme Court where he is under a legal cloud, and potentially facing charges, it’s hard to imagine where that might go, but it’s not like the view of him as a hero or savior is universal, even though there are some that definitively strongly believe that the base of the Centro Democrático party is made up of those supporters I would think.

Cameron Wilson: Yes, and I think that his approval ratings upon leaving office were 75-80% something like that, and now they’re down the 30%, and he might not care, people in this party might not be that bothered by his slide and approval ratings but I think part of that goes back to what you’re saying is experience of condensing the 80’s and the 90’s and even before that, is sort of fading into memory for people who are my age or college students, you know, and as long as the average age of the electorate for the country stays around 30, that’s not going to get reversed.

Finance Colombia: How is President Duque handling the coronavirus pandemic? He seems to be butting heads with Bogota’s Mayor Claudia López.

Cameron Wilson: In comparison to his counterparts in my country and  other parts of Latin America  You might say it is a admirable job in the sense that president Bolsonaro in Brazil  is being willfully ignorant of the science, and some people would say that AMLO (Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador) in Mexico has been the same way, and other people would say that president Trump is also adhered to that: “let’s not listen to experts or the science and also not recommend social distancing.” But at the same token, most of the earliest and strongest calls for lockdowns, for social distancing, for masks, were from Colombia’s mayors and not from president Duque, so in comparison to them it looks like he’s a little bit slow, and a little bit reckless even, but compared to his counterparts out of the country you might say “oh wow he’s sort of responsible, he’s been advocating for wearing masks, he puts his hand sanitizer out on his desk every night. So, he’s doing an okay job I suppose, to mention the crisis for the managing the health effects if you will, you know that people would argue about his economic response but that’s a separate question.

Finance Colombia: It’s an interesting phrase, “sort of responsible.” I don’t know if they want to make it a campaign phrase, but it’s interesting, I think that was seen doing an OK job until the COVID Fridays, as they were calling the “Dias Sin IVA” down here, the day without sales tax, especially the first one that turned into a fiasco, and stores were being shut down for overcrowding and then a resultant spike in the cases and now we see that we’ve gone from and a thousand deaths in over ten thousand deaths in the space of a month.

Cameron Wilson: I saw the images were from that, I guess there was that day and another one two weeks later and the footage was shocking, you know?

Finance Colombia: It was. It left an impression, economically obviously he’s under a lot of pressure, the economy is contracting, Colombia being a tourist country, tourism is completely shut down, the restaurants are closed except for carryout or delivery, the airlines, Avianca is obviously in bankruptcy as is LATAM, there are with two small exceptions there is no passenger air traffic, so he is under a lot of pressure I think, but a lot of people are saying the Claudia Lopez is already campaigning for president based on her response, and I don’t know if that’s honest, or cynical, or both, but she does seem to be a lot less conciliatory than she was during her campaign, and as the Mayor of Bogota she certainly does have a considerable megaphone. The Vice President, Martha Lucia Ramirez is not having so good of a year, is she?

Cameron Wilson: Well you said, I used an interesting phrase, “sort of responsible?” Well, “not having such a good year” is an interesting phrase in that context, yeah! On one hand, one thing that sort of dragged her down a few months ago was this revelation that she paid bail for her brother in Miami back in the 90’s. Her brother was convicted of some drug trafficking, I think it was heroin, and it was sort of a small amount, I want to say that there was like $150, (Editor’s note: She paid $150,000 bail for her brother) so it wasn’t—it didn’t rise to the scale of some corruption, but on the other hand, nobody knew it, it wasn’t in the public sphere until this time, and she’s had sort of a long career, right? She’s a little bit older than Duque, she’s been in the public eye for quite a while, and another thing that happened, sort of recently that if her very close followers of the country would have noticed, she threatened to file a lawsuit against Insight Crime.

Finance Colombia: She did bother, she filed not just a civil lawsuit, she filed criminal charges against Insight Crime in June, but Jeremy McDermott instead of going quietly, went public with the charges, which were widely condemned by journalists and human rights organizations, and I would imagine the many foreign governments that fund Insight Crime as well to be completely honest.

Cameron Wilson: And she’s backed down since then, right?

Finance Colombia: She’s retracted, but the thing that’s amazing is that even though she filed charges, her husband admitted the facts of McDermott’s story, which was interesting. That seemed to be a dumb move politically, because, it’s not that he published anything false. That’s not even a judgment call, her husband confirmed that they did the deal with this Memo Fantasma, you know this paramilitary narcotrafficker guy, and the interesting thing is that…Now, the Insight Crime reporting never accused the vice president or her husband of doing anything illegal or even unethical, they bought a lot from some guy, and you know, if you buy a house, you don’t necessarily know much about the people who sell you the house, right? It’s kind of surprising that they handled that so badly politically, but I think that what came to light is the kind of pressure and bullying that can take place when people are used operating in impunity, and don’t expect that scrutiny, right?

Cameron Wilson: Yes.

Finance Colombia: I notice that you guys listed as a potential candidate Pacho (Francisco) Santos, you think he might actually run?

Cameron Wilson: I think before the trouble that he found himself in last fall, I think you would have said that for sure, he would have run. To be clear he found himself in hot water when a recorded conversation from a restaurant in DC was made public by a Colombian newspaper, and he said some unflattering things about the US State Department, which might compromise his role as the main go-between Colombia’s government and the US, and so, to clarify, before that, which was last fall you would have said “yeah, he’ll for sure run” and he’s had an ambition to that for a while, and he’s been involved in Colombian politics for a while, and he lives in the right circles, you know, it’s quite a small group of people.

Finance Colombia: Yes.

Cameron Wilson: At the top of Colombian politics to begin with, and then, you know, amongst the different segments: Right, Center-left, Center, Center-right, you know the circles are even smaller and part of it is that there’s so few families and that the men go to the same high school in Bogota. So, you know, so he sort of checks all the boxes, and he for sure has still an amount of ambition, and I think that to a lot of observers, the question would be: “well what does Uribe want?” Basically who does Uribe think are the most attractive candidates for his party the next go round…the party has a history of pushing forward a few candidates, and sort of seeing which one happens to capture the imagination of the electorate that year, and for sure Pacho Santos would be in that conversation, if you will, but it’s a little bit hard to say that he, for sure, isn’t the guy.

Finance Colombia: You know, another possibility that you guys floated that really intrigued me was at Mauricio Cardenas, the former Finance Minister, who is very well respected and even liked, but he hasn’t—and maybe that this is by design, or by his personality—but he’s never really come across as a politician and that’s not to say he’s not a political operator, but he, as far as I know, he’s never held political office, he’s more of a technocrat, isn’t he?

Cameron Wilson: He’s an economist basically. There is one argument, or one school of thought that a technocrat might be able to steer clear let’s say of some of this, like tug-of-war politically back and forth, and some of that might be why a candidate like (Sergio) Fajardo is like “oh, I’m just a professor” you know, “I’m not cut from that same sort of cloth,” and so there’s an argument that perhaps would be able to navigate that dynamic a little bit better, and since he hasn’t really played that game to this point, he hasn’t spent his career criticizing the opposition that if the party, if the sort of conservative side of Colombian politics wanted to nominate a candidate, one that wasn’t so hard line one that might capture the middle of the electorate, he may be a worthwhile person for them to put forward.

Finance Colombia: I think that the hard part for him, not being a politician, is you can run into the same dangers of inexperience: Look at Daniel Quintero, here in Medellín, the mayor who seems like a nice enough guy but he’s already gotten himself in some hot water, making some politically inept moves.

Cameron Wilson: There’s some truth to that in the hard choices that they might advocate, you know, and I think that debate you’re talking about, there is a little bit playing out right now within mainstream economics. There’s a lot of what would be formerly like radically left economic ideas that are being connected in the policy right now, universal basic income, you know, debt levels that scare people, maybe less than they would have been in  the past, but certainly it’s like unknown territory and it’s kind of frightening  for some people who have a hard time looking past what they were taught if they were going to University of Chicago 30 years ago. And yes, that tug of war is going on within economic trade now. I mean, is it irresponsible for governments to keep subsidizing wages, implementing layoffs, even if it runs up the national debt? Some economists would say “just do it, press the button and go for it,” you know, “what are we so scared of, the only thing worse would be not doing anything.”

Finance Colombia: Everybody loves (John Maynard) Keynes and nobody loves (Herbert) Hoover in a recession, right? 

Cameron Wilson: Right, yes, so that debate of whether economists are always bringing bad news or not is sort of like what’s playing out right now in the news every day.

Finance Colombia: Good point, good point, so, where go from here? We’re a little bit past, I think halfway in Duque’s term or in the middle of a covid-19 coronavirus pandemic that’s hitting Colombia hard, other countries worse, but it still is significant here. The economy is contracting because of this and the economic contraction exacerbated by the collapse and demand for petroleum, well below Columbia’s lift cost, that’s to say the price to get out the ground into the refinery or into the pipelines is higher than the actual cost of petroleum right now, and we don’t see that bouncing back anytime in the short term, and that’s an important source of revenue for the Colombian government, so it leaves the president with fewer levers to pull.

Do you see him in the second half of his term distancing himself from his political patron Alvaro Uribe or will he cement a legacy as a faithful acolyte and beneficiary of his patron?

Cameron Wilson: Yes, well, the fundamental question is to sort of steer the country through this crisis, it is going to require him leaving behind some of the main policies of the Centro Democrático and a big part of that is the sort of commitment to fiscal responsibility, that I sort of alluded to just now, in the way the economists might be fighting with each other about what to do, so if he’s to adhere to this, you know, sort of more orthodox fiscal management, that is a tenure of his party and his finance minister adheres to, and that’ll be him, you know, being loyal to Uribe, to Uribismo, but also letting the country flounder a little bit longer, and people might think it is ideal, and if he is to continue to lift public spending and extend subsidies that have been given to people, extend the subsidies that have been given to businesses, that’ll be him moving towards the center and shepherding the country, towards what most observers would say is a more responsible way, and our expectation is that he’s probably not going to do that. So far in his presidency he’s been largely loyal to Uribismo. Part of that has been close ties to the business community, closer than some people might feel good about, and you can see that in how he opened the economy for two days for everybody go shopping in the middle of this pandemic, and part of that commitment has also been in this idea to sort of drag your feet, slow down the progress of the peace accord, so he’s been loyal to this point and therefore we don’t have a lot of reason to expect he’s going to move towards the middle.

Finance Colombia: Interesting, and I think that that might be the biggest danger to his legacy, is the post peace accord implementation, and whether you like it or not, whether you agree with it or not if you look at the increase in danger for social leaders for indigenous Colombians and people that are not even necessarily political actors or not even necessarily natural political opponents. I think it would be hard to argue anything other than negligence on the part of the government to protect non-combatants and even if you’re: Let’s suppose you’re anti-FARC, or which, I think a lot of people except for the FARC are anti-FARC, let’s suppose you’re anti-peace accords but then you have members of the FARC who say “Ok, we’re going to leave the FARC or we’re going to not be combatants anymore, we’re going to stop,”  and the government says “okay, we’re going to put you in this place and get you reintegrated in society, but then they go and get massacred, that doesn’t really—even if you don’t like the peace accords, if you don’t like the FARC, the last thing you want is people to go back and rearm themselves, so I think it’s kind of beyond comprehension other than just incompetence, or are there some kind of designs behind purposefully letting these people get slaughtered? I mean it would seem that the only reason behind not protecting people is to drive them back into arms.

Is it just negligence or is there a political motivation behind the foot dragging, not necessarily to implement faithfully every little bit of the peace accords because that might even be too much to expect politically, but in the negligence, or the apparent negligence and the lack of production in the increase in danger to even non-political non-combatants, indigenous leaders, social rights, people who are advocating non-political things?

Cameron Wilson: I think it is both of these things, I think with regards to the FARC, there’s no willingness to follow through on the provisions to provide them with the successful reintegration, and so it that looks like in the short-term is to build resettlement camps that have, schools and reasonable health care, and it took them a long time to get running water in a couple places and also put the camps in places that are safe, that aren’t close to still violent groups of people, and to provide them with protection, so there’s clear negligence to not follow through on all those promises.

With regards to the violence, the insecurity that’s confronting people, that’s affecting people who are not part of the FARC but who are in rural areas, who are agitating for clean water, roads, schools, electricity, basically an extended, expanded state presence. Part of the problem there is, I think, a bit of negligence, a little bit of, well, I think this is going to start to benefit participants in some kind of ways, but also another part of it too is this is the sort of long and hard and boring and challenging work that it’s going to take 10 to 15 years even in the best-case, because these areas are so remote that to expand the state presence requires a tremendous amount of patience, and if there’s one thing Colombia is lacking, even between a lot of the larger cities is good transportation, it’s sort of a weak spot of the country if you like.

Finance Colombia: True.

Cameron Wilson: That’s sort of like the long and hard and dirty work that’s going to take a long time no matter what but they’re not helping, they’re not sort of pushing that as aggressively as they could be, and in the meantime, while the state presence is sort of lacking in these areas, you’re talking about how social leaders, broadly speaking, people agitating for improvement in their security and economic conditions in all these areas, they’re sort of out in the wind so to speak without any help from government or without any protection and 100% it’s negligence.

There’s nothing else than negligence, that’s sort of leaving them so vulnerable, and in some cases more vulnerable during the lockdown because if they were targets before but maybe they were evading their attackers or evading pressure, this lockdown made it frighteningly easy to know where people were, and that’s just to say that they’re putting up with all kinds of threats and pressure and violence that they shouldn’t have to and I think that the government has no good reason to allow that to continue or not to make more efforts to prevent it.

Finance Colombia: Insightful. One last question, you were a professional PGA golfer. Is there any good golf in Colombia?

Cameron Wilson: I didn’t expect to get asked that! Yes, there is. One of the sort of unfortunate parts of golf in Latin America is that it happens to be confined to the very highest strata of society, and golf is sort of an affluent game all over the place but there’s public golf all over the U.S., it’s accessible, maybe not accessible enough but it’s accessible and in Colombia there are just private golf courses, and so as nice as they might be, and I’ve been to a few of them in Bogota, Medellin, and as beautiful as they might be, one of the things that I wish was different about golf in Latin America is that it was accessible to everyone. But you know, maybe that will change someday, I’m not hopeful about it but maybe it’ll change.

There are some beautiful clubs, and I think the consensus would be that the best one in Bogota would be called Los Lagartos, which has two golf courses in the middle of the city, and then another popular spot is called Country Club de Bogota, and that’s a cool place with a couple of nice golf courses and some cool amenities as well: bowling alleys, squash courts, clay tennis courts, a soccer field. That’s kind of an interesting spot with lot of other fun activities, but yeah, I wasn’t expecting to get asked that, so thanks for digging up my past!

Finance Colombia: No, I’m a tennis person myself, I’m not a golf person, but being born and raised in the same hometown of Jack Nicklaus, he’s just a giant and actually his firm designed the Karibana Golf Course up in Cartagena. I’m not really a golf player so I haven’t played the course, but I’ve been to Conrad Karibana by Hilton Resort and it’s a really lovely facility. I was there right before the pandemic started and I hope to go back reasonably soon, as soon as it’s safe to maybe play some tennis, but I was really impressed with their facilities, I don’t know if you played that course but it looked really nice.

Cameron Wilson: In my prior life, when I was playing golf professionally I wound up going to Colombia four times and I played an event at TPC Karibana, when it was brand new, in the spring of 2015, I think it was maybe like March of 2015, and it was beautiful, it’s an amazing spot and hopefully it’s a place where Colombians can go to enjoy some of their time, well they already go to Cartagena all the time, but hopefully it sort of adds one more thing to the city that will attract people and also it’s a really easy place to get to for Americans, it’s a couple hours from Florida, and you know, if anybody has hesitations or some concerns about going to Latin America and going to Colombia, which they shouldn’t by and large, but that’s a really great introduction to what can be so great about spending some time in the region.

Because the Colombian National Team will play two matches in Russia that start at 7 am and 9 am local time, the Colombian Association of Bars (Asobares) had asked the city to lift its prohibition on establishments selling alcohol before 10 am.

But the office of Mayor Enrique Peñalosa this week announced that it would not change its regulations, disappointing both those looking to make some extra revenue during the competition and those who wish to enjoy cerveza or aguardiente while they cheer on their team.

This was not an issue during the last World Cup in Brazil, where Colombia qualified for the first time in 16 years, because the nations’ similar time zones meant games were played in the afternoon and evening. But some games being played in Russia start as early as 5 am on Colombian time.

“Honestly, that’s not the society that we want, where people start drinking at 7 in the morning,” said Peñalosa in a statement. “This ends up causing disorder, fights, violence, and even homicides. So we do not approve the request.”

The mayor’s office did note that bars, restaurants, and other establishments are welcome to open their doors as early as they like to host World Cup fans. But alcohol sales cannot start until 10 am in line with the regulations that always apply throughout the capital.

Asobares received better news in Cucutá. The largest city on the Colombian border with Venezuela — and birthplace of Selección superstar James Rodríguez — has agreed to modify its restriction hours and allow alcohol sales in bars starting at 7 am for the entire month of the World Cup from June 14 to July 15.

Bogotá will celebrate the team’s games, however, by setting up a series of outdoor big-screen televisions throughout the city on game day. The screens measure five meters by fours meters and will be showing the three Colombia group-stage games in a total of 12 different parks across the city.

Peñalosa will also ramp up the number of police officers in the streets during games to help ensure security and prevent issues related to the larger crowds that will be gathering across the city.

The first game against Japan, kicking off at 7 am on June 19, can be viewed in Parque Santander (in the neighborhood of Candelaria), Parque Cayetano Cañizares (Kennedy), and Parque El Virrey (Chapinero).

The most anticipated game comes against Poland, the other favorite to advance from Group H to the knockout round, will take place in the early afternoon, at 1 pm, on Sunday, June 24. This main event match will be shown in Parque Nacional (Santa Fe), Parque Tunal (Tunjuelito), Parque Chunizá (Usme), Parque Cedritos (Usaquén). Parque Bronx (Mártires), and Parque Tercer Milenio (Santa Fe).

The final group game pits Colombia against Senegal on June 28 at 9 am. It will be shown on big screens in Parque Los Hippies (Chapinero), Parque La Gaitana (Suba) and Parque Villa Luz (Engativá).

Named for his initials and national team jersey number, the public sale of this digital coin will start on July 12 in partnership with SelfSell through the fintech startup’s blockchain-powered mobile app.

Photo: James Rodríguez, superstar midfielder for the Colombian national football team, at the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil. (Photo credit: Danilo Borges/copa2014.gov)

SelfSell is pushing the new coin to promote its core offering that allows the sale of cryptocurrencies through iOS and Android apps that are intended to represent “direct investments in people themselves,” according to the company.

The Bayern Munich midfielder, who was named to the UEFA Champions League team of the season this month, announced the launch of the cryptocurrency last week in a video message.

The message debuted during a presentation by SelfSell founder and CEO Yuan Li at the BlockShow 2018 in Berlin. “I have come to a new field,” said James in the video.

In the financial world, James has previously served as a pitchman for Cyprus-based financial markets trading platform Libertex. He also has sponsorship deals with Adidas, Calvin Klein, Chinese mobile giant Huawei, and Colombian mobile service and cable provider Claro.

In his home country, he also has his own J10 underwear brand with Bronzini and has appeared on product packaging and commercials for Nestle-branded chocolate drink Milo and popular local soft drink Pony Malta.

According to SelfSell, this will be “the first cryptocurrency launched by a football player on active duty, aiming to build stronger fan relations and create new growth driven power for global sport market.”

The company says that 160 million JR10 Tokens — 8% of the total issuance — will be “issued to James’ fans free of charge” in order to “create a rapidly growing JR10 fans community.”

READ MORE: Machismo? Adidas Facing Sexism Allegations After Unveiling New Colombia Jersey

The launch coincides with the final week of the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, which will end with a final championship game on July 15.

While Colombia is not among the favorites to win the every-four-year football tournament, James Rodríguez rose to global superstardom during the last World Cup in 2014 when he led all scorers by netting six goals in just five games as Colombia had its best showing ever at the competition.

In a note to investors, the Medellin-based Bancolombia, the nation’s largest financial institution, stressed that its figures are something of a “back on the envelope calculation” although they are based upon “information provided by management.”

The bank’s analysts have classified the hit taken so far as “material but not critical” in the short term.

Moreover, the bank’s analysts have classified the hit taken so far as “material but not critical” in the short term and “not material for the long term” when it comes to the company’s annual results and beyond.

Before the Colombian Association of Civil Aviators (ACDAC), which represents some 700 of the Bogotá-based airline’s roughly 1,300 pilots, called a strike over its wage dispute with the carrier, Bancolombia had projected Avianca’s average daily sales during the third quarter to come in at $12.9 million USD. That means that an estimated drop of $2.5 million USD per day represents a 19.4% decrease, per Bancolombia’s calculations.

Weighing other factors — including Avianca’s variable and fixed operating costs — the bank estimates this shortfall equates to an overall net income loss of $1.5 million USD per day. And this figure does not even take into account “potential cost increases linked to ticket refunds, passenger transfers to other airlines, or costs related to planes sat idle at airports.”

A request for comment sent to Avianca to verify these financial figures was not immediately returned.

Avianca has continued to call the strike, which has led to the cancellation of around 2,000 flights and affected some 200,000 people, an illegal action. While employees generally have the right to go on strike in Colombia, a 1990s law deemed it illegal for unions and workers that provide an “essential public service.”

The Ministry of Transportation has continued to get the two sides to work toward an agreement. The possibility of an arbitration ruling now looms to end the stalemate as the nation’s air travel system continues to face dire stress with its largest player operating at less than half strength.

READ MORE: Avianca Reactivates Tickets Sales Despite Massive Disruptions from Pilot Strike

While the strike is aggravating public officials, air travelers, and rival airlines dealing with the complications from so many cancelled Avianca flights, the carrier is trying to accommodate one passionate segment of fliers: football fans.

The strike has hit at a particularly bad time for those looking to attend the World Cup qualifying game between Colombian and Paraguay in Barranquilla next week. While all matches played by the national team are highly anticipated affairs, this one is bigger than most. It will be the final qualifier played in the country, and a victory for “Los Cafeteros” will guarantee Colombia a spot in the World Cup competition next summer in Russia.

To deal with the increased demand for travel to Barranquilla, Avianca is reportedly operating 10 extra flights that will add 1,900 seats in the lead up to the game on Thursday, October 5. According to the local media outlet El Heraldo, nine of those flights will transport fans from Bogotá to Barranquilla and one has been added on the Medellín-to-Barranquilla route.

(Photo credit: Avianca)