Welcome to Colombia Passport.

It is my English blog about Colombia. I am working in Asia since 1999. Currently I have a school of journalism in Don Bosco Sihanoukville, Cambodia. My ideal with this blog is to give my own appreciation about my own country, Colombia, in English. Of course, it is directed to English readers interested in Colombia or even living, working or visiting my country.

The limit is that I am in a foreign country at the other side of the world. But even that, it is important that you know the perspective of a Colombian.

My ideal is that my own country find peace, justice and a real development, especially of its people.

Colombia is a multiethnic nation, with a rich environment, a great variety of regions, a beautiful people with talent, initiative, creativity and hope. A country difficult to image from the outside. When you know Colombia, you will get in love easily. It is my country, the one I feel proud for its people especially.

At the same time, it is a country of deep historical problems, a great social inequality, a nation where violence became an eternal cycle coming from the chaos of drug dealer mafias, rightist and leftist extremists and corruption. I cannot forget that Colombia has one of the biggest world human displacement, landless families, children of the street and many other dramas that cannot be ignored.

My blog has all those good and bad things in mind. I believe in the chiaroscuro. I believe that journalism must be independent and must explore the reality as it is. Journalism must not beautify the scene, but at the same time, it must not mark only what is gloomy.

It is of course difficult to keep neutral. Actually, neutrality does not exist in a pure sense.

If someone wants to define myself, I would give some clues: I am ecliptic. I look in every proposal what is good just if that is helpful for my people. I am a nationalistic, but I believe that Colombia cannot develop alone, it needs the international community to go up. I am a Catholic, but I have a very ecumenical heart. I am tolerant, but I can be radical when the defenseless comes into discussion.

I am a very busy person. My blog can stay quiet for days, but I come back to it. Then I will not write news and copy them from the national media, the one I have access from my Internet. I want to give my vision over the news you have on your desk.

There are plenty of good English media about Colombia now. It has been increasing in the last years: NGOs were the first with their reports; foreign medias came after when they realize that Colombia was a real important nation in the Western Hemisphere – they did not know it until the 1990s, – and after the big national networks reacted and began to contract foreign journalists to produce Colombian news in English. It is good, of course, because now you can find news in English about Colombia in a good proportion of options.

As I am alone – I have tried to build a team, get students of journalism in the Colombian cities, etc… a failure! – I cannot compete with such media. Then you find in Colombia a problem: my dear country is highly polarized and Manichean. You are blue or red! You are right or left! When you read Colombian news, if you want to get away with bias, you have to go deep into who or what is giving you the news.

If there is a country where journalism can be studied very well, it is Colombia. First because it is martyrdom there and second because the realty is overwhelming.

Suerte!