Teresa Gutiérrez can be traced since the beginning of the Colombian television in the 1950s and she participated in real classics of love-stories and other programs. She began in radio broadcasting and her voice was always familiar to listeners because it was deep, strong and clear. Though she participated most of the time in television productions until her last days, she used to read news on radio in Caracol.

Her family is also of artists: her father was the actor of radio Carlos Gutiérrez Riaño, who was artistic director of Nueva Granada Radio. When she was 14, he brought her to the station for some works. Her uncle Fernando Gutiérrez was also director of the radio station. She is also the mother of popular actor Miguel Varoni Gutiérrez and the actress Majida Issa is her granddaughter.

A telenovela of 1979, La Abuela (The Grandmother), is the most famous of her performance in television.

Although she performed female characters of strong personality, she was a very kind person and very dear to Colombians. She participated in the televised novel of Tomás Carrasquilla, The Marquise of Yolombó and other telenovelas like Doña Flor, Los Reyes, Pecados Capitales and in movies like Muertos del susto (Death of Fright), one of her last works.

Photo: Maternity by Fernando Botero in Munich. Picture by Rufus46, Wikimedia.

To understand their importance is a commitment with our own development and future. Our Colombian women are brave and intelligent and we have to work for the improvement of their standard of life and authentic social, political and cultural participation. Here a resume of our more outstanding Colombian women to honor the International Day of Women:

Cacica La Gaitana

The shield of the city of Dabeiba - Antioquia. It has the image of Dabeiba, the legendary female leader who brought the civilization to the Catio People. Was she real?

One of the first women of our Colombian territory registered by history is La Gaitana who had the title of Cacique of the Timaná people (in what is today the State of Huila). She lived in the middle of the 16th century and was obeyed by many other indigenous chiefs of the Paez and Yalcones tribes. She is also a hero in our history when she resisted the Spaniard conqueror Pedro de Añasco who intended to settle in the region. The indigenous rebelled when Añasco killed her son in her presence. To take revenge of the Spaniard, La Gaitana convened all the leaders of the Paez and Yalcones, among them the powerful Cacique Pionza. They attacked the troops of Añasco and took him to Gaitana. She took his eyes off and drilled his tongue to pass a rope through it. Then she brought him through villages, where the people celebrated the defeat of the Spaniards. The event produced that the indigenous tribes took courage to face the invaders. But further betrayals and the reinforcement of the European troops, precipitated their final defeat and put in risk their own existence as people.

Goddess Dabeiba

Although she is hold like a myth, we know that myths referrers to something that was real in a certain time. The Catio people live in what is today Antioquia, Chocó and Córdoba states. They keep in their oral traditions that there was upon a time where the Catios had the fortune of a great woman with celestial gifts whose name was Dabeiba. She was young, beautiful and wise. She thought them how to work the land, build their houses and weave their clothes. When she saw that the civilization was well established, she ascended into heaven. She continues blessing the land through the rain, wind and even earthquakes and typhoons. She will return in the future to give power to the Catios. There is not most scientist research about the myth of Dabebia, but it sure that is the referring to a certain female leader. In Antioquia there is a town with her name to perpetuate her memory.

Manuela Beltrán

The shield of the city of San Martín - Meta. It shows Manuela Beltrán in the moment she removed the royal edict. One of the national heros of Colombia.

Another hero of our history. She was from the city of Socorro in the State of Santander. On March 16, 1781 she was the leader of a rebellion against the colonial regime and its taxes established by the regent Juan Franscisco Gutiérrez de Piñeres. It was the seed of what is known as the Revolution of the Commoners. It is historical that she destroyed the royal edicts in the plaza. Her action was known from Venezuela to Ecuador. She, who was a seller but knew how to read, shouted Long live the king and death to bad government!

La Pola

Her name was Policarpa Salavarrieta and was executed in 1817 with other revolutionaries by the Spaniard forces for high treason, because she was spying for the revolutionary forces during the Independence. Her life is matter of study, because there is not data of her register of birth and other particularities. But she became one of the most important women of the independence campaign from Spain.

Francisca Josefa del Castillo

She was a nun of the colonial time and one of the most important Colombian writers of the 18th century. She wrote her works in the Convent of Saint Clair in Tunja, where she was born in 1671. However, the literature of Sor Francisca were only known during the 19th century when it was published in the middle of the Independence campaigns in 1817. A second publication was given in 1843. A poet, she was a mystic at the stile of Sor Juana de la Cruz in Mexico, but she was not influenced by other authors of her time, because she was most of the time isolated in her convent. It is also assumed that she wrote upon orders from her superiors. Unfortunately, Sor Francisca remains unknown today and there is a great task to study her thought and work.

Agustina

One of the most important Colombian women of the end of the 19th century: Soledad Acosta de Samper.

Another woman hero of the colonial times was Agustina, an Afro-Colombian slave of the Chocó region that was abused by the Spaniard slave holder Miguel Gómez. Agustina got pregnant by the Spaniard, who asked her to abort. She denounced him before judge Álvarez Pino, but, of course, the European gave a verdict against her. She decided to take revenge and lead a partial revolution setting Tadó in fire.

Soledad Acosta de Samper

The end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th was reigned by Soledad Acosta de Samper. A charismatic woman who was the daughter of colonel Joaquín Acosta, one of the heroes of the independence. In a time where the women were almost relegated, she became a high standard intellectual, historian, journalist and writer in Bogotá. She knew Europe and the Americas and published by several pseudonyms like Aldebarán, Andina, Bertilda and Renato. She is the founder of a Magazine that was named La Mujer (The Woman) in 1878. Even if she was wide recognized in her life, after her death she was forgotten and only in modern times her work is again a matter of study.

Josefa Acevedo de Gómez

She died in 1861 and became the first woman writer after the Independence. A very prolific author, who was the daugther of José Acevedo y Gómez, another hero of the Independence known as Tribune of the People. Her cousin was writer Luis Vargas Tejada. Belonging to a family of writers, military  and politicians, Acevedo wrote from love to social moral, history and traditions, romance and biographies. Another author that was forgotten throughout the 20th century, but is resurrecting in modern times.

María Cano

María Cano, the first woman political leader of Colombia during the 20th century. She was a revolucionary in a society dominated by men. She was called the Flower of the Work.

Her full name was María de los Ángeles Cano Márquez and she is known in history as The Flower of the Work. She was the first woman in politics during the 20th century in Colombia. An activist of the civil rights and the rights of the workers. She worked for the foundation of the Socialist Party. In 1928 she wrote a letter to Guillermo Hernández Rodríguez, general secretary of the Communist Party. In these words it is possible to understand what was the situation of the women in Colombia in that time:

Usted acusa de conspiradores a mis compañeros del Partido Socialista Revolucionario y me quiere excluir a mí de tal responsabilidad, porque supuestamente estoy llevada y convencida por ellos, o sea, no me otorga la posibilidad de criterio personal. En este país, donde la mujer habla a través del cura, del marido o del padre, hay esa costumbre. Pero ese debate yo no se lo voy a hacer, la gente sabe quién soy y cuál es mi criterio.

You accused of conspiracy my companions of the Revolutionary Socialist Party and you want to exclude me from such responsibility, because allegedly I am brought and convinced by them, it is to say, you do not give me the possibility of the personal criteria. In this country, where the woman speaks through the priest, the husband or the father, there is such custom. But this debate I will not do, the people know who I am and which one is my criteria.

Luz Marina Zuluaga

She is so far the only Colombian woman, who has won the title of Miss Universe in 1958.

Laura Montoya Upegui

She is known as Mother Laura. A religious who died in 1949, is the first Catholic Colombian woman who has been declared Blessed by the Holy See. She worked especially with indigenous communities like the Catios. In 1893 she got her title as educator. She is also a writer and the founder of the Misioneras de María Inmaculada y Santa Catalina de Siena (a sisters´ congregation). Her character broke many conventions of her time that did not allow the woman to express herself and give a support to the most needed.

Is there another Colombian woman that I did forget? Please tell me…

Photo: Puracé Volcano, near Popayán, from wikimedia.

Where will be the next? Are we prepared for a calamity like it? This is the question that countries like Colombia should answer and be ready, because we, as Chile, live at the edge of the Nazca and South America plates.

Earthquakes like the Haitian and Chilean, make us to study the natural phenomena very well. With the pass of days we forget the subject – less in the countries that suffered the consequences – but the plates continue their permanent and imperceptible movement one against the other until they broke in a disaster.

We Colombians are very proud of our strategic position at the crossroad of the Western Hemisphere. We are the only South American country with coasts in both oceans. We are the more northern land of the sub-continent and the place where the natural Central American geological bridge connects to the North American region.

But we are also at the center of four geological factors: Nazca, Pacific, Caribbean and South American plates. It makes us more than a very strategic site for international congresses, a spot susceptible of hecatombs worst than the Concepción´s earthquake!

The fact should not be published to create panic of course. We are obliged to study it very well in order to prevent tragedies. The same for countries like Peru and Ecuador, our southern neighbors that share with us the eternal kiss of the Nazca plate on our sunny beaches of the Pacific.

We have to know for example that Bogotá is 2,600 meters above the sea level thanks to the Nazca plate. It is possible that over the next million years our capital will continue its slow and millimeter growing to the sky, because the plate is moving into our South American soil at a velocity of 3.7 centimeters per year. If our aboriginal ancestors called the Andes ranges as our mother mountains, the Nazca plate is our grandmother, because it is the one that created our proud mountains from the Andean Venezuela to the heights of Chile and Argentina. The Andes ranges are nothing more than a  land upheaval caused by the intrusion of the plate below South America. According to the geologist, Nazca is the fasting moving plate over the earth. It will make that Asia is every second nearer to South America, while the Andes will continue with minor, middle and big earthquakes and volcanoes for the next million centuries.

It is possible an earthquake like the Chile in Colombia

You do not need to be a geologist to conclude that Colombia has the same probabilities of an earthquake of the same proportions of the one in Chile. Furthermore, we have several volcanoes ready to vomit giant rocks over many towns.

After the earthquake that destroyed the Chilean city of Concepción, thousands of miles at the south of our country, the seismographs registered five minor earthquakes in our territory!

1. Tuesday, March 1, 3.2 m.m.s. earthquake in Chocó, the state of the northern Pacific coast of Colombia.
2. Wednesday, March 2, 05:02 am, earthquake in Bucaramanga and other in the north of the Valle del Cauca state: two in a single day.
3. Thursday, March 3, again the northern Pacific of Colombia trembled, Chocó in the morning. The same day a second one of 4.6 m.m.s. in the Western of Colombia, again, at the side of the Nazca plate.

History of earthquakes in Colombia

The report of the 1785 earthquake in Bogotá, published in Gazeta de Santa Fe, the first printed news in Colombia.

The territory that was going to be Colombia, registered earthquakes and volcano activity since ancient times. According with Fray Pedro Simón in his chronicles of the 17th century, the city of Cajicá was destroyed by an earthquake in 1617. Many others have been well recorded in the archives of the Colombian history and even the intention of predict them, like the one of Rev. Francisco Margallo who said in a poem of him:

´El 31 de agosto de un año que no diré

Sucesivos terremotos destruirán a Santa Fé´

The 31rst of August of a year that I will not say, succeeding earthquakes will destroy Santa Fe.

If the earthquake of Chile was amazingly long (one minute and half), we Colombians should not forget that Bogotá suffered an earthquake of four minutes! It was on July 12, 1785 at o7:45:00. The colonial buildings of the time were destroyed, like the Convent of Saint Francis, the Convent of Santo Domingo, the Guadalupe church and the Cathedral, at the time the biggest buildings of the Spaniard colonial capital that was known as Santa Fe de Bogotá. The earthquake not only created a conscience that new buildings should be done thinking in this kind of phenomenon, but it originated the first Colombian news ever published, where there was a report over the earthquake. For this reason I can say that the 1785 earthquake of old Santa Fé was the father of journalism in Colombia!

The testimonies of that earthquake are kept in the General Archives of the Nation, with several events and the historical Aviso del terremoto.

El Pais newspaper of Cali registered the earthquake of Popayán.

The first earthquake of the Republican era was at 11:15 on May 18, 1875 and it had a magnitude of 7.3 m.m.s. The epicenter of the earthquake was the city of Cúcuta and the region was completely destroyed. The earthquake was registered in Bogotá and Caracas as well. The number of deathly victims is not sure, but some historians argued that it could be near 1,000 deaths. In a century that Colombia was almost as it is Haiti today, the earthquake of Cúcuta was a real tragedy.

On March 31, 1983, the city of Popayán, southwest of Colombia, was completely destroyed by an earthquake and 200 persons were reported death. The destruction of the ancient Spaniard city was a real sadness, because it kept buildings as old as the 17th century. Popayán is one of the oldest European settlement in the Americas. The support of Spain especially helped in the reconstruction of beautiful Popayán that is very near to the Puracé Volcano.

The other tragic earthquake in Colombia to be remembered was the 1999 of Armenia on Monday, January 25 at 13:19 the first of 14, with an intensity of 6.4 m.m.s. About 1000 persons lost their lives in the city. At 17:40:18 was other with 5.4 m.m.s. On January 29 at 23:33 one with 4.2 m.m.s and two days later, on 31, an earthquake of 3.5 m.m.s.

Is Colombia well prepared to face an earthquake?

It is possible to predict a typhoon and a volcano activity, but not an earthquake. However, it is possible to detect the regions at permanent risk. The first prevention comes from our planners. How are we building in our modern cities? It is not only for huge cities like Bogotá, Medellín, Cali, Barranquilla, Cartagena and Cúcuta. It is also for middle and small towns wide the country. Especially housing should be well prepared to face a strong movement of the unpredictable earth.

The second is the aptitude of the people. The role of the media, the educative national formation, the schools, the families, should talk very often that we live in a country that is prone to earthquakes and that they can be destructive. Most of our Colombian cities and regions are in a risky zone for earthquakes. If it is easy for official planners to determine the type of material in construction, private initiatives should be controlled before the people start any work to make their houses. Any constructor should do a study of the soil and the possibility of an earthquake.

The other question has to see with the rescuers and equipments for a possible natural tragedy in our cities and regions. What we have, how is the conditions of the roads, where is the nearest airport, how we can give shelter to thousands of families in an eventual earthquake, how can we prevent looting. how can we guarantee that the telecommunications will continue working to keep us in contact with the rest of the world, how the people will react in the middle of such natural phenomena (panic must be also educated, especially with children.)

A country like Colombia should be of course an expert in earthquakes, but reality is far from it. According to Jorge Salazar, a civil engineer, in an interview by LaPatria.com, the 95 % of the buildings in our Colombian cities are not following the security to prevent any earthquake. He said that any building constructed against earthquake, do not collapse and this fact, evidently reduces the number of deathly victims.

Every family should be prepared as well: things that can be prom to fall, should be moved to a safer place. At the same time, every house should keep well its kit of emergency with basic medicines for first aid, water, lights, radio, documents of identity and property of the house. It is not a joke… the next big earthquake could be in Colombia.

is LeftRightLeftRightLeft, a collection of their live concerts in already 25 countries. It was the first time that the popular band performs in Colombia and the night was a success either for the British artists or for the big group of fans that follows the lyrics of songs like Viva la Vida when Martin signs I hear Jerusalem bells a ringing, Roman Calvary choirs are singing, Be a mirror, my sword and shield, My missionaries in a foreign field…

The visitors were accompanied by the Paisa rock band Estados Alterados that made also a great night of acclamations and the also British Bat For Lashes (her real name is Natasha Khan, 29 years old), who debuted in Colombia with her album Two Suns (2006).

There was an imaginary Iberia-American summit. As it is normal in reality, the summit finds difficult to reach agreements. In this case, Brazilian president Lula Da Silva invited his colleagues to a pleasure travel in his new luxury boat. But the party is stopped when the ship enters a storm. Lula tries to lead the rudder, but Uribe and Chávez come to his help, just only with the difficult problem that Uribe wants him to go to the right and Chávez to the left.

The boat finishes in an unknown island and the presidents have to do whatever – as in a reality show – to survive.

Graziani, Mora and Ravell are the owners of Chigüire Bipolar, a blog on political humor.  With their cartoon, you can have an idea of the identities, conflicts and aspirations of the Latin American and Spaniard governors.

Break news!

The strike is over. The administration and the transport reached an agreement n 1,8%. The service is reestablished in the capital.

The problem started when the local government announced the renovation of old buses and decided that all companies will receive a compensation of a monthly 1,5 % of the total value of the old car for two decades. The transporters did not accept the number and claimed 1,8 % arguing that it is the right for the economies of their families. The bitter discussion between transport and local government affected the mobility in the capital and even created violent events.

Alfonso Pérez, president of Apetran, declared to the media that the transporters of Bogotá ask the administration the delay of the transport modernization for six months more, while there is a more suitable agreement between the parts. The Secretary of Government of Bogotá, Clara López, said that the city administration will not accept to pay more than 1,5 %.

The situation of transport in the capital is worrying, according to different medias. The administration asked nearby cities to send buses to attend the thousands of users who are waiting the normalization of the urban service in the different districts of the city. However, some transporters are moving their buses and vans to attend the people.

Other problem is the profit that private individuals are doing by asking disproportionate rates to transport users. The administration asks occasional transports to join a campaign of solidarity in benefit of the people by not asking rates out of normal.

There was also an attempt of sabotage to the Transmilenio track in the Suba Avenue with the 138th Street. The high security system of the selective bus company of the capital, could detect the intention and prevented any accident from happening.

The commerce has been affected by the already long strike and the media reported some unrest in some districts like Suba and Ciudad Bolívar. The Secretary of Transport of Bogotá, Fernando Álvarez, said to the media that the government is also studying the possibility to follow strict disciplinary prosecution against the creators of the strike.

Bogotá is a city with almost 8 million inhabitants, being the second largest capital of South America after Buenos Aires and the third largest South American city after Sao Paolo. Only the Transmilenio, a modern system of buses, moves about 2 million users everyday.

The North Road, picture by Jose Gacel.

Brussels

Intellectual property got an agreement around geographical indications. Agricultural products of geographical indications and derived from biodiversity will have special protection. Genetic resources and products of knowledge are contemplated inside special rules of protection between the two parts. For example, products derived from cacao, oil, clothe and others of agro-industrial processes, have special requirements.

It includes also the telecommunications sector and the access to the goods market. The banana exportation to Europe got a special treatment.

The FTA will be signed in the next Latin America – Europe summit of May 8 in Madrid.

FTA with South Korea

Ministry Luis Guillermo Plata said also the it is started the second round of meetings with South Korea in Bogotá and it will long until March 5. The Colombian and Korean delegations are discussing different topics about the goods of agriculture, commerce and industry, as the discipline related to the access to markets, hygienic conditions, commercial defense and rules of origin.

The different teams of the delegations will meet to discuss areas like services and telecommunications. Colombia has the ambition to promote the Korean investment in the country, while increasing exports to the Asian nation, especially from agriculture.

So far, there is already an agreement between both countries like the agreement of reciprocal promotion and protection in investment, that still to be ratified by the Congress. The second round of meetings will be in Seoul at the end of June.

South Korea is the second largest Asian investor in Colombia after Japan.

FTA with USA

The Colombian government is optimistic about the Free Trade Agreement with USA after the recent declarations of President Barack Obama. The meeting between Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Álvaro Uribe in Montevideo, was positive, because Uribe declared to the media that there are positive conditions to think that US will ratify the commercial agreement. However, President Uribe did not dare to give deadlines for what has been one of the flags of his two presidential terms.

‘Yo no lo podría decir. Pero yo creo que hay unas condiciones que empezaron con las declaraciones públicas del Presidente Obama, que nos las confirman esta mañana en esta reunión con la señora Secretaria de Estado, condiciones positivas para que el TLC entre en la recta final de aprobación’

I cannot say it. But I thing that there are some conditions that began with the public declarations of President Obama, that were confirmed this morning in the meeting with the Secretary of State and they are positive conditions that the FTA is going to its final term of approbation, he said in Uruguay during the possession of President Mujica.

Picture from the Ministry of Commerce of Colombia.

President Mujica is called Pepe by his friends and his election to govern Uruguay has great implications for the history of our brother country: the second leftist president in the Republican history of Montevideo. He talks about challenges for the future without forgetting the guerrilla past and the old dream of freedom and regional integration. He was convicted for 13 years for his revolutionary activities in what was known as the Tumaro movement.

Álvaro Uribe was the first South American president in arrive for the possession of Mujica. They met for 20 minutes and then Mujica received the Secretary of State of US, Hillary Clinton. He gave a speech calling the entrepreneurs to help in the national growing and the reduction of poverty.

Lucía Topolansky, his wife, was in charge to take the vow to the new president and he went through the streets of Montevideo in what was called already the Pepemovil in a parody of the Papamovil (the car of the Pope in Rome).

Thousands of Uruguayans came to greet their new president. As the car could not continue the march toward the Independence Plaza, Mojica went out of the car and walked to the Tribune where now former president Tabaré Vásquez was waiting for him.

The greeting to the Army was other special moment. It was the greeting of an old enemy that now became their boss, showing the results of a mature democracy.

He exposed his government program in a very near language to the people, saying that he will sweep the indigence, reduce poverty, boost the economical growing, give more education and culture for Uruguay.

‘Hay que ensayar todos los caminos y fórmulas posibles que sirvan para enriquecer la sociedad y para enriquecernos nosotros mismos como seres humanos’

It is needed to try all the ways and possible formulas in order to enrich the society and to enrich ourselves as human beings, he said to the crowd.

Art by Luis Haro

Santiago.

Gonzalo says that minors earthquakes have been reported in Santiago since the big one of last Saturday that destroyed Concepción in the first hours of the day. The Chilean rescue team that returned from Haiti a week ago, now has to see for its own country. It moved to Concepción and are drilling in destroyed buildings looking for survivors. According to rescuers, there are signs of life among the ruins.

The firefighters found a cell phone from the ruins of a building. There was a message sent at 03:50: estamos bien como te encuentras saludos (We are well, how are you, greetings.)

An Ecuadorian survivor says to the Media that he could leave the ruins 30 minutes after the earthquake with his family in Alex Tapia.

In the Dichato coast waves of 20 meters high crushed the city.

In the Robinson Crusoe Island it is said that a girl helped her grandfather to go up the bell tower minutes after the earthquake. They could prevent the population of the island to reach higher positions. The city was destroyed by the tsunami, but the people was saved.

In Puerto Ordaz, Concepción, people are looting markets and getting even appliances from shops, becoming a social chaos. However, the military and the police reacted strongly to prevent more looting, after an emergency decree was established by the municipality. The army has the order to react even by shooting to those who persevere in their intention of theft among the drama of destruction.  The government declared a curfew.

The time is revealing new dramas, heroic actions like the one of Robinson Crusoe Island and the picture of a great devastation, while many slept on the streets among insecurity. The earth continues moving with less intensity.

Report by Gonzalo Torres from Santiago; photo from Rodrigo Carlos Eugenio from Concepción (picture in Commons Wikimedia).