Colombia Wants Love From Washington
By Nikki Schwab, Washington Whispers
Here's a good way to show Washington some love: Install giant hearts all over the city. That's what "Colombia Is Passion," the South American country's official image campaign, is doing, starting this weekend. It's an effort to get the American people to have a little more love for Colombia. Each of the 47 hearts will depict a little-known aspect of Colombia—a country that many Americans basically associate with drug lords. "That's one of the things we are trying to change," one organizer tells Whispers. Larger hearts are on display at Union Station, and smaller, 8-foot hearts will be installed all over town, from neighborhoods like Logan Circle to tourist attractions like the Lincoln Memorial. The Colombian exhibit will stay in the District of Columbia until September 15 and then move to New York City. And if the hearts won't get enough attention, Juan Valdez, of Colombian coffee fame, will be handing out free coffees at Union Station too.
Colombian heart sculptures on display at Union Station
Image courtesy of Colombia Is Passion
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Tags: Colombia | Washington, DC
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Reader Comments
Aline Helg- misinformation
I am a Colombian (not involved in politics...or wealthy, just well educated), Uribe is the best thing that has happened to our country!
Ms. Helg, have you LIVED there? Where is your "information" coming from? You cite no sources other than you are a "historian specialized in Colombia". From my vantage point, this does not grant you automatic credibility...perhaps you were referring to our neighboring dictator? in which case your accusations of civil rights violations would be right on target!
Thank you U.S. News and World Report for always doing an excellent job in reporting stories concerning this South American country.
The reality about Colombia's heart
Dear Editor:
As historian specialized in Colombia, I am truly scandalized by the current Uribe Government campaign to hide daily violations of human rights by his administration, police, military and paramilitary forces (which are now officially referred to as "armed groups"!). I am also deeply sadden by the fact the newspapers like yours don’t try anymore to search the truth about Colombian reality beyond the five-star hotels of the major cities. Today, 10 % of the country’s population has been forcibly displaced—that is about 4 000 000 men, and above all women and children. But few people care, because most of them have fled Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities. And these communities, whose rights to their lands are recognized by the 1991 Colombian Constitution, live in areas that huge Colombian and multinational companies would like to exploit, destroying some of the last primary forests in the world. Is this what the American public wants? To continue to help a government and a Parliament, with many members currently under investigation for drug trafficking, human rights violations, and complicity to murder?
U.S. taxpayers should know that their dollars have funded Colombia’s army as they kill innocent civilians in rural areas and dress them up in guerrilla fatigues in order to appear to be “winning the war” and to gain career advancement. Meanwhile, Colombia is the most dangerous place in the world to be a trade unionist, with 49 unionists murdered in 2008. Although, it’s not a lot safer to be a journalist, human rights defender, or Supreme Court judge, as Colombia’s government has been illegally wiretapping these people, their families, and anyone else pegged as opposition in order to use the information obtained to threaten them into silence.
I urge you to inform your readers about these terrible fact, so that they can know what U.S. funding is really funding. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Aline Helg
Author of Liberty and Equality in Caribbean Colombia (UNC Press)
It’s no coincidence that this campaign was launched in Washington the week that Congress comes back into session. The “Colombia Is Passion” campaign was created to gloss over these issues because if Congress and the White House take them seriously, they will not be able to move forward with the stalled U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement until they see real progress. We should help Colombia by calling for human rights advances and standing with the victims of violence.
Gotta give 'em an "A"
for effort and vision in advertising.
One country doing "image ads" in the capital of another? With hearts? Very, very creative. Maybe all countries ought to be doing ads like this in all other lands---with coverage, or even an "image ad competition show", on TV in like 130 countries. Seriously. Couldn't hurt. Might help.
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