Few figures in Latin American politics polarize opinion like Colombia’s former president, Álvaro Uribe. Right now, Uribe, Colombia’s president from 2002 to 2010, faces charges of bribery, procedural fraud, and bribery in a judicial proceeding. Prosecutors must determine whether he instigated others to manipulate witness testimony in an attempt to mislead the judiciary for his benefit.

So, along with Adriaan Alsema, director of Colombia Reports, we take a deep dive into the "early years" from Uribe's birth in Salgar, Antioquia and up until his campaign to become governor of the department, taking in his education, his role on the Medellin city council, director of Aerocivil, Mayor of Medellin and many family connections. 

Allegations of ties to drug cartels and paramilitaries have dogged him since the early 1980s, when the civil aviation agency he then led was accused of giving air licenses to drug traffickers. Declassified State Department cables from a decade later show U.S. officials were told the up-and-coming politician had ties to cartels.

In future episodes we will look at further details surrounding Colombia's most powerful political force. 

The Colombia Briefing is reported by Emily Hart. 

La Escombrera, a vast rubble pile overlooking Medellín, is considered to be Colombia’s largest urban mass grave. Its excavation this year has unearthed the remains of people whose families have been searching for them for decades. 

Earlier this month, it was announced that the excavation there is being expanded. Some hope that what is found in that rubble will answer deeper questions - about how the conflict unfolded here in the city, and how the state was complicit in murders and human rights violations committed by paramilitary groups.

This week, Emily Hart, journalist and Colombia Calling host, takes us through an article she wrote on her Substack about La Escombrera, the dynamics and history of Colombia's civil conflict, and about how this war - largely characterised by rural conflict and guerrilla tactics - ended up radically changing the face of Colombia’s cities.

Sign up and subscribe to Emily's Substack: https://harte.substack.com

And don't miss, the Colombia Briefing reported by Emily as well. 

Jennie speaks to Emily Hart and Richard McColl. In the 1980s, a Colombian neurologist named Francisco Lopera traveled on horseback into the mountains seeking families with symptoms of dementia. For centuries, residents of certain villages near Medellín had suffered memory loss as they reached middle age, going on to die in their fifties. Lopera discovered that a unique genetic mutation was causing their rare hereditary form of early onset Alzheimer’s disease. Over the next forty years of working with the “paisa mutation” kindred, he went on to build a world-class research program in a region beset by violence and poverty. In "Valley of Forgetting," Jennie Erin Smith brings readers into the clinic, the laboratories, and the Medellín trial center where Lopera’s patients receive an experimental drug to see if Alzheimer’s can be averted. She chronicles the lives of people who care for sick parents, spouses, and siblings, all while struggling to keep their own dreams afloat. These Colombian families have donated hundreds of their loved ones’ brains to science and subjected themselves to invasive testing to help uncover how Alzheimer’s develops and whether it can be stopped. Buy the book! https://a.co/d/giumqZR  The Colombia Briefing is reported by Emily Hart: https://harte.substack.com/

What explains selective violence against social and community leaders in the aftermath of war? Why does the killing of community and social leaders continue unabated in Colombia?  This week on the Colombia Calling podcast, we look at a new academic article entitled: "Delegative peacebuilding: Explaining post-conflict selective violence," written by Dr Sally Sharif and Dr Francy Carranza-Franco which explains so much regarding the on-going conflict in Colombia, the issue of "partial peace, who is doing the killing and why and hear some possible solutions.  Joining us is Dr Sally Sharif, School for International Studies, Simon Fraser University and Department of Political Science, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada and incoming assistant professor of comparative politics at Holy Cross University, Boston. 

Victoria was never meant to come to Colombia, in fact, had things gone according to plan she would be in China right now. But, fate had a different path in mind for this native of a small town near to the city of Perm in Siberia, Russia. And so, on this week's Colombia Calling podcast, we hear from a Tatar far from her birthplace near to the Ural Mountains and find out how she ended up in the town of Tabio, 45km north of Bogota. Our conversation takes in her life as a language teacher (English, German and Russian), her arrival in Colombia, her beginner mistakes upon arriving in Colombia, life hacks that we all need here, her cultural adaptation, family traditions, body positivity in Colombia, love and relationships and her life now. Tune in to hear from someone who has truly embraced a new life in Colombia in what is an incredibly upbeat and positive episode of the Colombia Calling podcast. And if you fancy some language classes, check out: @tabiunarusa on Instagram.

There's so much to say about the Latin American Boom in literature, but how can we possibly discuss it at this point in time without mentioning Mario Vargas Llosa and his recent passing. And so, as a Colombia-focused podcast, we take a look at this era and these personalities in the literary world, such as Colombia's inimitable Gabriel Garcia Marquez but through the prism of Mario Vargas Llosa. With very special guest Juan E. De Castro, professor of literary studies at Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts at The New School. Author of Writing Revolution in Latin America: From Martí to García Márquez to Bolaño and Bread and Beauty: The Cultural Politics of José Carlos Mariátegui, among other works, we discuss a variety of topics relating to but not restricted to: 1. The Latin American Boom. 2. Mario Vargas Llosa and Gabriel Garcia Marquez and "that punch." 3. The importance of the Latin American Boom. 4. The end of this literary milestone. 5. One Hundred Years of Solitude - the Netflix version.  And so much more, including the Colombia Briefing with Emily Hart. 

This week we speak to Camila Gonzalez Rosas, Director and Associate Professor of Biological Sciences at Los Andes University in Bogotá and Researcher at the the Centre for Investigations into Microbiology and tropical parasitology and we discuss tropical diseases in Colombia. Nothing is off the table from chagas, malaria, dengue, leishmaniasis, zika, chikungunya and Covid-19....we cover it all. What are the possibilities of another Zika outbreak? What are the consequences of the loss of biodiversity and climate change in Colombia? We also talk about zoonotic transmission where an infectious disease is transmitted between species from animals to humans (or from humans to animals) The Colombia Briefing is reported by Emily Hart. Subscribe to her Substack here: https://substack.com/@ehart Please consider supporting us on www.patreon.com/colombiacalling