Two South America books worth recommending, especially the second one. The first is just a good, funny travelogue, "The Footloose American: Following the Hunter S. Thompson Trail Across South America," by Brian Kevin. Excellent, but probably more Thorn Tree than BFC:
The author, an adventurous millennial, began by collecting all the articles and correspondence by a 24-year-old Hunter S. Thompson during his year in South America as a freelance journalist. This was long before the drugs and Gonzo journalism, but HST was already an extremely smart, perceptive, and adventurous writer with zero risk aversion, which makes him a much more interesting subject for this sort of thing than, say, Julia Childs.
Brian takes quotes from his stories and letters pertaining to indigenous whiskey smugglers in Venezuela's Guajira Peninsula, isolated and elitist expat capitalists in Colombia, harried US embassy workers in Ecuador moonlighting for the CIA, oppressed miners struggling to survive in Bolivia, and the beautiful beaches of Rio, among several other destinations and situations. Then, he visits those spots and updates HST's story; the Ecuador and Bolivia chapters were my favorite. It's absolutely not rehashed Gonzo (thank goodness), Brian writes it pretty straight except for some very dry and cynical humor, which I appreciated. But it is extremely informative about these slices of modern South American life, has some great (if perhaps worn) insights on travel, and of course illuminates a little bit of Thompson's early career for enthusiasts. Recommended!
The second book, "No Lost Causes," by former Colombian President and pint-sized dreamboat Alvaro Uribe, however, is right up there with the best non-fiction I have ever read and should be required reading for anyone interested in Colombia or counterterrorism, as well as a big-budget Hollywood action drama directed by that guy who did Argo.
Uribe, if you've been under a rock for the past couple of decades, was the former Governor of Antioquia (i.e., the law in Medellín during the tale end of the Escobar cartel years) and President of Colombia from 2002 to 2010. FARC killed his father when he was a kid, and lots of people in Latin America called him the "real Batman." When he came into power, FARC, the AUC, and various other wannabe paramilitary and guerrilla groups controlled pretty much all of rural Colombia; the nation was basically a constellation of barely-functioning city-states that were connected by air alone, as the roads were hotbeds of rebel roadblocks, kidnapping, coca running, and death. When Uribe left office, after failing to change the Constitution to allow a third term, Colombia wasn't even in the top five most violent countries in Latin America, much less the world, with 6 to 7% annual economic growth and 3.5 million tourists every year. He's been called a fascist, a murderer, a violator of human rights, and worse, but come on, the people he murdered were assholes.
Anyway, the bad: The story of his amazing, explosion- and firefight-filled presidency isn't told with the Ludlumesque flair that it deserved. Imagine if Breaking Bad had been told from Gus' point of view: It's a straight memoir. "After crawling to the helicopter on my elbows, I grabbed the only weapon available, a machine gun, to provide cover for the other candidates at the debate, so they could make the run from behind their podiums. This experience led to my focus on security, although education would also remain a priority throughout my career." I mean, come fucking on. Your debate was attacked, make it dramatic and awesome, with bullets exploding and sweat stinging your eyes as you heroically saved the day and your opponents' lives! Work it! But this guy doesn't sweat. Oh well.
And, toward the end of the book, you can tell that the criticism of human rights violations is really wearing on him. For example, there are long explanations of why, although he takes full responsibility, his policies weren't exactly responsible for the "false positives." Colombian police and military would sometimes kill villagers, often drug dealing kids who were causing problems but emphatically were NOT involved with FARC, dress them in rebel uniforms, and say "I got me a FARC soldier!" Interestingly, the leftist, Oliver Stone and Hugo Chavez-type press (which I read) said that they got some kind of bounty for turning over a rebel body, which caused the uptick in false positives. Uribe, who I believe, says that was emphatically NOT Colombian policy, there was no bounty or payout for bodies, and in fact, "false positives" peaked in 1984 and had been steadily declining ever since. The reason they did that, according to Uribe, was that FARC and other narcotraffickers had infiltrated the military and police, and these traitors would protect their real bosses by saying they'd killed the bad guys, when they had really been tipping them off, letting them escape, and killing someone else in their place.
The good. OH MY FUCKING GOD. The stories. I mean, from his securing the highways on the Caribbean slopes as a new President despite assassination attempt after assassination attempt that killed hundreds of innocent bystanders, to getting secret messages about FARC's trickery from Fidel Castro via Gabriel Garcia Marquez, to dealing with Hugo Chavez getting all apoplectic about his bombing FARC kingpin Raul Reyes 300 meters inside Ecuadorean territory, to tricking FARC into releasing Ingrid Bentacourt by sending in troops dressed in Che Guevara T-shirts on an old Russian helicopter with Venezuelan markings as a fake leftist NGO, etc etc ad amazingum, he gives all the details about trying to destroy one of the most entrenched terrorist groups in the world. It's fucking awesome.
For instance, his goal was to never, ever pay for kidnapping victims, or trade FARC prisoners for them, because that just helped FARC. If people did pay ransom that was fine with Uribe, he says he understood the human cost and the pain felt by families etc etc - that's how you got out, right RYP? But for high-profile secuestrados, or Colombian police or troops, Uribe was like, "NO." He'd rather spend ten times as much on a special ops with a 50/50 chance of killing everyone, than pay a ransom, and that's what he did. The USA was onboard, apparently, but Europe not so much. And he had soooo many problems with France and Ingrid Bentacourt. They'd send in a plane full of "negotiators" carrying millions of euros, who would hand over these suitcases full of money to FARC in exchange for Bentacourt, then FARC would disappear with the cash back into the forest. Later, Sarkozy was like, "We cut a deal, can you release these super-important high level FARC prisoners for us?" And Uribe would be like, "You're stupid, it won't work, but if you'll stop moaning about human rights for these murderous, coke-dealing fucktards, I'll pretend that diplomacy has a chance, and then get back back to chasing them down with guns like the dogs they are after your pathetic disappointment. Whatever." And he'd release the FARC leaders, they'd disappear into the jungle and go back to narcotrafficking, but no Bentacourt would appear. And so forth.
Instead, Uribe would do things like take over FARC's supply lines and communication networks, paying off informants rather than the FARC, and figure out where they were, what they were doing, and how to destroy their camps and coca fields. He increased security spending by 65%, and effectiveness by a million percent. This was the thing. He was more effective because he stopped thinking of them in terms of revolutionaries, and just said it: They were terrorists and a pox on normal Colombians. Previous administrations would give FARC demilitarized zones, negotiating tables, political parties - treating them the way you'd treat a legitimate leftist group with real grievances and ideological foundations. The thing is, that FARC was over in the early 1970s. By the 1980s, they had no interest in peace, or socialism, or a healthy, thriving Colombia. They wanted a failed state where they would be free to grow, process, and run cocaine to the USA and Europe. That's why Fidel Castro sold them out to Uribe, because their revolution was bullshit and their drug running was causing problems for everyone, even Cuba. Sure, Hugo Chavez and Rafael Correa (the presidents of neighboring Venezuela and Ecuador respectively) protected FARC, but that's because they donated a ton of money to their political campaigns. It wasn't ideological, it was financial.
So Uribe took them out. Now, he wasn't just murdering them - he had a whole system where you could turn yourself in and rejoin Colombian society without a lot of hassles. According to the book, they let about 40,000 former FARC and other guerrillas turn over their weapons and go home, despite a troubling 7% recidivism rate. Even if you were a "kingpin" (his term for guerrilla leadership), if you turned over your properties, wealth, guns, etc, you could still get away with serving just eight years. EIGHT! But, yeah, if you didn't want to turn yourself in, Uribe was going to hunt you down like a dog and kill you in the jungle.
ANYWAY. Read this book. It's fucking amazing.