Word: colombianization
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...upon his election, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe made it a priority to secure Cartagena's walls. Emulating London, Uribe installed a 137-camera surveillance system that covers all of the Old Town and tourist areas. Murders dropped from 66 in 2002 to just 23 last year, 10 fewer than in my hometown of Washington. Uribe then lobbied Washington to declare the city safe for U.S. travel, a designation that opened the floodgates to cruise ships. In the past five years, foreign visitors to Colombia have more than doubled, from 1 million to 2.6 million a year. From...
...last December hours after that country's president Lansana Conte died. Conte's administration had been seen as particularly friendly to the foreign drug lords. Last week, Guinea's military coup leaders arrested several politicians and military officers in the capital Conakry, charging them with drug smuggling for the Colombian cartels. The late President's son Ousmane Conte - whom U.N. drug officials have long believed was involved in large-scale cocaine deals - went on national television to confess his involvement with his "Colombian friends...
Beginning around 2005, Colombian traffickers began arriving in Guinea Bissau, smuggling in cocaine worth about 10 times the country's annual GDP, according to U.N. officials. The cartels found ideal terrain for their massive trafficking operations. The dirt-poor country has few natural resources and only 1.6 million people. And there are dozens of remote tropical islands, with about 24 airfields built during colonial days. There the traffickers flew small aircraft, dropping hundreds of pounds of cocaine almost weekly direct from Colombia. According to European Union drug reports, the cocaine was then smuggled in small quantities into Europe. The government...
...Shortly after their rescue, Stansell, Gonsalves and Howes met their hero, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, who has led the offensive against the FARC and pledged to crush the rebel organization. Uribe is now considering a controversial move to change the Constitution and run for a third-consecutive term, a move that the Americans fully endorse. "He's the best president in probably 100 years," Howes says...
...Back in their home country, the Americans are finding that kidnappings can be almost as hard on family members as hostages. Stansell has reunited with his Colombian girlfriend who gave birth to their twins while he was held hostage. But Gonsalves and Howes are going through divorce proceedings. ("The nightmares I have are not about captivity," Howes says. "They're about divorce.") The bonds between the three men, however, remain solid. Motorcycle buffs, they plan to criss-cross the U.S. on Harley-Davidsons in what they're calling "a freedom ride" to draw attention to hundreds of hostages still being...