Podcasts about la guajira

Escuche el episodio del 27 de mayo de 2026. En La Luciérnaga, mezcla extraña de realidad y ficción, revisamos la visita de Claudia López a Sin Anestesia, el momento deportivo con Falcao y diferentes espacios de humor y actualidad.

En esta emisión del viernes 8 de mayo de 2026, el informativo aborda la decisión del Consejo de Estado de suspender provisionalmente varios artículos del decreto que aumentaba la retención en la fuente para miles de empresas en Colombia, una medida que impacta directamente al sector económico y empresarial del país.También incluye la confirmación por parte de la Fuerza Aeroespacial Colombiana del hallazgo de restos de un dron con explosivos cerca del aeropuerto El Dorado de Bogotá, situación que encendió las alertas de seguridad nacional y llevó a reforzar las operaciones militares en la capital.En el ámbito político, crece la preocupación por la seguridad electoral a menos de un mes de las elecciones presidenciales. Además, se reportó el asesinato de Mileidy Villada, presidenta del Concejo Municipal de Obando, Valle del Cauca, mientras aumentan las alertas por violencia contra líderes políticos y sociales. El presidente Gustavo Petro habló desde La Guajira sobre transición energética, lanzó críticas por el caso de los carrotanques y abrió la puerta a posibles diálogos con grupos armados ilegales.El noticiero también cubre la crisis de salud que enfrentan usuarios de Asmet Salud en Caquetá y pacientes de la Nueva EPS en el Atlántico, denuncias sobre demoras en remisiones médicas, el aumento de casos de malaria en Caldas, el cierre temporal de playas en Santa Marta por erosión costera y las movilizaciones de la Rama Judicial para exigir la liberación de funcionarios secuestrados por el ELN en Arauca.En información judicial y de orden público, la Fiscalía esclareció el caso de dos policías asesinados por sus propios compañeros en el Cauca, mientras en Risaralda fue capturado un hombre señalado de comercializar material de abuso sexual infantil. También se reportaron enfrentamientos entre el Ejército y el Clan del Golfo en Antioquia, vandalismo contra TransMilenio en Bogotá y un violento ataque contra un agente de tránsito en Armenia.En economía, analistas prevén que la inflación de abril mantenga su tendencia al alza, mientras el país sigue atento a las decisiones del Banco de la República y al comportamiento del costo de vida.En deportes, Real Cartagena y Unión Magdalena disputan un nuevo clásico del ascenso colombiano, mientras inicia el Giro de Italia 2026 con presencia de los colombianos Egan Bernal, Santiago Buitrago y Einer Rubio. En cultura y entretenimiento, el Binomio de Oro estrenó su nuevo sencillo “Si tú estás aquí”, Marta Sánchez celebra sus 60 años y Sutamarchán se prepara para una nueva edición de la tradicional Tomatina Colombiana con más de 45 toneladas de tomate y visitantes internacionales.

En Santa Marta, ciudad portuaria de la costa caribe colombiana, se inauguró el 24 de abril Primera Conferencia Internacional para la Transición más allá de los Combustibles Fósiles. En el marco de esta reunión en la que participan representantes de varios gobiernos y pueblos indígenas, RFI viajó a la ciudad de Maicao en donde están emergiendo granjas solares. Najet Benrabaa, enviada especial a Maicao, Colombia. La Guajira es la paradoja colombiana por excelencia: el departamento más soleado del país, uno de los más pobres, y uno de los peor abastecidos de electricidad. Durante décadas, las comunidades wayuu vivieron en la oscuridad a pocos kilómetros de un sol implacable — 300 días de insolación al año, un recurso colosal que se evaporaba sin ser aprovechado. Eso está cambiando. En Maicao, en la frontera venezolana, varias granjas solares fueron instaladas. Y en las rancherías aisladas alrededor de Riohacha, paneles solares comienzan a aparecer sobre los techos de paja de las casas wayuu — llevando por primera vez la luz eléctrica a familias que cocinaban a la luz de las velas. Oleimys Barbosa es responsable de la granja de paneles solares de la ciudad de Maicao, en el barrio Parrantial. Una granja solar que cuenta con 1.792 paneles instalados. Produce una potencia de 1.000 vatios, 1.000 megavatios, para beneficiar a 500 familias de los estratos 1 y 2. “Lo último que falta es conectar directamente a la red eléctrica de la ciudad”, explica Barbosa. Instalada por la organización Fecode con el apoyo del gobierno colombiano, esta granja solar hace parte de un programa social de acceso a la energía para las poblaciones vulnerables de Maicao. Luz Molina será una de sus beneficiarias: “Mi comunidad vive en el barrio Nueva Esperanza, compuesta por familias bastante vulnerables, y por los altos costos de la energía, en mi casa, por lo general, recibo una factura de 200.000 pesos (aproximadamente 48 euros) o más. Entonces con esta granja solar vamos a reducir un 30 % de nuestro consumo”, explica. Luz trabaja en una pequeña casa hecha de acero, como una tienda transportable. Está ubicada frente a la alcaldía, que es el centro administrativo de Maicao, lo que le permite trabajar allí todos los días ofreciendo impresiones de documentos, conexiones a internet y otros servicios. Es lo que se conoce como un punto de venta informal.Pero otras comunidades ya tienen acceso a esta energía solar. Es el caso de la comunidad Yutao del pueblo indígena Wayuu, cerca de Maicao. Viven principalmente en rancherías — casas construidas en pleno desierto, hechas frecuentemente de barro y madera. Mimi Barrios es lideresa de la comunidad: “el beneficio aquí fue algo maravilloso, porque los niños pueden estudiar, pueden hacer sus tareas en el computador. Aquí, en la comunidad, las artesanas pueden hacer las hamacas hasta tarde en la noche”. Un nuevo gran proyecto de granja solar fue firmado a pocos kilómetros de Maicao: el proyecto Chivo Mono.

En Santa Marta, ciudad portuaria de la costa caribe colombiana, se inauguró el 24 de abril Primera Conferencia Internacional para la Transición más allá de los Combustibles Fósiles. En el marco de esta reunión en la que participan representantes de varios gobiernos y pueblos indígenas, RFI viajó a la ciudad de Maicao en donde están emergiendo granjas solares. Najet Benrabaa, enviada especial a Maicao, Colombia. La Guajira es la paradoja colombiana por excelencia: el departamento más soleado del país, uno de los más pobres, y uno de los peor abastecidos de electricidad. Durante décadas, las comunidades wayuu vivieron en la oscuridad a pocos kilómetros de un sol implacable — 300 días de insolación al año, un recurso colosal que se evaporaba sin ser aprovechado. Eso está cambiando. En Maicao, en la frontera venezolana, varias granjas solares fueron instaladas. Y en las rancherías aisladas alrededor de Riohacha, paneles solares comienzan a aparecer sobre los techos de paja de las casas wayuu — llevando por primera vez la luz eléctrica a familias que cocinaban a la luz de las velas. Oleimys Barbosa es responsable de la granja de paneles solares de la ciudad de Maicao, en el barrio Parrantial. Una granja solar que cuenta con 1.792 paneles instalados. Produce una potencia de 1.000 vatios, 1.000 megavatios, para beneficiar a 500 familias de los estratos 1 y 2. “Lo último que falta es conectar directamente a la red eléctrica de la ciudad”, explica Barbosa. Instalada por la organización Fecode con el apoyo del gobierno colombiano, esta granja solar hace parte de un programa social de acceso a la energía para las poblaciones vulnerables de Maicao. Luz Molina será una de sus beneficiarias: “Mi comunidad vive en el barrio Nueva Esperanza, compuesta por familias bastante vulnerables, y por los altos costos de la energía, en mi casa, por lo general, recibo una factura de 200.000 pesos (aproximadamente 48 euros) o más. Entonces con esta granja solar vamos a reducir un 30 % de nuestro consumo”, explica. Luz trabaja en una pequeña casa hecha de acero, como una tienda transportable. Está ubicada frente a la alcaldía, que es el centro administrativo de Maicao, lo que le permite trabajar allí todos los días ofreciendo impresiones de documentos, conexiones a internet y otros servicios. Es lo que se conoce como un punto de venta informal.Pero otras comunidades ya tienen acceso a esta energía solar. Es el caso de la comunidad Yutao del pueblo indígena Wayuu, cerca de Maicao. Viven principalmente en rancherías — casas construidas en pleno desierto, hechas frecuentemente de barro y madera. Mimi Barrios es lideresa de la comunidad: “el beneficio aquí fue algo maravilloso, porque los niños pueden estudiar, pueden hacer sus tareas en el computador. Aquí, en la comunidad, las artesanas pueden hacer las hamacas hasta tarde en la noche”. Un nuevo gran proyecto de granja solar fue firmado a pocos kilómetros de Maicao: el proyecto Chivo Mono.

Continuiamo a parlare della Guajira. Ascolta il podcast n. 146 e anche il n. 109 che era dedicato alla salida del cante por guajira.La Niña de los Peines ha reso il cante por guajira molto più flamenco, cosa che ha fatto con tantissimi palos. D'altra parte in 258 incisioni fra il 1910 e il 1950 non c'è da stupirsi che abbia arricchito tantissimi palos. Nel 1917 incide due guajiras con Currito de la Jeroma. Portò dignità jonda al palo attraverso una tecnica vocale scura e solenne, che diede una svolta al palo in una direzione artistica. Con il suo apporto, il cante flamenco rimane ancorato alle sue origini vere, non corrotte da esigenze commerciali.Specifichiamo che si tratta di un cante che si svolge in modalità maggiore, con atmosfere allegre e serene. La chitarra suona in Mi maggiore, quindi "por arriba", e se non accompagna il cante può suonare por medio, in La maggiore, ma nell'accompagnamento por arriba si sentono di più le note gravi della chitarra, che offrono un'atmosfera particolare.La frase ritmica è il compás di amalgama, 123 123 12 12 12, cosa che troviamo nella storia di gran parte del flamenco. Parlando della guajira non si può prescindere dal prezioso contributo del genio creativo di Pepe Marchena: creatore della "guajira marchenera", quasi più recitata che cantata, non ballabile. Da lui nacque un'intera maniera di cante por guajira. Ascoltiamo la sua versione di "La mulata es un terron", che poi ascolteremo cantata da Juanito Valderrama: Valderrama, essendo un grande ammiratore e "erede" stilistico di Pepe Marchena, prese lo schema della décima cubana e lo arricchì con melodie che evocavano i paesaggi tropicali (il palmar e il bohío, ovvero la capanna tipica dei guajiros cubani). Ha fissato lo standard moderno di precisione vocale. Lo stile odierno è molto influenzato dalla sua forma chiara e formale, più stabile rispetto all'improvvisazione libera di Marchena. Il suo modo di cantare la stessa letra che hai ascoltato dalla voce di Pepe Marchena è più quadrato, stabile e stilizzato, e quindi anche più copiabile da altri cantaores. Infatti ha influenzato i cantaores di oggi. La voce di Valderrama ha chiarito un modo di cantare, lo ha reso più comprensibile e meno "stra-personale", come era quello di Marchena.La guajira è un baile tradizionalmente femminile, ma questo non significa che non lo possano ballare anche gli uomini. Usa accessori: ventaglio e mantón de Manila e anche una piccola coda, che permettono movimenti rotondi e continui, che somigliano molto al cante stesso, che è pieno di melismi. Ovviamente della evoluzione coreutica si sa poco: le origini più sensuali ed istintive di Pepa de Oro e la stilizzazione della Mejorana, bailaora elegante e bella, attenta a ogni dettaglio. La guajira si è sviluppata come baile nella Scuola Sevillana, rappresentata da Matilde Coral (uso del ventaglio e bata de cola), e portata al vertice moderno da Merche Esmeralda e Milagros Menjíbar. Si trovano su youtube delle registrazioni.Per quanto riguarda la chitarra por guajira, è interessante notare il lavoro di Ramón Montoya e Niño Ricardo che crearono le falsetas che imitano il laúd cubano, con il pizzicato, definendo l'armonia solare del palo. Le esigenze del baile hanno generato anche la Guajira Breve: Variante metrica che riduce lo schema da 10 a 4 versi (solitamente una quartina ottosillaba), e la letra che dura 6 compás. Nonostante la contrazione testuale, mantiene intatta la struttura musicale e il compás di amalgama, servendo spesso come chiusura o cambio dinamico soprattutto durante il ballo. Trovi queste letras brevi solo dal vivo quando c'è il baile. Sono Sabina Todaro, mi occupo di flamenco e di musiche e danze del mondo arabo dal 1985. Dal 1990 insegno baile flamenco a Milano, ed un lavoro sull'espressione delle emozioni attraverso musiche e danze del mondo arabo che ho chiamato Lyrical Arab Dance. La guajira non è il palo più emozionante e drammatico, flamenco, ma affrontarne lo studio ci aiuta a giocare con gli accessori con cui si balla e a ricamare la danza esattamente come fa il cante, in modo respirato, fluido, ispirandosi tanto al cante. Affrontare queste modalità di baile dinamiche e fluide aiuta ad avere più carte espressive che permettono una migliore padronanza interpretativa del cante, anche di palos molto diversi.

Cominciamo a parlare dei palos de ida y vuelta, partendo dalla Guajira, che divido in due parti. I palos de Ida Y Vuelta sono generi partiti dalla Spagna, andati nelle Americhe, in cui la Spagna aveva regioni (non solo colonie!), e ritornati in Spagna, integrandosi nel flamenco. Guajira è una parola che conosci già, anche se non associata al flamenco: la famosissima canzone Guajira Guantanamera. Il termine viene dalla lingua tainio degli indigeni delle Antille, del gruppo Arahuaca, significa "signore, uomo potente" e veniva usata per definire i contadini bianchi, spagnoli, che lavoravano lì.I Guajiros erano prevalentemente di origine andalusa o canaria, e arrivano a Cuba nel XVI e XVII secolo. Quando arrivarono a Cuba, questi contadini spagnoli avevano ovviamente una tradizione musicale e culturale, e trovano a Cuba cultura e situazioni di vita diversi. La loro musica si basava su uno schema letterario anche piuttosto complesso, la Decima. Questo genere poetico è piuttosto complesso stato creato da Vicente Espinel nel 1591, e aveva appunto 10 versi. Espinel era un sacerdote, scrittore e musicista spagnolo (fu colui che aggiunse la quinta corda alla chitarra!).A Cuba diventa un genere nuovo, il "Punto cubano o Guajiro, o De la Habana". Lo strumento musicale su cui si basa il Punto è il laud cubano, che arrivò a Cuba dalle Canarie, ed è più piccolo, sottile e con una voce acuta rispetto al suo progenitore, il liuto arabo. Si suona in maniera particolare, usando il pizzicato, che in spagnolo si chiama punteado: ecco da dove viene il nome "Punto".Durante la guerra di indipendenza cubana, la decima venne utilizzata per raccontare le cronache politiche e sociali. Il punto cubano si cantava su ritmo di amalgama, come tutti i canti che provenivano dalla Spagna.Verso la prima metà dell'800, questa musica viene riportata in Spagna, come musica popolare urbana e teatrale, in Andalusia, soprattutto a Cordoba, dove comincia ad avere un certo successo per le sue atmosfere esotiche e romantiche. Viene chiamata "Punto de la Habana".Esistevano partiture di muisa classica intitolare Guajira, brani di Zarzuelas dedicati, ben prima di entrare nel flamenco, nei cafes cantantes di fine 800-inizio 900. Ascoltiamo un esempio del 1907 di un Punto de la Habana!Abbiamo una prima testimonianza storica di Jean Charles Davillier, nobile francese dei primi dell'800, collezionista ed esperto ispanista, che pubblicò un resoconto di viaggio, "L'Espagne" nel 1874, in cui descrisse una gitana che cantava il Punto de la Habana a Siviglia nel 1862.Una seconda testimonianza dell'esistenza di questo genere musicale è stato il chitarrista di Madrid Rafael Marin, allievo di Paco de Lucena, nato nella seconda metà dell'800. Compilò un importante metodo di chitarra nel 1902 "Metodo de guitarra por musica y cifra", in cui indicò che la guajira flamenca era più lenta rispetto alla guajira cubana, quindi significa che in quell'epoca il ritmo di guajira era già ben definito e che si poteva ancora fare un confronto con la sua origine!Forse questo successe perché il cante flamenco, con i suoi melismi, richiedeva una maggiore lentezza. Come tutto ciò che è stato afflamencato, c'è stato sempre un intervento importante da parte di alcuni cantaores: il primo a contribuire allo sviluppo della guajira è stato Silverio Franconetti, che ha aperto il primo café cantante, e per primo inserì nel suo cuadro flamenco Juan Patron Lopez "El Guajiro", il primo esperto del genere. El guajiro era del 1849, nacque a Cadice, collaborò con Silverio ma viaggiò come artista e portò in giro la guajira come artista specializzato. Andò anche in America, ma da lì perdiamo le sue tracce. Altro cantaor importante è un imitatore del Canario, "El Canario CHICO", che è importante perché, con uno stile personale e una bellissima voce, ci dice come era eseguita la guajira all'epoca in cui nacque, senza banalizzarla, solo perché è in maggiore ed è piuttosto allegra. Fernando de Triana, nelle sue cronache, dice che cantava molto bene e che aveva molto successo, cosa che contribuì alla diffusione della Guajira. Secondo Gaspar Nunez de Prado, quando il Canario Chico cantava la guajira la sua voce vibrava come se venisse dalle viscere che si stavano strappando, e questo aiutò la diffusione della guajira e il suo cammino nel flamenco. Fernando el de Triana racconta anche di Curro Dulce, classe 1816, nacque a Cadice e fu il nonno di Manolo Caracol. Fu il primo cantaor gitano (o forse l'unico dell'epoca) ad eccellere nei cantes de ida y vuelta. E il suo sopranome gli venne attribuito proprio per la dolcezza che aveva nel cantare la Guajira.Altro artista da ricordare nello sviluppo del cante por guajira è stato Juan Breva, che diede a questo stile una grande maestria melodica, avvicinandolo sempre di più al flamenco. La stella della nascente industria discografica, Antonio Pozo El Mochuelo incise per primo una guajira. Te ne faccio ascoltare un esempio del 1906, in cui El Mochuelo canta con La Rubia, come spesso faceva. Le incisioni ovviamente sono importanti per la memoria del cante!La bailaora e cantaora Pepa De Oro, classe 1871, viaggiò molto nelle americhe con suo padre torero, e riportò in Spagna un suo stile di guajira, e forse lo ballò per prima: la sua importanza nell'evoluzione dei cantes de ida y vuelta è dimostrato dal fatto che il premio per i cantes de Ida y Vuelta del Concorso di Cordoba è intitolato proprio a lei. Pepa non incise nulla ma la sua eredità artistica si è tramandata attraverso un cantaor enciclopedico, un archivio vivente del cante, che era proprio un cultore della tradizione: Pepe de la Matrona. Questo cantaor sivigliano, nato nel 1887, era figlio di Manolita la Matrona. La matrona è l'ostetrica, ed era nella storia un personaggio che le famiglie ammettevano con accoglienza nel proprio seno e che aveva quindi potuto imparare dei cantes di primissima mano (soprattutto di Triana), in una versione non professionale, che trasmise a suo figlio fedelmente. Pepe de la Matrona non amava i teatri e le situazioni formali, incise poco e soltanto da anziano, quindi non ne conosciamo le vere qualità vocali. Aveva lavorato con tutti i cantaores storici, e in particolare con Antonio Chacon, quindi aveva grosse competenze dirette. Amava e rispettava la tradizione senza far l'occhiolino a nessuna modernità, a nessun tentativo di compiacere il pubblico. Sono Sabina Todaro, mi occupo di flamenco e di musiche e danze del mondo arabo dal 1985, dal 1990 insegno baile flamenco a Milano, e un lavoro sull'espressione delle emozioni attraverso musiche e danze del mondo arabo che ho chiamato Lyrical Arab Dance. la Guajira è un palo fondamentale da affrontare per un bailaor, anhce perché esplorare l'energia positiva e serena di questo palo è importante per arricchire la propria emozionalità espressiva nel flamenco. 

In this episode of Gangland Wire, retired Kansas City Police Intelligence detective Gary Jenkins sits down with former drug trafficker Carlos Perez for a direct, unfiltered discussion about the evolution of the drug trade in America. Carlos has a new book out titled Pedro Pan: The Product of a Revolution Gone Bad The conversation opens with recent controversy surrounding the reported death of  the Jalisco New Generation Cartel leader El Mencho, and what that development signals for the balance of power among modern Mexican cartels. From there, Gary and Carlos trace the arc of the drug trade from the Caribbean smuggling routes of the 1970s and 1980s to the dominance of today's cartel-controlled corridors. Carlos reflects on the era of Ronald Reagan and the early “War on Drugs,” describing a time when enforcement was uneven and smugglers routinely exploited weak regulatory environments in places like the Bahamas. He explains how traffickers adapted faster than policymakers, using maritime routes, small aircraft, and coordinated pickup operations to move multi-ton quantities of narcotics. Gary and Carlos contrast those earlier days with modern interdiction efforts—advanced Coast Guard surveillance, satellite tracking, military-grade radar, and cross-border intelligence sharing. What was once opportunistic smuggling has evolved into highly structured cartel logistics supported by corrupt officials and narco-state dynamics. Carlos provides a candid account of his own rise in the trade. Starting as a construction laborer, he moved into pickup crews retrieving floating bales of drugs in open water. Over time, he became involved in larger-scale operations involving aircraft and organized distribution networks. He details the operational mechanics, the risks, and the constant calculation between profit and prison—or worse. The discussion also explores the blurred lines between political authority and cartel influence. Carlos explains how governments in certain regions became intertwined with trafficking operations, illustrating how power, money, and violence intersect across borders. In the second half of the episode, Carlos shifts to a personal reckoning. He discusses the moral compromises required in the drug trade and the toll it takes on family and identity. Ultimately, he chose to step away, prioritizing stability and long-term survival over fast money. Now living a legitimate life, Carlos has documented his journey in his book Pedro Pan: The Product of a Revolution Gone Bad, offering readers a firsthand account of smuggling culture, Cuban heritage, revolution-era influences, and the psychological weight of that world. His story reflects both personal accountability and a broader commentary on the human side of organized crime. This episode blends law enforcement perspective with insider testimony, giving listeners a rare dual lens: the cop who chased traffickers and the man who once outran them. Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire Click here to “buy me a cup of coffee” Subscribe to the website for weekly notifications about updates and other Mob information. To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here To rent ‘Brothers against Brothers’ or ‘Gangland Wire,’ the documentaries click here.  To purchase one of my books, click here. Transcript [0:00] Hey, all you wiretappers, Gary Jenkins, retired Kansas City Police Intelligence [0:03] Unit detective. It’s great to be back here in the studio. It’s a cold day in Kansas City, Missouri, but we’re going to talk to a warm state and with a man that lives in that warm state, Carlos Perez. Welcome, Carlos. How are you doing, Gary? Doing good? Yeah, I’m doing good. A little cold, and I know it’s much warmer down there. We talked about that. Carlos was involved in the drug business, which is quite topical right now, especially today. Now, this won’t come out today, but as of over the weekend, the Mexican government arrested the El Mencho, the head of that, I can’t remember the name of that cartel. It was a Western Mexico, the state of Jalisco cartel. And somehow he got killed on the way to Mexico City as they’re transporting him. And his guys, the cartel members, are going crazy. Carlos, let’s talk about that a little bit, about this new war on drugs. When I was in Ronnie Reagan’s war on drugs, it was different than it is now. Now we have this new war on drugs with blowing drug boats out of the water. And this guy dies on the way to the bigger jail. Well, let’s talk about that a little bit. Carlos, how would you, as a former drug trafficker, how do you react to that? [1:18] The laws change. And the more that the smugglers change, the more that the system to catch them changes also. In fact, when you’re talking about Ronald Reagan’s war on drugs, there was quite a few things that allowed the smugglers to succeed. One was, most of it, and I’m talking Caribbean now, most of it was going through the Bahamas. The Bahamas had laws at that time where anything governmental was not allowed to land nor dock a boat anywhere in the Bahamas without the permission of the Bahamian government. Which, by the time they got to wherever, if they reacted, if they were advised of some drugs coming in, it would take them a long time to react. I think they had two boats for all the islands that had to travel back and forth. You never, you couldn’t, they couldn’t, the DEA, the Coast Guard, they couldn’t catch you. [2:12] And when you fly a plane in, you just land anywhere and say hello to the DEA as they’re flying by because they can’t land. And therefore, you score the load that you have. Nowadays, Jesus God Almighty, now you’ve got the Coast Guard out there. You’ve got the Coast Guard citation constantly flying, plus Navy. But you couldn’t get it done. And back in those days, that’s the way it was done. It was the Bahamas played a huge part. The prime minister of the Bahamas was so heavily, even though he never. [2:42] Did any time or anything he was heavily involved he took payoffs to left left and right the whole the situation is completely different now you got AWACS flying overhead that can hear you when you’re in the bathroom anybody here’s my opinion on that I want to know who in the hell was in charge of sending those boats out of Venezuela that after the first one got blown up who was telling them to keep sending boats over now if maduro this is my theory if maduro was smart he would have stopped that if he was really the one in charge he would have gone god you got to make me look better you can’t keep doing it that tells me he was not in charge of the shit okay so there’s someone behind that kept going send them we got to see if we can score keep the score, i don’t know how he kept doing that that was to me that was such a stupid move especially when you You see that you’ve got half of America’s Navy sitting on your doorstep, and you keep trying to send drugs. What are you, nuts? The Pacific, they should have gone over to the Pacific, where there’s less surveillance, and maybe run it up the Pacific coast by land. [3:53] Okay. Try to get it into Mexico by land. Because back in the day, Mexico was not really involved at all in that. It was the Caribbean. And then when the Colombian cartel, which was Medellin cartel, when they stopped losing so many loads, they started to go to Mexico. And through Mexico, they just flew small planes, landed in the woods somewhere in Mexico, and then they moved it up. That was not – you weren’t doing that in the Caribbean by that time. And talking about Reagan’s war on drugs, I had two – this is the sideline. I had two little boats coming in from the Bahamas that had marijuana on them. [4:35] I still got to laugh at this freaking idiot. One of them, they were coming in from – Bimney’s only 47 miles away. You can almost do it on the fumes of a gas tank. This guy forgot to gas up. Coming over, he gets stopped by the Marine Patrol, right? As they’re searching him, the other boat had gone through but was wondering where his partner was, and he goes back to see where the guy is. [5:01] How’s that for – anyway, they get them both. It was a total of about 1,200 pounds. That had come from Jamaica, that’s about –, And the vice president, who was Bush, was at the Coast Guard dock when they were unloading the boats. And I was sitting there watching, going, damn, they look like my boats. And when I investigated, it was a—but that was one little incident that had happened. But the difference between yesterday, yesteryear, and now is chronologically things change. They trump the other everybody that was a president or that that had something to do with stopping the trade with drugs never really stuck their foot in deep to stop it it makes me feel like yeah you’re not really you’re talking a lot but you’re not really doing much because if i was a cop my god i usually i’d have had all kinds of medals from stopping these people because it’s an easy thing but no one really had the interest who was involved economically up the top god and only In the Bahamas, I knew who it was. It was the prime minister. Knew his people real well. In the States, everything changes every couple of years. And you don’t know what they’re thinking, what their process of thought is to try to stop this. You know what it was? None. They didn’t try. Okay, they did not try. [6:22] There used to be, oh God, probably about two or three DC-3s a night landing in Bimini, 47 miles away. Okay? Each one of them had 10,000 pounds on it. The boats were running up the river, the Miami River. Once you get inside on a river, inside land, you pretty much already scored. That changed. Then it went to freighters, fast boats going out, picking up, coming in. Then when the United States stopped that, when they declared, we’re going to be able to stop any boat anywhere in international waters. You couldn’t do it back then. [7:02] When that ended then you began with the airplanes the airplanes would take it this is still back when you when the US or any governmental agency could not, set foot in the Bahamian territory, Bahamian waters, without the prime minister’s knowledge. The prime minister’s involved. You’re not going to get it. It’s not going to happen. So that change, and it went to small airplanes. Fly it in anywhere you want in the Bahamas, and then get your boats, and from there on in, try to see what you’re thinking, your process of thought is going to be to get it from the Bahamas, some of the shorter points to the States and to Miami at that point. One of them for me was easy. And that was because I had information on the Miami tower and where in the hell everything was at any point in time. So I would sit and wait for my messenger to get back to me, to tell me where the smoker was, which was the big Coast Guard boat and where the citation was. Once I knew that, I knew I could come across. And the only thing I was going to run into was fishermen. [8:10] So things changed. And then they allowed things change after that. And obviously they were allowed to go into the Bahamas and do whatever they wanted. But that was when Pinland was finally out. I don’t know who the prime minister became after that, but it changed. And now it became, this is why I think that the cartels were stupid. They, instead of doing as much as you could without getting noticed, they started bringing in loads of 10,000 and 20,000 kilos. I was like, God, what the hell do they get all that? I know where they get it, but since I know how the situation goes, I want to know how they amass it and get it onto one boat or one container or whatever and not have it noticed. That’s just way too much to not notice at one point or another. People get edgy around shit like that. In other words, I could take two people and put them in front of a container and separate them and tell one of them, that’s full of drugs, and then tell the other one, no, that’s full of furniture. And then stand both of them there and see who gets nervous. [9:16] It’s human nature. It’s human nature. If you know something bad is going on, to feel it and to react. Why they did that, I don’t know. I was one of the ones, if not the only one, that was sent to Mexico to teach them how to put airstrips in the middle of the jungle, how to protect them, what to do with them, where to put potholes with certain rocks, get them out when they play in the stomach, put them back in when he’s done so if anyone else tries to land, they’re gone. But how it got so deep, I’ll never understand that. And I was pretty much in the beginning of smuggling as to notice chronologically how everything’s seen because I stayed for quite a while. Yeah. Now, Carlos, you’ve written a book about this. What’s the name of that book? The book is called Heisting the Beard. I just need the beard. The beard with a D, meaning Fidel Castro. Ah, interesting. Yeah, he’s just in Cubans when they go like this to their chin or they mention him and they mention him as the beard. He was heavily involved in the decision-making of Cuba running drones. [10:27] That book is about, oh, I ran into a guy. This is how this happens, which is really fun. I ran into a guy who I used to call him by the name of Banco. And he came and told me that he knew where there was a big load of drugs, jewels that they had pilfered from the ocean where they knew that shipwrecks have gone down. Because no one can dive around Cuba. And Cuba is a country that held all the gold before it went to Spain. Everything stopped there and went on. So he told me he knew where there was a warehouse that was holding that plus a lot of coke. And I had ways to get in. I have a friend who’s Bahamian, who was actually one of my partners, who’s from Ragged Island in the Bahamas. Ragged Island is maybe… [11:17] 20 miles off the Cuban coast, down on the eastern end of Cuba. So it was easy for me to sneak in. Everyone thinks of Cuba as this military power, Russia’s buddy. They didn’t have shit. They couldn’t put a plane in the air. They didn’t have patrol boats. They had patrol boats, but I swear I could out-swim them. It was ridiculous to see at what point they were developed as far as a country. And it was like, everything is going downhill as today, and it keeps going downhill. So I would sneak in on a Zodiac. [11:53] And I’d hit the coast, middle of the night. No one would see me. I speak perfect Spanish. I speak a Cuban dialect. So I wasn’t going to get caught by it because I looked like a black bean in a pot of white rice. It wasn’t going to be like that. So we figured out where everything was, and we went in and took a little look. And got awake after a lot of headaches, but we were able to do that. There’s other instances where there’s an airport right next to Havana called the Varadero Airport, and it’s a military airport. And I know that they were holding a lot of cocaine that was going in there. The reason I know that is because hearsay in the streets in Miami, you go drink a little Cuban coffee somewhere, you hear assholes talking garbage, and they would say that they were getting boats ready to go to Cuba to bring in whatever they had. So it’s not really why they make it a mystery as to why they were involved. If you think logically, let’s say you leave Colombia and you’re doing business with Cuba. Wouldn’t it be safe to just, oh, you’re chasing me, let me land in Cuba and I got no problem, not because they don’t want you here, but they want me here. That’s logically speaking. So why that… [13:11] That mystery among people that they weren’t involved. What are you, crazy? Not only that, recently, you might have seen it, they’ve had a Carlos Leder Riva. Okay. [13:27] Carlos, can you say that over again? It just zeroed out to say that over again. After you said Carlos Leder. Leder Rivas. Yeah. Now, whatever you said after that, say that over again. [13:45] Carlos Lerder Rivas recently has done some interviews on the drug trade. He did a lot of time in the States over the Norman’s Key transporting point where all the coke would go there. And then, like I told you before, they fly it into the Bahamas and then over into the States. He recently has been on saying how he was personally involved with Raul Castro. I have no doubt about that. I knew him personally. i flew a couple times into that island where it was transported out so i know what he was told the reason i also know that is everybody has this pablo escobar myth in their head he was neither the boss and he was neither the money man the money people were the ochoas the military his might and his force did not come from him and his mouth that he could do this and that it comes from rodriguez gacha who had a 2 000 man private army and he was one of the members of the cartel and they never tell you who started it all and it was carlos letter rivas he was the one that started the cartel he’s the one that wanted to be on in the colombian parliament and was looking for votes escobar is he was a he was a late comer into all that stuff the only reason they put him out there that I can understand is because they just wanted to figure out that they could knock the hell out of later on. [15:09] Okay? Because when he started fighting against Los Pepes, which was that organization that got together to try to kill Pablo, Pablo reversed it on those guys. He got rid of almost all of them, but it wasn’t him. It was Rodriguez. [15:24] Rodriguez gotcha. He’s the one. And he was involved in the Emerald business before he got into the coke business. He was the guy, let me tell you what, when Pablo was around, and I only saw that once, when Pablo was around Gacha, okay, this was down in La Guajira, in the high desert in Colombia. When he was around Gacha, you could tell that he was subordinate. He was scared. He was like, damn, if I mess up with this guy, he’ll take my head off. [15:53] So people really have the whole story, Pablo, Pablo, my, you know what, Pablo, my ass. There’s a lot of people who you had to have money to do those things yeah and in those days they were strong enough because of the ochoas well they could gather big loads a thousand two thousand keys and put it all together but as time went on chronologically that shit changed okay i can remember once getting a load where it had it damn you they labeled it they labeled everyone One had one name, one had the other So what they were doing at that time Was it got so tough on them Because of Pablo’s big mouth And because of his, I’m going to take over Blowing up a plane Doing a few other attacking parliament All those things You couldn’t put those loads together To me there’s no cartels anymore To me they’re government Narco systems You. [16:55] The Mexican government is definitely involved with the cartels. And as you saw, we went after a cartel in Venezuela, but the head of the cartel was the Venezuelan government. So what they are is narco states now. And you know how hard it is to attack or to deal with a narco state? Now you’re dealing with a government entity that has a lot of power. It’s a completely different ballgame. And Venezuela themselves, including Cuba, had a diplomatic immunity flying into different countries with the drugs. And they could put a load of cocaine on and fly into Spain, and they had no problem with it. And they were doing those kind of things, I would say, recently, like within the last 10 or 15 years. Maybe even since Maduro has been there, which is about 20 years, that they’ve been doing that. Really, the United States can get information on anything they want. They had this information but couldn’t do anything about it. [17:57] So chronologically, everything changes. Back in the beginning, let me tell you, the first time I made a little money was hauling some marijuana with old Touch Brown from the Everglades. And I worked like a Hebrew slave for four days in the swamp hauling bails from marijuana and into the into the everglades and then over into miami and it was completely different game and you know what they didn’t cheat me for one penny they didn’t cheat me for one penny and how much came in 40 tons on one of the boats yeah it was 80 000 pounds on a freighter and we worked like little like slaves and they paid me like two weeks later, they paid me $2. I’ll tell you that story in a minute. You asked me a while ago how I got started. Should I answer that, or you got another question you want for me? No, go ahead. How’d you get started in that? You started out as a grunt, as we say in the military. You started out as a low-end worker, a guy that transports bales. What did you do? You started saving your money up, and you knew where the connections were, and finally you You bought your own load and just kept getting bigger and bigger. [19:11] In a sense, yeah, it wasn’t drastic. When I came in, here’s the story. I’m in Texas. My mom calls me up and tells me I have an uncle who’s in Texas. He wants to see me. I get together with him, and he’s driving a brand-new Cadillac. This is a guy who, two and two to him is 22. I know he’s my uncle, but he’s a dumb son of a bitch. [19:35] He’s telling me that he’s got a, you know what a roach coach is? Yeah. with those construction things with food. He tells me he has a red smoke in Miami and that he bought a house, got a house, he’s doing really good. And I looked at him and I said, bro, you’re the one that’s crushed. You’re the wetback. I came on a plane a long time ago. He’s telling me stories. What’s going on here? So anyway, he tells me and I say to him, get me a job. I was working as a carpenter in Houston. Straight out of college, I’m banging nails. I said, God damn, I’m banging nails. but I got an education here. What’s going on? So anyway, I loaded up in Houston. I head and I end up in Coconut Grove working for one of the bosses. My job was $500 a week and I had to go and sleep on his yacht about 7 p.m. And by 6 in the morning when the workers started coming in, just go. That went on for about four or five months and I finally said, let me make some real money because I saw he was still moving and doing things economically economically moving forward, and I was sleeping on a boat. So he finally gets me an interview with two of the bosses. And this is a building in Miami that was called the DuPont Plaza building. [20:52] And so we go to the meeting, and I’m talking to the two guys. One of them, they called him El Coronel, and the other one, El Colorado. The Colonel and Red. They were the ones that were handling it. And this was, by the way, this was marijuana, coming from Colombia at that time. So we go in there, and he tells me, no problem. I’ll pay you $2 a pound. Now, understand that at that time, at that point in time, my mind is in Jersey and New York. And if you’re moving 20 pounds from one place to the other, it’s a lot. You’re not dealing with loads at that time. We’re talking, what, 1977 in New York? And I looked at him, I said, you’re fucking crazy. You think I’m going to risk my ass for $2 a pound? Even if it’s 300 pounds, that’s $600. Are you fucking nuts? [21:45] My uncle grabbed me by the shirt, stood me up and said, excuse me. Walked me outside and said, listen, there’s 40 tons coming in. You want the job or not? I went back in. I apologized to you guys. I said, no problem. I will go to work. From that point on, there wasn’t, that’s just, was right about at the end of the big freighters. And so now my uncle invites me to go to Bimini because he had a friend there and they were going to do some job. I don’t know. When we go, I end up running into a younger guy, Bahamian, and I became partners with him. We call him Dreamer. And I said, look, if you can set things up over here and gather up whatever materials you can gather up, I’ll come and get it and we’ll be partners. At that time, a lot of freighters and a lot of boats were being chased by the Coast Guard and what they would do is they would drop, they would dump it overboard. Oh yeah. Ergo the, what they call it, the square grouper. [22:44] Yeah, I’ve heard that before. Bales were floating everywhere. You could go out. So what he would do is he would go on a boat, find bales that were floating. He would call me up, and he would tell me, hey, I salvaged a 300-horsepower engine. Come and get it. I knew what the weight was, so I knew what kind of boat I had to take. So I bought an 18-foot formula. I dug out the hole in the bottom. I made a secret hole. What the what cubans call a clavo a clavo which is you’re hiding it underboard he called me up one day tells me there’s three he can get 300 pounds i left at eight in the morning was back in miami by 11 30 left at about 12 30 went back and picked up another load so in that first job we ended up making a couple hundred thousand dollars from there we bought a bigger boat, Now he started patrolling, All the area where the boats were coming in Because everything flows from the Gulf Down in this area, flows north The Gulf Stream goes north So everything’s going to float this way somehow. [23:54] We did that for probably a year Until one time, I was over there. We were going fishing, and we ran into a duffel bag. The duffel bag had 65 kilos in it that was just floating. At that time, it cost probably around $40,000 a kilo in Miami, let alone New York. We didn’t bother to take it up north. Sold it all in Miami. I used to say to myself, where in the hell does all this cash come from? Because they would pay. We made a lot of money that time. And then we had seen… Carlos, let me interject here. No, no. [24:38] You were making hundreds of thousands of dollars just by picking up cocaine and marijuana that had been thrown off other boats. So you didn’t even have to go buy it, really. You guys were just picking it up, the square groupers, and then putting it together and then bringing it to money. That’s crazy. You are an entrepreneur. You’re a guy that sees an opportunity and seizes it. Tell you what. And that’s exactly how it went, Gary. When we made that big chunk of money, we had seen how things were going because we knew that planes were coming in and landing. And they had whatever it is that they were hauling, either coke or marijuana. So with that amount of money, we bought a plane and I decided to become a pilot. I said, hell, we’re going to cut this down. I’ll fly. We’ll save money that way. And now we can talk to the people down in Jamaica or Columbia and say, hey, we’re coming together. We’re taking a responsibility. We’re not going to middle it. We’re not going to find it. We’re going to do the job. And it took off from there. [25:43] Took off real good from there. Eventually, I see that you are going to build in to have a legitimate life, become a horse breeder and a ranch owner and rub elbows with all the kind of the muckety mucks, if you will, down there in Florida. So tell us about that transition and how did your life change during that time? [26:04] I had a family. I had four kids by then. And I knew that I was in a business where the chances were threefold. I either score or I die or I go to jail. And I didn’t like any of those odds at that time. I was like, you know what? I’ve made enough money. I got a small little ranch out here. I don’t need to do anything. And I decided that was it. I don’t need to be doing this anymore. I’m set. And I’m the kind of person, I’m set with what I mathematically calculate. I’m not like I need almost $20 million. I calculated it to where I knew I could be comfortable. And talking about the mucks and the big famous guys, I had lunch with Sam Walton one time. How did you do that? [26:59] I was at his, his daughter, Nancy Walton, Laurie was heavily into the horse. And by that time I was into horses also. So we used to, I used to show them all over the country and we were in, in Illinois at a horse show. And the setup that his daughter used to put out there was unbelievable. It was like, whew, she really put out a spread. And he happened to be there one time. And it wasn’t like I went and had lunch with him, but a few people sat around, ate a couple of grilled burgers. And that’s my story of Sam Wolfe, the richest man in the world at that time. And look who he’s having lunch with. how really i’ve noticed going to horse races that a lot of the support staff are all hispanic i think because hispanic people know how to deal with horses have an affinity affinity for horses, you’re absolutely right the barn work even me and who as far as the horses went i was a nobody i just had my own little stretch even my workers were mexican they just are good at it they’re very good at that. Interesting. They understand country life, too. Yeah. [28:10] So, what happened? You’re like, you’re going straight. You haven’t really done any time. Surely DEA, I know enough about them that they keep files, and they may not do anything about you now, but they know a lot about you, and they don’t forget. So, what happened here? You can’t feed the government. It’s an entity, not an individual. You know, one guy prosecutes you and he retires. That doesn’t mean your case is over. He hands it over to somebody else and it goes on and on. They didn’t get, I didn’t get caught doing anything. I had too many ways to outmaneuver them and not because I was smarter than anybody else. It’s because I had contact. I had a contact, like I told you, at the Miami Tower where I would call him and say, hey, I need to know where this was. He would call me back and let me know exactly when I could cross. [29:06] So it was a matter of, in my case, I didn’t play Russian roulette. I tried to put things on more of the positive end of it on my side but i’m so they arrested me for money because they thought i had too much first the irs came in and they started checking out the next thing i know is i’m being visited by by the fbi but it was alphabet soup when they showed up at their hotel yeah not the farm i was like what the hell are these guys doing here anyway they grabbed me took me in and i’ll give you a funny story and you used to be a policeman yes all They pick me up, and I say to the guy, the old James Cagney state, I’ll be home before you tonight. Yeah, I’ll be home. You’ll be still writing your report when I’m back home. You’ll still be filling out the paperwork, but I’ll be sitting at home. [29:58] So I played that act. And actually, I did get home pretty quick. I was able to call my lawyer. He actually called up the mayor of Fort Myers. His name was Wilbur Smith. And he was a lawyer also. And Wilbur is the one that got me. It happened to have been on a Friday, which meant if they didn’t work something out, I was going to sit my ass in the jail until Monday. When the judge comes up. But Wilbur got me out of it. Wait a minute. Wait till the dogs get, okay. Can you start that with Wilbur? Wilbur got me out of that when the dogs quit. Let’s see. [30:38] Anyway, Wilbur gets me out of it. I’m walking down the hall with Wilbur to go see the judge real quick. And he says to me, he goes, do you do drugs? Do you have any drugs on you? And I’m like, oh, Jesus. I don’t know. I smoke weed, but I don’t touch anything else. I never have. And he goes, so, okay, we’re okay with that. And in my pocket. I had a joint in my pocket. I pull it out and I go, here. Oh, Jesus Christ, put that back. Oh, Wilbur. Oh, Wilbur’s shit when he saw that. But anyway, I was home. I was home that night. Now, here’s another funny story. I had a, along with this story, I had a maid at the house at the farm. And she was Brazilian. And she was not a resident or anything. That girl took, when they came, went to pick me up. And they took me into, it was a U.S. Marshall. She took off running into the woods. and I’m talking deep Florida woods and when I got back home about an hour later she ends up showing up and I said what are you doing why did you take off like that I was scared they were going to deport me, if you were scared what do you think I was. [31:46] And when they showed up that one time when they showed up you could have sworn that they were picking up Pablo Escobar it was alphabet soup long guns long freaking guns not just People holding their little long guns. Yeah. And I’m like, all this for me? Really? And you know what it is? It’s not long before that happened. They had called me in to do a polygraph. [32:14] The FBI did. I had no problem because they were trying to associate me with the head of the Indian cartel in America, the guy that handled everything, including the money. You might have, did you see Cocaine Cowboys Kings of Miami? Yeah, I did. Okay. The one guy, George Valdez, that was pretty much testifying against the other guys that he said he helped. Like how can you you’re snitching right in front of everybody bro anyway he i had a farm next to his, and the next thing i know because i guess they tried to associate me with him i had nothing to do with him next thing i know the fbi is calling me out they do a polygraph even my lawyer said don’t do the polygraph it’s not mandatory said i got nothing to hide now they told me they were going to ask me about horses they ended up asking me everything except horses until i finally yeah took those things off my fingers i pulled them off and i said this is done and i left not long after that is when they swatted in i was like jesus god who do they think they’re picking up here i’m just a in in uh in sense i’m still even if they know everything i’m still a grunt, I’m working for you. It’s not like I’m Mr. Put-it-together shit. You call me up, hey, we got a job. You want it? Yes or no? But it was unbelievable. [33:41] I went to jail. I did some time in jail. When I got out, I never once again really, even though I got 100 phone calls about you want to go to work, you want to listen to that, I never really thought about it again. My kids were growing up. The youngest one was six or seven by then. And they had suffered because I was gone. Yeah. And I didn’t like that. That made me feel like shit. [34:10] It just, it got to the point where when I was working, I looked at everything economically. Hey, this is what I’ll be able to have. Once you have what you want, economics is bullshit if that’s what you’re working for, because you already have it. Yeah. And when I got out, my thoughts were completely different. My thoughts were that the money is not going to solve any issues I may have. Physically, maybe. Mentally, no. mentally, I’ve got to learn how to deal with a little bit of reality here and figure out who is affected by my actions. And the people that were affected by my actions were people that were close to me. And I didn’t enjoy that. I didn’t enjoy that at all. It made me double take. It made me go inside and do a lot of things. [35:04] So from that point on, I really didn’t know what to do. And so I have a friend who is a big-time producer in Hollywood. We grew up together in Jersey, who told me, wow, you’ve got a lot of stories. You should start writing. I never thought about writing. So I started putting down ideas. I wrote a book. I wrote a bunch of political essays on what was going on in Cuba. See, I grew up in a revolutionary family. My father was in intelligence, and my uncle trained the troops that were going to go to the Bay of Pigs, among other incursions into Cuba. So I came over, I’m six years old. I’m a Peter Pan kid. I don’t know if you know what that is. Now, what is that? You’ve mentioned that before. What is that? Tell the guys. Peter Pan is, it’s not a good translation because it has nothing to do with Peter Pan. In Spanish, it’s Pedro Pan and had to do with a little kid eating some bread or whatever. But in 1960, the Catholic Church got together and decided to send the children out of Cuba so they wouldn’t suffer the wraths of the revolution. In essence, 14,000 kids were put on planes and sent into the States. I was one of them. Wow. I ended up in Miami. [36:27] I was one of them, and I was actually one of the lucky ones because I had family in Miami at that time, so I was able to stay with them. My parents were still back in Cuba applying to leave. Back then, they called the freedom flights. So a lot of those kids though they were sent some of them were sent to alaska montana wyoming really they were dispersed all over through families that were willing to help and and keep them until their parents came so i was one of them that grew up because of my father and my uncle the conversation most of the time if not all the time was around cuba and his freedom so the revolution at that time is going really strong in New Jersey. There’s a family in New Jersey by the name, the last name is Cook. [37:17] And they owned a big factory called Cook, Color, and Chemical. They were very wealthy people, but evidently they lost a lot of land or investments in Cuba. So they were willing to help the revolution and the revolutionaries. They had a big farm in this small little town called Hope. And that little town, you had all the Cuban revolutionaries up there getting ready. I’m talking about going into the woods with every kind of equipment you could think of. And they were training to go to Cuba. Now, here I am, six, seven years old. And I’m running around the woods with these maniacs. They would dress me in camouflage and tell me I was the next generation of Cuban revolutionaries. And I’m like, what the fuck is this guy talking? I didn’t. I was having a good time with all these guys. [38:06] And it ended up being that the new york times caught wind that there were these crazy cubans. [38:12] In the woods in jersey and they had to move their operations down to florida but about what happened in jersey in jersey the mafia at that time they were all involved with the kennedy and the prior to the assassination and everything that was going on they thought that the cubans did it they thought to the mafia. They didn’t know who did it. But there was a get-together one time. I was probably about seven or eight years old, and it was a dove shoot where they had a thousand doves, and they would all line them up and let some of them go, and then they would do a big dove fricassee. But that meeting, I just remember the names because I was being introduced, the son of, and this is Mr. Spud. The names never left me. One of them was Santos Traficante, who was the head of the mafia in in in tampa the other one was fat tony salerno who was the head of the mafia in new york there was my mom’s cousin who was an fbi uh agent and a bunch of other guys that looked exactly like him they dressed exactly like him well i could pick you out of a barrel boy and a lot of these other i grew up in the jersey new york area so i know what tough guys act especially of the Italian guys. So there was a bunch of them walking around like they could take on the world. And this is part of my life. I’m a young person doing it. I really don’t know what’s going on, but I’m picking up on all this stuff. [39:40] They moved to Florida. I’m away from all that stuff for a while. But my parents regularly go to Florida for a visit, for vacation. So every year, I’m running into my uncle and the things that he’s doing, what’s going on. [39:57] And so the life never mentally never leaves me. I’m always, I’m always hearing next year in Havana, we’re going to get them, all this nonsense. So the years go on and on and the situation, you wonder how the smuggling game got started. The smuggling games basically, and I saw a report on this not long ago, some lady reporting on it. You had a lot of educated men that were involved in the revolution that wanted to get their country done. The U.S. government, Secret Service at the ICIA, whoever they may be, cut off the funds when all the bullshit with Cuba was done. You’re not allowed to leave from U.S. soil if we cut you with any arms headed down. And they caught a lot of these Cubans trying to go to Cuba on little boats with all kinds of armament. They didn’t do shit to them. Okay, they just slapped them on the head and don’t do that. But it got to the point where the government was not funding that part of the Cuban Revolution anymore. What do a bunch of college-educated, university-educated men do? [41:06] They’re going to go work at the Fountain Blue? My father worked at the Fountain Blue when he first got to Miami. And there was water fountains that said whites, blacks, and Cubans. He was still trying to drink. It’s like my mother used to tell me. I didn’t know I was white until I got to this country. And now all of a sudden we have white Spanish, white this, white this. It’s ridiculous. So these men were not going to go to work with a little bacon with a little Cuban coffee. They have all these contacts all through Central and South America because of the revolution. So who becomes the primary smugglers? [41:44] Yes, the Cuban revolutionaries. And that’s how smuggling was started in the Caribbean. I’m involved with all these people because of my father and my uncle. My legacy is I can get right in. I don’t have to prove anything to anybody. And that’s how I got to my uncle and him giving me the job with the guy. No, that nonsense. So it’s like the grateful dad said, what a long, strange trip it’s been. It’s been. [42:13] So where are you at now with your life? [42:17] Right now, we’re putting together hopefully a TV show on basically my life, but my life in a novel way, not in a very direct memoir way. And I continue to write. I am married to a wonderful woman who actually led me down this path. I was sitting on my farm doing quite well. My wife at that time had passed away from pancreatic cancer. That’s a death sentence. Yeah, I’ve heard that. [42:52] I didn’t have a will, and everything was in her name because I wanted to protect the family. Yeah. So when she dies, everything’s gone. I’m not knowing which way to turn here. I was 50, 70 years old. I thought I was going to be relaxing and fishing every day, and it didn’t work out that way. I was going downhill like a sled in a snowstorm, boy. I was going to hit eventually. I don’t know what bottom would have been, but I knew there wouldn’t be good. And I ran into a wonderful woman who led me down the road of, we’ve got to write, we’ve got to do this. And she is my manager, and we eventually got married. And sometimes things are tough, but they’re a whole lot better than getting that bottom. Yeah, really. Better than you’re out of jail. You’re not in jail. Not there anymore. What a long, strange trip it’s been for Carlos J.C. Perez. [43:57] I want to know how strange it gets to the point where the DEA comes to me to get information. And I’m like, you guys got to be kidding me. I always knew that when you’re in law enforcement, you depend on information. You go wherever you think the source is, that’s for sure. You think you can get something out of them. Exactly. They ended up being great, by the way. Great guys. Super nice guys. Okay? And if I said any different, I’d be lying. [44:28] But it doesn’t sound like you ever particularly worked for them. You didn’t go back in undercover for them either. No, no, I didn’t do that. Luckily, when I was doing the stuff that I was doing, it wasn’t out. It wasn’t a guns and roses type deal. I don’t ever remember collecting any money or doing anything where I had to have a gun on it. I’ll give you a little tidbit of something that just happened recently. I had to go into a government and reinstate my license or something like that. The lady’s going through it. She comes up with a ticket that I got in 19—now, I’m talking in the year 2000 and probably 14. She comes up with a ticket that I got in 82. It was a ticket. Yeah. The ticket was for $52. Two different tickets, 26 each. Okay. Yeah. You know what that ticket was for? I had come in from the Bahamas in the hull of the boat. I had 800 pounds. The Marine Patrol pulls me over and says, let me see what you got. They go through the whole thing. He finds two lobsters that I had in the live $26 per lobster. I got the ticket. The guy never checked the boat, never did anything. And I got in with 800 pounds, which at that time was like a quarter million bucks. [45:50] Oh my God. Life is funny, man. Life is funny. Life is funny. That’s for sure. All right. Carlos Perez. Now the name of the book and guys, I will, I will have a link in the show notes to it. Remind me of the name of the book, Carlos. Pedro Pan. Pedro Pan, as in Peter Pan. And Ron is bred in Spanish. So there’s something to think about the little magical character, Peter Pan. Not a thing. Not a thing. And it’s a product of a revolution gone bad, which basically is me. I’m an unfortunate product of that. Revolution. You’re back around now. You’re contributing to society. That’s the only thing that’s important in the end. Hey, I have a quick question. Did you ever hear of a book called The Corporation written by a guy named T.J. English? Oh, hell yeah. Read it from cover to cover. As a matter of fact, I know the guy. [46:46] What’s his name? Batista? Was it Jorge Batista? No, Battle. Battle, yeah. As a matter of fact, I know the guys that own the manuscript. Okay tj what’s his name what’s his last name tj english english the only thing he did was write the book off of the notes that they had gotten from a guy that i know his name is tony gonzalez tony gonzalez has another partner by the last name of freitas and what they did was they investigated battle over the years and years and and then somehow ran into english because he had written a couple of books on Cuba. And then T.J. English ended up writing that. And by the way, Battle took the New York mafia and put it on its knees. Yeah, I did a story on the book. And that’s true. He had to get permission. Actually, he had to get permission from back in the 60s from Fat Tony Salerno, and they couldn’t get an approval until Traficante stepped in and said, work with him. And what the hell were they doing then? They were killing each other. They were blowing up their little bolita houses and all that. Oh, that was crazy. But you know what? He was never any kind of a Cuban mafia boss. [48:05] He liked to fight chickens and play the numbers. The Cubans don’t really have a mafia per se. They’re too splintered. And in the mafia, you’ve got to go ask permission to do this and that. These crazy guys, they don’t ask anybody permission for anything. [48:19] Interesting that’s a that’s an interesting world that’s a whole different world that cuban, You’ve got the revolution on one side, the Castro revolution, and then you’ve got the anti-revolution against Castro that’s been going on all these years. And in the middle of it, you’ve got some of these people that were kicked out of Cuba that can’t get jobs and they only want you to work as a waiter or something. And so you go into business and the best business going with your connections is the drug business. And so it’s just a really interesting millage, if you will, or mix of people and situations down in the southwest part or southeast part of the United States. Oh, yeah, you’re right. It is a millage of like, how does this work? [49:04] There’s no sense to it sometimes. No, that’s for sure. I guess I’m glad they weren’t blowing boats out of the water. They might have got you back then. I can’t tell you what. They wouldn’t have dared because I would have said, I said, why don’t you do that? Oh, you get somebody else to do it. Yeah, probably what would have saved my ass anyway is that I have never, ever been money hungry. My family in Cuba, my great-grandfather was a sugar baron. And I’ve heard all the stories about all the money, but I’ve yet to see a penny. [49:36] I don’t work that way. I grew up with a bunch of humble people. And it wasn’t, damn sure, it wasn’t about money. And when I’m young, I’m not thinking like that. But now at my age, I go, wow, man, if I knew then, what do I know now? Yeah, really. All right, Carlos. Thanks a lot for coming on the show. I really appreciate it. No, no problem, Gary. Thanks for having me on. Okay.

Mediodía informativo en Mañanas Blue: la Fiscalía suspendió las órdenes de captura contra 23 cabecillas del crimen organizado en Medellín en medio de negociaciones de paz, mientras la Defensoría alerta por un preocupante aumento de homicidios en Buenaventura.Además, fuerte despliegue de Fuerza Pública por Semana Santa, escándalo de corrupción en La Guajira, alerta por estafas a usuarios de EPS y tensión internacional por decisiones de Israel y declaraciones de Trump.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

¿Qué haces cuando te arreglas para el evento de tus sueños y en la puerta te dicen que no estás invitada?

En esta emisión del Noticiero de la Mañana de Caracol Radio, el equipo informativo repasa los principales hechos del país y del mundo. Se destaca el nuevo mapa territorial de operación de las EPS tras el decreto de traslados masivos de más de tres millones de usuarios, con cambios clave en ciudades como Bogotá y municipios pequeños donde quedaría operando principalmente la Nueva EPS.En economía, Ecopetrol reporta una fuerte caída de utilidades en 2025, atribuida al bajo precio del petróleo y a la debilidad del dólar, y se advierte que la guerra arancelaria entre Ecuador y Colombia podría afectar cerca de 200 mil empleos en la zona fronteriza. En regiones, gremios del Cauca alertan por ataques y secuestros que ponen en riesgo el servicio eléctrico en decenas de municipios, mientras continúan las emergencias por lluvias en Caldas con afectaciones a familias y viviendas.En el contexto electoral, el registrador Hernán Penagos responde al presidente Gustavo Petro y asegura que el mayor riesgo de fraude está en la compra de votos en las calles; la UNP reitera la prohibición a escoltas de participar en política tras el caso del dinero hallado en La Guajira, y varias autoridades refuerzan la seguridad y ajustan la logística ante alertas por presencia de grupos armados y aumento del censo en ciudades como Cúcuta. También se reporta el avance de investigaciones por presuntas presiones políticas en el Hospital de Neiva y el debate en la Corte Suprema sobre congresistas investigados por el caso UNGRD.A nivel internacional, crece la tensión en Medio Oriente con nuevos ataques y repercusiones diplomáticas en Europa; además, se reportan hechos de seguridad en el país como la legalización de captura por el asesinato de dos menores en Malambo, casos de orden público y advertencias por estafas digitales en pagos de servicios. En cultura y entretenimiento, se reseña el cumpleaños del cantante Diango y el estreno de una nueva colaboración musical de Shakira, mientras en deportes se sigue la actualidad de torneos internacionales y partidos claves.

Avanza la investigación por el hallazgo de dinero y material electoral en poder de un escolta vinculado al secretario de la Cámara en La Guajira. El Gobierno refuerza la seguridad tras el ataque a militares en Caquetá y el Pacto Histórico pide auditoría independiente al software electoral.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hacer click aquí para enviar sus comentarios a este cuento.Juan David Betancur Fernandezelnarradororal@gmail.comHabia una vez en la Guajira colombiana un hombre llamado Francisco Moscote Guerra. Este hombre recorria los aridos y caminos de La Guajira con su acordeon. Por toda la región era  conocido por todos simplemente como Francisco el Hombre. En aquella época no existía la radio, así que Francisco viajaba de pueblo en pueblo montado en su fiel burro, llevando las noticias, los chismes y los recados de la región, todo cantado al ritmo de su inseparable acordeón.Cuenta la historia que, después de una parranda de varios días en el pequeño pueblo de Machobayo, Francisco emprendió el largo camino de regreso a su natal Riohacha. Era una de esas madrugadas cerradas, sin una sola estrella en el cielo. El silencio de la sabana guajira era profundo, roto únicamente por el rítmico trotar del burro y el sonido de los cascos contra la tierra seca y agrietada.Para espantar el sueño, el frío de la madrugada y la soledad del camino, Francisco sacó su acordeón de la funda, lo abrió sobre su pecho y comenzó a tocar una melodía al viento.De repente, ocurrió algo imposible. Las notas de su acordeón fueron respondidas. Desde la oscuridad del desierto, a lo lejos, otro acordeón repitió su misma melodía, pero con una maestría, una fuerza y una rapidez que Francisco jamás había escuchado en su vida.Y eso en el mundo de los acordeoneros era un insulto. Nadie podía tocar mejor que el..Intrigado y con el orgullo de juglar herido, Francisco apretó el paso y tocó una puya (uno de los ritmos más rápidos y difíciles del vallenato) mucho más compleja. De repente, la luna se tiñó de un rojo cobrizo. El viento se detuvo en seco. Desde el horizonte, donde la oscuridad era absoluta, llegó la respuesta a la melodía de Francisco. Pero no eran notas normales; eran ondas de sonido violeta que rasgaban el aire, marchitando al instante las flores a su paso el músico invisible no solo igualó su destreza, sino que la superó con notas que parecían imposibles para manos humanas. Para Francisco eso ya era un insulto mayor. De la nada, un remolino de arena negra y brasas ardientes se formó en medio del camino. Al disiparse, reveló a un jinete montado en una mula del tamaño de un toro, con los ojos inyectados en sangre. El jinete sostenía un acordeón que parecía forjado en las profundidades de la tierra: su fuelle estaba hecho de piel de serpiente negra y sus botones eran pequeños cráneos de hueso pulido que rechinaban al ser presionados. El viento dejó de soplar, el aire se volvió pesado y un penetrante olor a azufre inundó el camino. El burro de Francisco se clavó en la tierra, temblando de terror. Cuando el retador finalmente se dejó ver bajo una luz extraña, a Francisco se le heló la sangre. El hombre que tocaba frente a él tenía una sonrisa burlona y unos ojos que brillaban en la oscuridad como brasas ardientes.Era el mismo Diablo (Satanás), que había subido a la tierra para arrebatarle a Francisco el título del mejor acordeonero del mundo y, de paso, llevarse su alma al infierno.Comenzó entonces el duelo musical más épico de la historia. Cuando el Diablo tocaba una puya frenética, de su acordeón brotaban chispas de fuego verde y un denso olor a azufre. La tierra temblaba, y de la arena emergían sombras alargadas con forma de garras que intentaban atrapar las patas del burro de Francisco. La temperatura subió tanto que las rocas cercanas comenzaron a derretirse como cera.Francisco, sudando gotas que se evaporaban antes de tocar el suelo, respondió con su propia magia. Sus dedos volaban sobre los botones, tejiendo un escudo de notas azules y blancas. Cada acorde que tocaba el juglar hacía brotar manantial

En la nueva temporada de El Poder de la Música:  Silvestre Dangond, una de las voces más influyentes del vallenato moderno,  llevando la tradición colombiana a nuevas generaciones.Nacido en Urumita, La Guajira, y rodeado de vallenato, Silvestre conserva su estilo fresco sin perder sus raíces, y en medio de su gira “El Último Baile” esta es su historia.

​Mexico is sending two navy ships packed with humanitarian aid to Cuba as the island nation struggles with severe fuel shortages. Also, on Sunday, the Israeli security cabinet agreed on new policies for the occupied West Bank that would make it easier for Jewish settlers to acquire Palestinian land. And, in Colombia's La Guajira region, new programs are helping the Wayuu people reinvigorate their traditional foods. Plus, in Spain, children under 16 might soon see apps like TikTok and Instagram go dark on their screens.  Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

El franco chileno Camilo Castro, de 41 años, pasó casi cinco meses encarcelado en Venezuela. Instalado en Colombia desde hacía años, se trasladó a Paraguachón (La Guajira) en la frontera con Venezuela para renovar su visado en junio de 2025. Y ahí, al cruzar del lado venezolano, se perdió su pista. Dice que fue detenido de forma arbitraria, acusado falsamente de espionaje y terrorismo, incomunicado y torturado hasta su liberación el 15 de noviembre de 2025.

Jairo Aguilar, gobernador de La Guajira, habló sobre los daños estructurales que sufrió el puente y que impide el tráfico vehicular. Además, explicó las consecuencias que ha dejado esta caída en la población y en la economía.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

En esta emisión del 4 de febrero de 2026, el informativo destaca el balance positivo de la reunión entre los presidentes Gustavo Petro y Donald Trump, con énfasis en los temas de narcotráfico, sanciones, cooperación bilateral y la relación entre Colombia, Estados Unidos y Venezuela. El presidente Petro explicó los puntos centrales de la conversación, mientras Trump aseguró una mejora en la relación y anunció futuras acciones conjuntas. También se recogen las reacciones del Pacto Histórico y el ambiente diplomático tras la rueda de prensa en Washington.También incluye un cubrimiento detallado de las fuertes emergencias provocadas por las lluvias en varias regiones del país: inundaciones en Córdoba con evacuaciones obligatorias por el aumento del caudal del río Sinú, daños en el muelle de Playa Blanca en Cartagena por el mar de fondo, derrumbes que mantienen bloqueadas las vías Risaralda–Chocó y la Transversal de Boyacá, y afectaciones a más de veintisiete mil familias en departamentos como Cauca, Antioquia, La Guajira y Nariño. El noticiero ofrece reportes de los organismos de socorro, balance de daños y avances en las operaciones de rescate.En el ámbito político, se destaca la advertencia de Iván Cepeda de competir en primera vuelta si el CNE le impide participar en la consulta del Frente por la Vida, así como nuevas denuncias contra Juan Fernando Petro por presunta financiación ilegal de campaña. Además, se informa sobre amenazas de las disidencias de las FARC a candidatos en el Tolima, medidas por incumplimientos en instituciones educativas de Tibú, y acciones del Gobierno para reforzar la seguridad en ciudades como Cali y Armenia.En noticias internacionales, el programa reporta las tensiones entre Estados Unidos e Irán tras el derribo de un dron, los movimientos diplomáticos de Donald Trump en Medio Oriente, las medidas del gobierno español para regular las redes sociales, los señalamientos de Elon Musk, y la muerte de migrantes en Grecia durante un choque marítimo. También se cubre la manifestación en Venezuela exigiendo una ley de amnistía para presos políticos.El noticiero también cubre deportes, cultura y entretenimiento, incluyendo la suspensión de partidos en El Campín por el mal estado de la cancha, las declaraciones del jugador Juan Manuel Rengifo, y un homenaje musical a Marisol (Pepa Flores) en su cumpleaños. Además, ofrece precios actualizados de alimentos en Corabastos, alertas por el clima, información de movilidad en Bogotá por obras del metro y novedades sobre proyectos de energías limpias en Boyacá.

El franco chileno Camilo Castro, de 41 años, pasó casi cinco meses encarcelado en Venezuela. Instalado en Colombia desde hacía años, se trasladó a Paraguachón (La Guajira) en la frontera con Venezuela para renovar su visado en junio de 2025. Y ahí, al cruzar del lado venezolano, se perdió su pista. Fue detenido de forma arbitraria, acusado falsamente de espionaje y terrorismo, incomunicado y torturado hasta su liberación el 15 de noviembre de 2025. “Un infierno en la Tierra”, así describe su cautiverio en la cárcel del Rodeo 1, en las afueras de la ciudad de Caracas, en el estado Miranda.  Camilo Castro es francés, de origen chileno. Su padre se instaló en Francia huyendo de la dictadura de Augusto Pinochet. Creció en Toulouse, en el sur de Francia, pero su atracción por América Latina lo llevó a vivir en México del 2010 al 2016 y luego a asentarse en Colombia, donde decidió instalar su proyecto de vida como profesor de yoga y con la construcción de una casa. Todo eso se vino abajo ese 26 de junio de 2025; lo que parecía una gestión administrativa simple para renovar el visado se conviertió en el inicio de un calvario que duraría cinco meses, encerrado en la prisión El Rodeo 1, en Venezuela, país en el que nunca había puesto un pie. RFI: ¿Cómo se encuentra emocional y físicamente? Camilo Castro: Físicamente, dejé de luchar y de sobrevivir como lo hacía en la cárcel. Entonces, la verdad, no me estoy cuidando mucho, pero necesito este tiempo de break y de cambio. Tengo que reapropiarme de la práctica de yoga y meditativa y, mentalmente, psicológicamente, me siento muy fuerte y, a la vez, extremadamente sensible todavía. RFI: Fue a la frontera con Venezuela para renovar el visado y lo detuvieron. ¿Cómo fueron esas primeras horas? Camilo Castro: Yo llego a la frontera del lado venezolano. Antes no tenía por qué ir del lado venezolano, pero ese año las autoridades me obligaron a hacerlo. Las autoridades colombianas antes me protegían y me decían que no fuera del lado venezolano para mi propia protección. Este año no, y al minuto que llego del lado venezolano, me agarran mi pasaporte y todas mis pertenencias, luego me las regresan ya sin mi plata, sin las llaves de mi moto. RFI: ¿Le roban? Camilo Castro: Me roban y ahí empieza el secuestro. Me dejan ahí todo el día y luego paso mi primera noche en otro lugar, en Maracaibo, en un sótano, en un lugar terrible, donde habían torturado a mucha gente, y empieza un interrogatorio con un agente de la DGCIM (Dirección General de Contrainteligencia Militar) que, de una, me avisa que me voy a quedar muchos años aquí en Venezuela, que soy un espía, un terrorista, y empieza el maltrato. Pasé cinco días encerrado en un sótano, esposado, encapuchado, donde tengo interrogatorios, donde a cada momento, cuando pregunto la hora, me dicen que son 21:00 y, después de cinco días de maltrato durmiendo en el piso, como le acabo de decir, encapuchado, sin poder bañarme, sin poder ir al baño cuando lo necesitaba, me llevan a mirar el sol un minuto. Fue uno de los momentos más increíbles de mi vida y de ahí me llevan supuestamente al aeropuerto para que regrese a mi casa y, en el momento que me sacan la capucha, estoy frente a una cárcel. RFI: Era la cárcel Rodeo 1, donde estuvo encerrado casi cinco meses. Ha denunciado que sufrió torturas psicológicas y también físicas en el Rodeo. ¿Nos puede explicar de qué manera le torturaban y también qué torturas físicas pudo ver en sus compañeros de celda? Camilo Castro: Para mí una de las cosas más difíciles fue la primera semana porque estaba totalmente aislado, encapuchado, esposado en el piso y en condiciones muy difíciles. Después, en el Rodeo 1, al principio, cuando yo llego, las primeras horas, para mí es una liberación, porque veo luz, porque veo rostros, veo sonrisas y me explican los compañeros que ya están ahí desde hace meses lo que les tardó a ellos entender. Es decir, no te preocupes, estás secuestrado, es un tema político, eso no tiene nada que ver contigo, es un teatro y me explican todo por lo que yo iba a pasar también. Es decir, los falsos procesos judiciales, las humillaciones, el polígrafo, las diferentes torturas… Y entonces llego de alguna forma en un contexto donde me preparan a lo que voy a vivir. RFI: ¿Y qué vivió? Camilo Castro: Todos los movimientos ahí se hacían de noche, tanto los falsos procesos judiciales. Nos llevaban a todos encapuchados, esposados, teníamos que estar en el piso, nos gritaban, nos insultaban, nos amenazaban de tortura, de muerte. Fuimos torturados también afuera en el patio, durante varias horas bajo el sol. La gente se desmayaba. Yo siempre escapé a las más grandes torturas físicas. Obviamente, tuve maltrato físico, pero, comparado con otros, fui, entre comillas, privilegiado. Y también porque, después de una visita consular, después de casi tres meses, yo denuncié muchísimas cosas y eso generó una gran tensión en la cárcel y de ahí nos comunicaron directamente los custodios. Después de esa visita consular, tenemos ahora que tratarles a ustedes, los extranjeros, mejor porque si regresan las embajadas y que ustedes se quejan otra vez, eso no nos conviene a nosotros. RFI: Hay un caso que le impactó especialmente, que fue el de un compañero de celda llamado Juan Farias. ¿Es duro? Camilo Castro: Sí, es muy duro. Hay momentos que no, pero hay veces que sí. Juan Farias fue mi bienvenida al Rodeo 1. Ya me hablaban de él antes de conocerlo. A ciertos compañeros los obligaron a mirar cómo Juan Farias era entubado, es decir, la tortura que él vivió [NDLR: Introducción de tubos por nariz, boca o recto para forzar alimentación o castigar, causando vómitos, hemorragias y trauma psicológico]. Me hablan de Juan también como de una persona muy inteligente, muy sabia, llena de espiritualidad, de una gran cordura. Este sistema lo destruyó. Luego tenían miedo de él y lo llamaban Juan Loco. Pasó de ser una persona increíble a una persona destruida. Y así es como lo recibo. Después de sus tres días de tortura de intubación. RFI: Usted ha denunciado también que sufrió agresiones sexuales por parte de agentes de la Dirección General de Contrainteligencia Militar.   Camilo Castro: Durante el traslado de Maracaibo al sótano de la DGCIM, estoy encapuchado y esposado. Fueron varias intimidaciones y me drogaron antes de entrar en ese coche, imagino que con escopolamina. Y el agente militarizado que estaba a mi izquierda era una mujer. Pasó un par de horas tocándome, tocando mi cuerpo, empujando y apoyándose sobre mis genitales, diciéndome cosas obscenas en la oreja, jugando con mis labios y al mismo tiempo manipulándome con mucha violencia.  RFI: ¿Cuál fue el momento más difícil de esos casi cinco meses?  Camilo Castro: Uno de los momentos más difíciles fue la supuesta llamada con mi familia, que se hizo muy tarde en Venezuela, es decir, en Francia. Eran las tres o cuatro de la madrugada. Insistí en no hacer esa llamada en ese momento y se burlaron de mí y de mi familia. Y efectivamente, ese día es el único día que mi familia había apagado su teléfono para descansar. Fue una bendición, en el sentido de que pude mandar un mensaje y que tuve la suerte de que les dio las ganas de mandarlo. De eso me enteré mucho después de mi liberación. Pero cuando salgo de ese intento de llamada, que fue para mí la única oportunidad de comunicar con el mundo exterior y de decir que estoy vivo, no lo puedo hacer directamente y regreso totalmente destruido a mi celda, llorando y pidiendo a Dios que ayude a América Latina. ¿Por qué tanto sufrimiento?  RFI: ¿Qué sabe de su liberación? ¿Qué transacciones se hicieron?  Camilo Castro: El mismo director de la cárcel, que también torturaba y que le daba gusto hacerlo, nos avisó y nos dijo: ‘Ustedes no se preocupen. Ustedes van a salir de aquí. Son nada más que monedas de cambio. Alguien que estuvo trabajando sobre mi caso me confesó que, efectivamente, Venezuela, su gobierno, esa dictadura, seguía con esa política de los rehenes porque le sacaban un provecho. Es decir, estamos ante unos criminales que sacan un provecho, ya sea político, económico u otro, con los rehenes extranjeros.  RFI: El 3 de enero Estados Unidos capturó a Nicolás Maduro. Desde entonces, la presidenta encargada, Delcy Rodríguez, está anunciando muchas medidas, presionada por Washington, que tutela en realidad el país. Entre estas medidas está la liberación de decenas de presos políticos y también la amnistía. ¿Qué opinión le merecen estas medidas? Camilo Castro: Bueno, estamos frente a gente que desde decenas de años trata de salvarse y de pintar una imagen de ellos como bonita y cool. Pero sabemos que son gente cuya base de su discurso es la mentira y la manipulación. Hoy en día intentan salvarse. Vendieron a su amigo a Maduro, ahora intentan salvarse y sabemos que esa amnistía puede ser muy peligrosa en el sentido de que, si no hay una liberación de todos los presos políticos y de toda la gente que fue perseguida políticamente o víctima de detención arbitraria, no es una verdadera amnistía. El temor es que intenten salvarse y que usen eso como pretexto para una amnesia de crímenes de lesa humanidad y violación de derechos humanos. Para que haya un proceso de reconciliación y de paz en Venezuela, es importante que se reconozca a las víctimas y que haya reparación. Que se reconozcan los crímenes y que se confronte a los responsables. RFI: Está trabajando con otros exprisioneros y la ONU para documentar esos crímenes. ¿Qué están haciendo exactamente? Camilo Castro: No es un trabajo fácil porque pasar tres, cinco o siete horas explicando con detalles las diferentes torturas y todo el proceso de injusticia, los falsos procesos judiciales, el teatro de esos procesos judiciales no es fácil en sí. Para muchos es muy difícil psicológicamente y es un trabajo largo. La dificultad es el reconocimiento para nosotros como víctimas de todas estas instituciones. Hasta el día de hoy no nos firman y no nos dan certificados que confirmen que fuimos víctimas de detención arbitraria y no solo de detención. RFI: ¿Es el caso del Estado francés? ¿Considera que no recibe el apoyo necesario? ¿No le reconocen el estatuto de víctima? Camilo Castro: Hasta el día de hoy no tengo respuesta. De forma oficiosa, me dicen que recibieron los correos. Hemos escrito una carta directamente al presidente, Emmanuel Macron, firmada por decenas de exprisioneros y familiares, entre las que está Ingrid Betancourt |NDLR: Secuestrada por las FARC entre 2002 y 2008]. Pero hasta ahora no hemos recibido respuesta. RFI: Usted había hecho su vida en Colombia. ¿Planea volver? ¿Puede volver? Camilo Castro: Ahora no puedo volver. Estoy en peligro. En la zona donde vivo, a mis amigos les sacaron plata. Mucha plata. Estoy a dos horas de la frontera y sabemos que hay una comunicación y una colaboración entre las autoridades colombianas y venezolanas corruptas con los grupos paramilitares que hay en Colombia. Sería muy peligroso para mí regresar hoy en día a Colombia, pero obviamente estoy lleno de esperanza. Nosotros, como latinoamericanos, tenemos que tener esperanza. Es nuestra gran fe: que haya un cambio en todos los países latinoamericanos. Espero poder regresar a Colombia y, obviamente, espero conocer Venezuela.

El franco chileno Camilo Castro, de 41 años, pasó casi cinco meses encarcelado en Venezuela. Instalado en Colombia desde hacía años, se trasladó a Paraguachón (La Guajira) en la frontera con Venezuela para renovar su visado en junio de 2025. Y ahí, al cruzar del lado venezolano, se perdió su pista. Fue detenido de forma arbitraria, acusado falsamente de espionaje y terrorismo, incomunicado y torturado hasta su liberación el 15 de noviembre de 2025. “Un infierno en la Tierra”, así describe su cautiverio en la cárcel del Rodeo 1, en las afueras de la ciudad de Caracas, en el estado Miranda.  Camilo Castro es francés, de origen chileno. Su padre se instaló en Francia huyendo de la dictadura de Augusto Pinochet. Creció en Toulouse, en el sur de Francia, pero su atracción por América Latina lo llevó a vivir en México del 2010 al 2016 y luego a asentarse en Colombia, donde decidió instalar su proyecto de vida como profesor de yoga y con la construcción de una casa. Todo eso se vino abajo ese 26 de junio de 2025; lo que parecía una gestión administrativa simple para renovar el visado se conviertió en el inicio de un calvario que duraría cinco meses, encerrado en la prisión El Rodeo 1, en Venezuela, país en el que nunca había puesto un pie. RFI: ¿Cómo se encuentra emocional y físicamente? Camilo Castro: Físicamente, dejé de luchar y de sobrevivir como lo hacía en la cárcel. Entonces, la verdad, no me estoy cuidando mucho, pero necesito este tiempo de break y de cambio. Tengo que reapropiarme de la práctica de yoga y meditativa y, mentalmente, psicológicamente, me siento muy fuerte y, a la vez, extremadamente sensible todavía. RFI: Fue a la frontera con Venezuela para renovar el visado y lo detuvieron. ¿Cómo fueron esas primeras horas? Camilo Castro: Yo llego a la frontera del lado venezolano. Antes no tenía por qué ir del lado venezolano, pero ese año las autoridades me obligaron a hacerlo. Las autoridades colombianas antes me protegían y me decían que no fuera del lado venezolano para mi propia protección. Este año no, y al minuto que llego del lado venezolano, me agarran mi pasaporte y todas mis pertenencias, luego me las regresan ya sin mi plata, sin las llaves de mi moto. RFI: ¿Le roban? Camilo Castro: Me roban y ahí empieza el secuestro. Me dejan ahí todo el día y luego paso mi primera noche en otro lugar, en Maracaibo, en un sótano, en un lugar terrible, donde habían torturado a mucha gente, y empieza un interrogatorio con un agente de la DGCIM (Dirección General de Contrainteligencia Militar) que, de una, me avisa que me voy a quedar muchos años aquí en Venezuela, que soy un espía, un terrorista, y empieza el maltrato. Pasé cinco días encerrado en un sótano, esposado, encapuchado, donde tengo interrogatorios, donde a cada momento, cuando pregunto la hora, me dicen que son 21:00 y, después de cinco días de maltrato durmiendo en el piso, como le acabo de decir, encapuchado, sin poder bañarme, sin poder ir al baño cuando lo necesitaba, me llevan a mirar el sol un minuto. Fue uno de los momentos más increíbles de mi vida y de ahí me llevan supuestamente al aeropuerto para que regrese a mi casa y, en el momento que me sacan la capucha, estoy frente a una cárcel. RFI: Era la cárcel Rodeo 1, donde estuvo encerrado casi cinco meses. Ha denunciado que sufrió torturas psicológicas y también físicas en el Rodeo. ¿Nos puede explicar de qué manera le torturaban y también qué torturas físicas pudo ver en sus compañeros de celda? Camilo Castro: Para mí una de las cosas más difíciles fue la primera semana porque estaba totalmente aislado, encapuchado, esposado en el piso y en condiciones muy difíciles. Después, en el Rodeo 1, al principio, cuando yo llego, las primeras horas, para mí es una liberación, porque veo luz, porque veo rostros, veo sonrisas y me explican los compañeros que ya están ahí desde hace meses lo que les tardó a ellos entender. Es decir, no te preocupes, estás secuestrado, es un tema político, eso no tiene nada que ver contigo, es un teatro y me explican todo por lo que yo iba a pasar también. Es decir, los falsos procesos judiciales, las humillaciones, el polígrafo, las diferentes torturas… Y entonces llego de alguna forma en un contexto donde me preparan a lo que voy a vivir. RFI: ¿Y qué vivió? Camilo Castro: Todos los movimientos ahí se hacían de noche, tanto los falsos procesos judiciales. Nos llevaban a todos encapuchados, esposados, teníamos que estar en el piso, nos gritaban, nos insultaban, nos amenazaban de tortura, de muerte. Fuimos torturados también afuera en el patio, durante varias horas bajo el sol. La gente se desmayaba. Yo siempre escapé a las más grandes torturas físicas. Obviamente, tuve maltrato físico, pero, comparado con otros, fui, entre comillas, privilegiado. Y también porque, después de una visita consular, después de casi tres meses, yo denuncié muchísimas cosas y eso generó una gran tensión en la cárcel y de ahí nos comunicaron directamente los custodios. Después de esa visita consular, tenemos ahora que tratarles a ustedes, los extranjeros, mejor porque si regresan las embajadas y que ustedes se quejan otra vez, eso no nos conviene a nosotros. RFI: Hay un caso que le impactó especialmente, que fue el de un compañero de celda llamado Juan Farias. ¿Es duro? Camilo Castro: Sí, es muy duro. Hay momentos que no, pero hay veces que sí. Juan Farias fue mi bienvenida al Rodeo 1. Ya me hablaban de él antes de conocerlo. A ciertos compañeros los obligaron a mirar cómo Juan Farias era entubado, es decir, la tortura que él vivió [NDLR: Introducción de tubos por nariz, boca o recto para forzar alimentación o castigar, causando vómitos, hemorragias y trauma psicológico]. Me hablan de Juan también como de una persona muy inteligente, muy sabia, llena de espiritualidad, de una gran cordura. Este sistema lo destruyó. Luego tenían miedo de él y lo llamaban Juan Loco. Pasó de ser una persona increíble a una persona destruida. Y así es como lo recibo. Después de sus tres días de tortura de intubación. RFI: Usted ha denunciado también que sufrió agresiones sexuales por parte de agentes de la Dirección General de Contrainteligencia Militar.   Camilo Castro: Durante el traslado de Maracaibo al sótano de la DGCIM, estoy encapuchado y esposado. Fueron varias intimidaciones y me drogaron antes de entrar en ese coche, imagino que con escopolamina. Y el agente militarizado que estaba a mi izquierda era una mujer. Pasó un par de horas tocándome, tocando mi cuerpo, empujando y apoyándose sobre mis genitales, diciéndome cosas obscenas en la oreja, jugando con mis labios y al mismo tiempo manipulándome con mucha violencia.  RFI: ¿Cuál fue el momento más difícil de esos casi cinco meses?  Camilo Castro: Uno de los momentos más difíciles fue la supuesta llamada con mi familia, que se hizo muy tarde en Venezuela, es decir, en Francia. Eran las tres o cuatro de la madrugada. Insistí en no hacer esa llamada en ese momento y se burlaron de mí y de mi familia. Y efectivamente, ese día es el único día que mi familia había apagado su teléfono para descansar. Fue una bendición, en el sentido de que pude mandar un mensaje y que tuve la suerte de que les dio las ganas de mandarlo. De eso me enteré mucho después de mi liberación. Pero cuando salgo de ese intento de llamada, que fue para mí la única oportunidad de comunicar con el mundo exterior y de decir que estoy vivo, no lo puedo hacer directamente y regreso totalmente destruido a mi celda, llorando y pidiendo a Dios que ayude a América Latina. ¿Por qué tanto sufrimiento?  RFI: ¿Qué sabe de su liberación? ¿Qué transacciones se hicieron?  Camilo Castro: El mismo director de la cárcel, que también torturaba y que le daba gusto hacerlo, nos avisó y nos dijo: ‘Ustedes no se preocupen. Ustedes van a salir de aquí. Son nada más que monedas de cambio. Alguien que estuvo trabajando sobre mi caso me confesó que, efectivamente, Venezuela, su gobierno, esa dictadura, seguía con esa política de los rehenes porque le sacaban un provecho. Es decir, estamos ante unos criminales que sacan un provecho, ya sea político, económico u otro, con los rehenes extranjeros.  RFI: El 3 de enero Estados Unidos capturó a Nicolás Maduro. Desde entonces, la presidenta encargada, Delcy Rodríguez, está anunciando muchas medidas, presionada por Washington, que tutela en realidad el país. Entre estas medidas está la liberación de decenas de presos políticos y también la amnistía. ¿Qué opinión le merecen estas medidas? Camilo Castro: Bueno, estamos frente a gente que desde decenas de años trata de salvarse y de pintar una imagen de ellos como bonita y cool. Pero sabemos que son gente cuya base de su discurso es la mentira y la manipulación. Hoy en día intentan salvarse. Vendieron a su amigo a Maduro, ahora intentan salvarse y sabemos que esa amnistía puede ser muy peligrosa en el sentido de que, si no hay una liberación de todos los presos políticos y de toda la gente que fue perseguida políticamente o víctima de detención arbitraria, no es una verdadera amnistía. El temor es que intenten salvarse y que usen eso como pretexto para una amnesia de crímenes de lesa humanidad y violación de derechos humanos. Para que haya un proceso de reconciliación y de paz en Venezuela, es importante que se reconozca a las víctimas y que haya reparación. Que se reconozcan los crímenes y que se confronte a los responsables. RFI: Está trabajando con otros exprisioneros y la ONU para documentar esos crímenes. ¿Qué están haciendo exactamente? Camilo Castro: No es un trabajo fácil porque pasar tres, cinco o siete horas explicando con detalles las diferentes torturas y todo el proceso de injusticia, los falsos procesos judiciales, el teatro de esos procesos judiciales no es fácil en sí. Para muchos es muy difícil psicológicamente y es un trabajo largo. La dificultad es el reconocimiento para nosotros como víctimas de todas estas instituciones. Hasta el día de hoy no nos firman y no nos dan certificados que confirmen que fuimos víctimas de detención arbitraria y no solo de detención. RFI: ¿Es el caso del Estado francés? ¿Considera que no recibe el apoyo necesario? ¿No le reconocen el estatuto de víctima? Camilo Castro: Hasta el día de hoy no tengo respuesta. De forma oficiosa, me dicen que recibieron los correos. Hemos escrito una carta directamente al presidente, Emmanuel Macron, firmada por decenas de exprisioneros y familiares, entre las que está Ingrid Betancourt |NDLR: Secuestrada por las FARC entre 2002 y 2008]. Pero hasta ahora no hemos recibido respuesta. RFI: Usted había hecho su vida en Colombia. ¿Planea volver? ¿Puede volver? Camilo Castro: Ahora no puedo volver. Estoy en peligro. En la zona donde vivo, a mis amigos les sacaron plata. Mucha plata. Estoy a dos horas de la frontera y sabemos que hay una comunicación y una colaboración entre las autoridades colombianas y venezolanas corruptas con los grupos paramilitares que hay en Colombia. Sería muy peligroso para mí regresar hoy en día a Colombia, pero obviamente estoy lleno de esperanza. Nosotros, como latinoamericanos, tenemos que tener esperanza. Es nuestra gran fe: que haya un cambio en todos los países latinoamericanos. Espero poder regresar a Colombia y, obviamente, espero conocer Venezuela.

Larry Laza, gerente interventor del hospital de Maicao, explicó en Mañanas Blu que esta medida surge como una respuesta a una "necesidad sentida del territorio". See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Había manifestado que procedía del municipio de Fonseca, La Guajira, y que su madre residía en Riohacha. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

La Calera sigue bloqueada por protestas que exigen presencia del IGAC. El Consejo de Estado ordena nuevas pruebas en el caso de pérdida de investidura de la senadora Zuleta. La Contraloría imputa más de 22 mil millones por sobrecostos en los carrotanques de La Guajira. Ecopetrol recibe 40 ofertas para la terminal de gas en Coveñas. Autoridades desmantelan bandas de microtráfico en Bogotá y avanzan procesos por homicidio y acoso en Medellín. En Santander piden acciones urgentes por la crisis vial. Ataque ruso deja 25 muertos en Ucrania. El Deportivo Pereira anuncia nuevo propietario.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Resumen informativo con las noticias más destacadas de Colombia del lunes 17 de noviembre de 2025 a las dos de la tarde.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

El presidente de Ecopetrol autorizó activar el proyecto de regasificación en La Guajira (Ballenas), en paralelo con la terminal de Coveñas, para reforzar la seguridad energética del país. Esta iniciativa permitiría aumentar el abastecimiento de gas, fomentar competitividad y potencialmente reducir tarifas para los colombianos.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

¿Sabías que a casi 9000 kilómetros de distancia músicos flamencos y músicos jarochos tocan, quizás sin saberlo, falsetas o variaciones muy similares o incluso idénticas? Esto ocurre cuando se toca a la guitarra la guajira flamenca en España o al requinto el jarabe loco jarocho allá por Veracruz en México. En este episodio escuchamos fragmentos musicales que ilustran algunas de estas similitudes, y se aportan algunas claves para entender el porqué de las mismas. 

Juan Ricardo Ortega, presidente del Grupo Energía Bogotá, propuso un punto de regasificación en Ballenas como alternativa viable para evitar la crisis energética 

Un terremoto de magnitud 6.0 sacudió Afganistán dejando más de 800 muertos y miles de heridos. En Colombia, el país sigue de luto tras el hallazgo del cuerpo de Valeria Afanador, la niña de 10 años desaparecida en Cajicá. Además, reportamos nuevas masacres en Antioquia y La Guajira, ataques contra la Policía en Cauca y Sevilla, capturas en el caso Uribe Turbay y escándalos en el Gobierno Petro. En deportes, Dairo Moreno vuelve a la Selección Colombia después de 9 años.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Alejandro Bustos ha sido el abogado de un grupo de víctimas en La Guajira y recientemente denunció a la excanciller Laura Sarabia, la fiscal general Luz Adriana Camargo y los fiscales delegados ante la Corte Suprema María Cristina Patiño y Gabriel Sandoval Vargas por su presunta participación en escándalo de corrupción relacionado con la Unidad Nacional para la Gestión del Riesgo de Desastres (Ungrd) en la situación judicial de Carlos Ramón González.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

En medio de la intensa ola invernal que se presenta en la costa caribe, el sector bananero logró mantener un desempeño productivo positivo, superando las expectativas iniciales. La producción en los departamentos de La Guajira y el Magdalena reportó un incremento del 15% en el primer semestre del año.

Los empleados y pacientes del hospital de Nazareth reclaman garantías de salud. Hay deudas salariares y nadie responde, según la denuncia.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

La Procuraduría General de la Nación confirmó en segunda instancia las sanciones disciplinarias contra tres exdirectivos de la Unidad Nacional para la Gestión del Riesgo de Desastres (UNGRD), por su responsabilidad en el pago de millonarios sobrecostos en la compra de 40 carrotanques que, serían utilizados para abastecer de agua potable a comunidades en el departamento de La Guajira.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bajo el silencio y la protección de Olmedo López, la cofradía azul en La Guajira sigue moviendo miles de millones de pesos. 

Resumen informativo con las noticias más destacadas de Colombia y el mundo del jueves 17 de julio 11:00am.

Misael Velásquez, gobernador de La Guajira, expresó en 6AM que en el lugar de la detonación “Había una bandera del ELN y las autoridades están verificando si están detrás del hecho”

La Contraloría detectó varias irregularidades en las bases militares de Tolemaida, La Guajira y César.

El empresario Luis Carlos Sarmiento Gutiérrez habló en La W sobre el avance del proyecto Misión La Guajira y la articulación de las empresas que hacen parte de esta iniciativa.

Óscar Sánchez se presenta ante alcaldes en La Guajira como integrante del equipo de Marta Peralta.

You may have heard of Colombia's big cities like Bogotá, but there is so much wonderful culture, food, music and coffee to discover throughout Columbia's 32 departments. Joining Stevie to talk about the beautiful country of Colombia is Ginna Taylor from Broken Boots Travel.Show Notes ⬇️ Published on 2/7/24 Timecodes0:00 - Intro2:56 - Why is Colombia a Special Place for People to Visit?6:42 - An Overview of Bogotá11:15 - Vallenato Music and Seeing the Biggest Vallenato Festival15:21 - La Guajira and Things to do in the Region19:20 - Why Should Someone Add Cartagena to Their Colombian Itinerary?22:44 - Colombia's Coffee Growing Region27:18 - Stay Connected with Broken Boots Travel29:15 - Ginna is a Student of Travel Follow Ginna as She Explores Colombia's 32 DepartmentsFollow Broken Boots Travel onFacebookInstagramYouTube

Today on Speaking Out of Place I am delighted to be in conversation with Azucena Castro and Malcom Ferdinand.  We start with a discussion of what Ferdinand calls the “double fracture”—the environmental division of humans from their connection to the biosphere, and the colonial division instantiated by white supremacism and patriarchy. He insists that we not see these two phenomena as separate, rather as intimately connected. This double fracture makes any attempts to solve either environmental violence or colonial violence ineffective. In her foreword to Ferdinand's Decolonial Ecologies, Angela Y. Davis writes that as she read the book, she “recognized how perfectly his conceptualizations illuminate the frameworks we need for both philosophical and popular understandings of our planetary conditions today.” In our conversation we spend some time talking about how art, film, and poetry can manifest some of those frameworks, and we are delighted have Azucena take us into a deep discussion of this, and also to read two poems in Spanish and then in English translation and have Malcom gloss them for us. Azucena Castro is assistant professor at Rice University in Houston. Currently, she is a Swedish Research Council Postdoctoral Researcher at the Stockholm Resilience Center, Faculty of Science, Stockholm University. She held positions as a Postdoctoral Researcher in Latin American and Caribbean cultures at Stanford University and cultural geography at the Institute of Geography, University of Buenos Aires. Her scholarly work focuses on 20th and 21st-century Latin American cultural products through the lens of climate and energy justice, multispecies resistance, and anti-extractivist critique in the artivist scenes of South America, particularly, Southern Cone and Brazil. Azucena is the author of the book Poetic Postnatures. Ecological Thinking and Politics of Strangeness in Contemporary Latin American Poetry, Series SubAtlantic at De Gruyter (2025). She has edited the volume Futuros multiespecie. Prácticas vinculantes para un planeta en emergencia (Bartlebooth. Critical Spaces, 2023), and co-edited the Essay Cluster “GeoSemantics: Earthly Memories and Inhuman Becomings in the Global South” at ASAP/Journal. As part of her engagement with community-based research and collaborative filmmaking, she has co-developed the energy justice project “No aire, no te vendas” (Penn Environmental Humanities, University of Pennsylvania) focusing on winds in ancient cosmologies and human communities in the Afro-Wayúu territories of La Guajira, Colombia in the intersection of old and green extractivism.Malcom Ferdinand is an environmental engineer from University College London and doctor in political philosophy from Université Paris Diderot. He is now a researcher at the CNRS (IRISSO/University Paris Dauphine). At the crossroad of political philosophy, postcolonial theory and political ecology, his research focuses on the Black Atlantic and particularly the Caribbean. He explores the relations between current ecological crises and the colonial history of modernity. He published a book based on his PhD dissertation entitled Decolonial Ecology: Thinking of Ecology from the Caribbean World.( Polity 2021) that challenges classical environmental thoughts. He recently published  an in-depth study of the pesticide contamination of martinique and Guadeloupe entitled  S'aimer la Terre: défaire  l'habiter colonial ( Seuil 2024).

In this episode on Speaking Out of Place podcast Professor David Palumbo-Liu is delighted and privileged to be in conversation with Azucena Castro and Malcom Ferdinand. They start with a discussion of what Ferdinand calls the “double fracture”—the environmental division of humans from their connection to the biosphere, and the colonial division instantiated by white supremacism and patriarchy. He insists that we not see these two phenomena as separate, rather as intimately connected. This double fracture makes any attempts to solve either environmental violence or colonial violence ineffective. In her foreword to Ferdinand's Decolonial Ecologies, Angela Y. Davis writes that as she read the book, she “recognized how perfectly his conceptualizations illuminate the frameworks we need for both philosophical and popular understandings of our planetary conditions today.” The conversation covers how art, film, and poetry can manifest some of those frameworks, and Azucena takes us into a deep discussion of this and reads two poems in Spanish and then in English translation and has Malcom gloss them for us.Azucena Castro is assistant professor at Rice University in Houston. Currently, she is a Swedish Research Council Postdoctoral Researcher at the Stockholm Resilience Center, Faculty of Science, Stockholm University. She held positions as a Postdoctoral Researcher in Latin American and Caribbean cultures at Stanford University and cultural geography at the Institute of Geography, University of Buenos Aires. Her scholarly work focuses on 20th and 21st-century Latin American cultural products through the lens of climate and energy justice, multispecies resistance, and anti-extractivist critique in the artivist scenes of South America, particularly, Southern Cone and Brazil. Azucena is the author of the book Poetic Postnatures. Ecological Thinking and Politics of Strangeness in Contemporary Latin American Poetry, Series SubAtlantic at De Gruyter (2025). She has edited the volume Futuros multiespecie. Prácticas vinculantes para un planeta en emergencia (Bartlebooth. Critical Spaces, 2023), and co-edited the Essay Cluster “GeoSemantics: Earthly Memories and Inhuman Becomings in the Global South” at ASAP/Journal. As part of her engagement with community-based research and collaborative filmmaking, she has co-developed the energy justice project “No aire, no te vendas” (Penn Environmental Humanities, University of Pennsylvania) focusing on winds in ancient cosmologies and human communities in the Afro-Wayúu territories of La Guajira, Colombia in the intersection of old and green extractivism.Malcom Ferdinand is an environmental engineer from University College London and doctor in political philosophy from Université Paris Diderot. He is now a researcher at the CNRS (IRISSO/University Paris Dauphine). At the crossroad of political philosophy, postcolonial theory and political ecology, his research focuses on the Black Atlantic and particularly the Caribbean. He explores the relations between current ecological crises and the colonial history of modernity. He published a book based on his PhD dissertation entitled Decolonial Ecology: Thinking of Ecology from the Caribbean World.( Polity 2021) that challenges classical environmental thoughts. He recently published an in-depth study of the pesticide contamination of martinique and Guadeloupe entitled S'aimer la Terre: défaire l'habiter colonial ( Seuil 2024).www.palumbo-liu.comhttps://speakingoutofplace.comBluesky @palumboliu.bsky.socialInstagram @speaking_out_of_place

In this episode on Speaking Out of Place podcast Professor David Palumbo-Liu is delighted and privileged to be in conversation with Azucena Castro and Malcom Ferdinand. They start with a discussion of what Ferdinand calls the “double fracture”—the environmental division of humans from their connection to the biosphere, and the colonial division instantiated by white supremacism and patriarchy. He insists that we not see these two phenomena as separate, rather as intimately connected. This double fracture makes any attempts to solve either environmental violence or colonial violence ineffective. In her foreword to Ferdinand's Decolonial Ecologies, Angela Y. Davis writes that as she read the book, she “recognized how perfectly his conceptualizations illuminate the frameworks we need for both philosophical and popular understandings of our planetary conditions today.” The conversation covers how art, film, and poetry can manifest some of those frameworks, and Azucena takes us into a deep discussion of this and reads two poems in Spanish and then in English translation and has Malcom gloss them for us.Azucena Castro is assistant professor at Rice University in Houston. Currently, she is a Swedish Research Council Postdoctoral Researcher at the Stockholm Resilience Center, Faculty of Science, Stockholm University. She held positions as a Postdoctoral Researcher in Latin American and Caribbean cultures at Stanford University and cultural geography at the Institute of Geography, University of Buenos Aires. Her scholarly work focuses on 20th and 21st-century Latin American cultural products through the lens of climate and energy justice, multispecies resistance, and anti-extractivist critique in the artivist scenes of South America, particularly, Southern Cone and Brazil. Azucena is the author of the book Poetic Postnatures. Ecological Thinking and Politics of Strangeness in Contemporary Latin American Poetry, Series SubAtlantic at De Gruyter (2025). She has edited the volume Futuros multiespecie. Prácticas vinculantes para un planeta en emergencia (Bartlebooth. Critical Spaces, 2023), and co-edited the Essay Cluster “GeoSemantics: Earthly Memories and Inhuman Becomings in the Global South” at ASAP/Journal. As part of her engagement with community-based research and collaborative filmmaking, she has co-developed the energy justice project “No aire, no te vendas” (Penn Environmental Humanities, University of Pennsylvania) focusing on winds in ancient cosmologies and human communities in the Afro-Wayúu territories of La Guajira, Colombia in the intersection of old and green extractivism.Malcom Ferdinand is an environmental engineer from University College London and doctor in political philosophy from Université Paris Diderot. He is now a researcher at the CNRS (IRISSO/University Paris Dauphine). At the crossroad of political philosophy, postcolonial theory and political ecology, his research focuses on the Black Atlantic and particularly the Caribbean. He explores the relations between current ecological crises and the colonial history of modernity. He published a book based on his PhD dissertation entitled Decolonial Ecology: Thinking of Ecology from the Caribbean World.( Polity 2021) that challenges classical environmental thoughts. He recently published an in-depth study of the pesticide contamination of martinique and Guadeloupe entitled S'aimer la Terre: défaire l'habiter colonial ( Seuil 2024).www.palumbo-liu.comhttps://speakingoutofplace.comBluesky @palumboliu.bsky.socialInstagram @speaking_out_of_place

In this episode on Speaking Out of Place podcast Professor David Palumbo-Liu is delighted and privileged to be in conversation with Azucena Castro and Malcom Ferdinand. They start with a discussion of what Ferdinand calls the “double fracture”—the environmental division of humans from their connection to the biosphere, and the colonial division instantiated by white supremacism and patriarchy. He insists that we not see these two phenomena as separate, rather as intimately connected. This double fracture makes any attempts to solve either environmental violence or colonial violence ineffective. In her foreword to Ferdinand's Decolonial Ecologies, Angela Y. Davis writes that as she read the book, she “recognized how perfectly his conceptualizations illuminate the frameworks we need for both philosophical and popular understandings of our planetary conditions today.” The conversation covers how art, film, and poetry can manifest some of those frameworks, and Azucena takes us into a deep discussion of this and reads two poems in Spanish and then in English translation and has Malcom gloss them for us.Azucena Castro is assistant professor at Rice University in Houston. Currently, she is a Swedish Research Council Postdoctoral Researcher at the Stockholm Resilience Center, Faculty of Science, Stockholm University. She held positions as a Postdoctoral Researcher in Latin American and Caribbean cultures at Stanford University and cultural geography at the Institute of Geography, University of Buenos Aires. Her scholarly work focuses on 20th and 21st-century Latin American cultural products through the lens of climate and energy justice, multispecies resistance, and anti-extractivist critique in the artivist scenes of South America, particularly, Southern Cone and Brazil. Azucena is the author of the book Poetic Postnatures. Ecological Thinking and Politics of Strangeness in Contemporary Latin American Poetry, Series SubAtlantic at De Gruyter (2025). She has edited the volume Futuros multiespecie. Prácticas vinculantes para un planeta en emergencia (Bartlebooth. Critical Spaces, 2023), and co-edited the Essay Cluster “GeoSemantics: Earthly Memories and Inhuman Becomings in the Global South” at ASAP/Journal. As part of her engagement with community-based research and collaborative filmmaking, she has co-developed the energy justice project “No aire, no te vendas” (Penn Environmental Humanities, University of Pennsylvania) focusing on winds in ancient cosmologies and human communities in the Afro-Wayúu territories of La Guajira, Colombia in the intersection of old and green extractivism.Malcom Ferdinand is an environmental engineer from University College London and doctor in political philosophy from Université Paris Diderot. He is now a researcher at the CNRS (IRISSO/University Paris Dauphine). At the crossroad of political philosophy, postcolonial theory and political ecology, his research focuses on the Black Atlantic and particularly the Caribbean. He explores the relations between current ecological crises and the colonial history of modernity. He published a book based on his PhD dissertation entitled Decolonial Ecology: Thinking of Ecology from the Caribbean World.( Polity 2021) that challenges classical environmental thoughts. He recently published an in-depth study of the pesticide contamination of martinique and Guadeloupe entitled S'aimer la Terre: défaire l'habiter colonial ( Seuil 2024).www.palumbo-liu.comhttps://speakingoutofplace.comBluesky @palumboliu.bsky.socialInstagram @speaking_out_of_place

In this episode on Speaking Out of Place podcast Professor David Palumbo-Liu is delighted and privileged to be in conversation with Azucena Castro and Malcom Ferdinand. They start with a discussion of what Ferdinand calls the “double fracture”—the environmental division of humans from their connection to the biosphere, and the colonial division instantiated by white supremacism and patriarchy. He insists that we not see these two phenomena as separate, rather as intimately connected. This double fracture makes any attempts to solve either environmental violence or colonial violence ineffective. In her foreword to Ferdinand's Decolonial Ecologies, Angela Y. Davis writes that as she read the book, she “recognized how perfectly his conceptualizations illuminate the frameworks we need for both philosophical and popular understandings of our planetary conditions today.” The conversation covers how art, film, and poetry can manifest some of those frameworks, and Azucena takes us into a deep discussion of this and reads two poems in Spanish and then in English translation and has Malcom gloss them for us.Azucena Castro is assistant professor at Rice University in Houston. Currently, she is a Swedish Research Council Postdoctoral Researcher at the Stockholm Resilience Center, Faculty of Science, Stockholm University. She held positions as a Postdoctoral Researcher in Latin American and Caribbean cultures at Stanford University and cultural geography at the Institute of Geography, University of Buenos Aires. Her scholarly work focuses on 20th and 21st-century Latin American cultural products through the lens of climate and energy justice, multispecies resistance, and anti-extractivist critique in the artivist scenes of South America, particularly, Southern Cone and Brazil. Azucena is the author of the book Poetic Postnatures. Ecological Thinking and Politics of Strangeness in Contemporary Latin American Poetry, Series SubAtlantic at De Gruyter (2025). She has edited the volume Futuros multiespecie. Prácticas vinculantes para un planeta en emergencia (Bartlebooth. Critical Spaces, 2023), and co-edited the Essay Cluster “GeoSemantics: Earthly Memories and Inhuman Becomings in the Global South” at ASAP/Journal. As part of her engagement with community-based research and collaborative filmmaking, she has co-developed the energy justice project “No aire, no te vendas” (Penn Environmental Humanities, University of Pennsylvania) focusing on winds in ancient cosmologies and human communities in the Afro-Wayúu territories of La Guajira, Colombia in the intersection of old and green extractivism.Malcom Ferdinand is an environmental engineer from University College London and doctor in political philosophy from Université Paris Diderot. He is now a researcher at the CNRS (IRISSO/University Paris Dauphine). At the crossroad of political philosophy, postcolonial theory and political ecology, his research focuses on the Black Atlantic and particularly the Caribbean. He explores the relations between current ecological crises and the colonial history of modernity. He published a book based on his PhD dissertation entitled Decolonial Ecology: Thinking of Ecology from the Caribbean World.( Polity 2021) that challenges classical environmental thoughts. He recently published an in-depth study of the pesticide contamination of martinique and Guadeloupe entitled S'aimer la Terre: défaire l'habiter colonial ( Seuil 2024).www.palumbo-liu.comhttps://speakingoutofplace.comBluesky @palumboliu.bsky.socialInstagram @speaking_out_of_place