In Your Brother’s Eye

The U.S. government has made the decision to bury the controversial travel warnings with which it periodically sentenced certain countries for their security and public order problems and has established a global travel advisory ranking that classifies all the nations of the world into four categories, considering the internal peculiarities of each of them at a territorial level.

The U.S. travel alerts have become an uncomfortable burden for many governments, due to the negative perception that is generated within the international tourist market. The system change, however, is more coherent and realistic and less harmful, as it puts an end to the harmful generalization that demonized certain countries, which were described as risky, despite the fact there are large areas of their territory that have a low level of insecurity and danger. The new classification differentiates the areas in each country where the threats are visible and specific.

For years, the travel warnings placed Colombia in the spotlight and influenced the restriction of American tourist travel, America providing our second largest flow of travelers from abroad, with more than half a million visits. These now missing warnings were fed not only with acts of terrorist violence, but with other events that are part of our daily life: from traffic law transgressions, to the use of psychotropic substances in rumba places, and altercations with firearms resulting from street disputes. The manual of extensive warnings, disseminated among citizens and accredited diplomatic bodies, caused people to have reservations about traveling and posed a barrier to tourism.

Although the new method reflects some of these concerns, it differs from the previous one in that it no longer stigmatizes an entire country – except where security risks are evident – but it individualizes, with precise information, the level of danger that may arise in different parts of the country. The current ranking establishes four categories: The first invites tourists to take normal precautions in the travel destination; the second suggests taking extreme prevention measures during the visit; the third proposes asking travelers to reconsider the trip; and the fourth categorically recommends that travelers disregard coming.

In its global assessment, the State Department applies category two to Colombia, except for certain regions. The regions of Valle, Córdoba, Cesar, Meta, Casanare, Putumayo, Vaupés, Caquetá, Guainía, Guaviare, Nariño and Vichada are considered potential high risks, typical of the third category, while Norte de Santander, Arauca, Cauca and Chocó are classified in the fourth category in light of potential terrorist events. With the previous system, the warning tacitly extended to all the points of that geographical area, with evident exaggeration of the dangers and a consequent influence on tourism.

Two countries in the region were classified in the same category: Mexico and Brazil, as well as some important allies of the United States, including Spain, France, Germany and the United Kingdom, where the terrorist attacks led by Islamic groups loom like a shadow that stalks the tranquility of residents and tourists. Terrorist actions undertaken by criminal gangs and the ELN, a small, scattered, illegal group with a hierarchical structure that has no command authority but which has enormous capacity to inflict damage, constitute one of the main reasons for which half the country remains classified as high risk travel under the ranking imposed by U.S. authorities. This is a categorical warning for the government to take the bull by the horns and take action in matters of infrastructure and public order in those vast promising areas, in order to close the circle of crime and put an end to the delay of progress and the continued violation of its social fabric.

Anyway, it is curious that the United States, the first world power, where outbreaks of violence from time to time shake the tranquility of their cities and death by firearms are recorded at among the highest rates in the world, is always pointing an accusatory finger at others to prioritize their public security policies, looking at the straw poking someone else’s eye and not the beams shining in theirs, against which they intend to erect a concrete wall.