[CTRL] [3] Death Beat

[Kris Millegan]

 -Caveat Lector-

an excerpt from;
Death Beat
Maria Jimena Duzan©1994
Peter Eisner, translator
HarperCollins
ISBN 0-06-017057-3
282 pps. – first/only edition – out-of-print
--[3]--
9
 ZERO HOUR

All the members of President Barco's cabinet entered the great rectangular
meeting room in the Narino palace at precisely 11:30 on the morning of August
18, 1989, and took their places around the large Guayacan-laminated
conference table reserved for the Council of Ministers. They looked toward
the empty seat at the center of the table, reserved, according to protocol,
for President Barco. Barco arrived promptly and launched into an announcement
in his customary distant yet straightforward manner:

"I want to inform you that a series of quite strong measures are being
studied in response to the critical situation we face in the country today.
And I want to sound out your opinions. I would, therefore, ask that none of
you leave the palace this afternoon because I'm preparing a speech for
television this evening and would like you to read it first."

He then directed one of his aides to start reading the decrees. There was a
nervous silence in the pale green room; the ministers could hear the sound of
each breath they took. The Colombian leaders, whose portraits hung on the
walls, were silent witnesses to this important occasion. This was to be one
of the longest and most difficult meetings in recent Colombian history.
Behind the president there was a portrait of Santander, known as the Man of
Laws and as the conspirator who plotted unsuccessfully to take the life of
Simon Bolivar, the Great Liberator.

Bolivar's portrait did not hang here but had a place of honor elsewhere in
the palace. Facing Santander were paintings of four of the fathers of
Colombian independence: Camilo Torres, Jose Joaquin Camacho, Francisco Jose
de Caldas, and Antonio Villavicencio. On the wall to the right there was a
striking painting by Alejandro Obregon, the well-known Colombian artist.
Entitled The Eagle of Violence, it depicts the destruction of the state under
siege, synthesizing in an eloquent way the brutality that had traumatized the
nation.

Already suspecting that something extraordinary was taking place, the
ministers realized quickly as the decrees were read to them that the measures
Barco was proposing were without precedent. They amounted to a veritable
declaration of war on drug terrorism.

One measure authorized the seizure and detention of anyone who was suspected
of dealing drugs or having committed acts of terrorism and the imprisonment
of such persons incommunicado for up to seven days. Another measure
authorized the seizure of the property of drug suspects, even before they
were found guilty of a crime. Anyone whose name fraudulently appeared as the
owner of any of these properties to hide the true owners would be punished
with a fine and up to ten years in prison.

Barco wanted to pull the rug out from under the drug dealers: to give more
latitude to the security forces to pressure suspects and to obtain
information without having to seek a court order to do so. The idea was to
force them out of the safety of their hidden sanctuaries and draw them into
the open. Barco's staff had scrutinized the decrees carefully, finding them
legally airtight.

But one decree had a specific intent all its own: The government would once
again allow the extradition of drug dealers to the United States. The drug
dealers had fought the resumption of extradition tooth and nail because it
meant they could be tried and probably receive long prison sentences in the
United States.

At least one person at the meeting had known about the decrees before the
meeting began. It was the young lawyer who was the newly appointed minister
of justice, Monica de Greiff. Monica was eighth in the rapid succession of
justice ministers in fourteen months, a turnover worthy of the Guinness Book
of World Records. She was the first woman justice minister in Colombian
history. "They named me because they were running out of justice ministers,"
said number seven, Guillermo Plazas Alcid, with a note of sarcasm. He lasted
only four months in the job.


De Greiff had been summoned prior to the general meeting by aides and given a
copy of the decrees for review. She scarcely had time to read them when the
president came into the antechamber, greeting her in his cold, stoic manner.
>From behind his thick eyeglasses, he turned his gaze on de Greiff and asked,
"Do you think the Supreme Court can rule the extradition decree
unconstitutional in the manner it is presented here?"

"No," she said. "The decree in judicial terms is irrefutable."

The president said nothing. He moved on to another subject, saying that he
had called a full cabinet meeting at 11:30 A.M. to present the decrees. Then
he turned and walked out of the room.

It was a classic game of poker, with only his closest personal advisers in on
his strategy. Extradition was the ace up Barco's sleeve to be drawn at just
the right moment. Only three of the cabinet ministers-Orlando Vazquez
Velasquez, minister of the interior; General Oscar Botero, minister of
defense; and de Greiff-had known about the decrees ahead of time, and they
were informed only hours before.

To avoid any chance that the Supreme Court might overturn his executive
ruling, as it had done before, Barco based the new decree on what seemed to
be an irrefutable principle: the right of the president to issue laws under a
national state of siege-and no one would deny that the nation had been living
under a state of siege for most of the previous forty years.

The decree specifically suspended the article in the regular Colombian penal
code that requires the application of an international treaty with
corresponding countries for extradition to take place. That suspension
allowed extradition to be authorized by executive order, bypassing the
Supreme Court.

It was immediately evident to everyone in the cabinet that if the president's
intention was to revive extradition, the drug cartel would take the decree to
be a direct declaration of war. And it was equally clear that this would be a
war without quarter.

No one spoke about it, but deep down, all the cabinet officers knew that this
session could cost them their lives. There was a feeling in the country at
the time that Colombia was overwhelmed by terrorism and that the government
had lost its ability to cope with the drug trafficker-inspired violence. At
the newspapers, we were writing about a new act of terrorism almost daily. In
a way, what was happening in the cabinet meeting that day was a reflection of
what was felt on the street. We Colombians knew that we had to take some
momentous step-and that such a measure could have dangerous repercussions for
all of us. That step had to be the resumption of extradition to the United
States.

Since July 1988, when Barco had decided to freeze the extradition process,
until this day in August, drug-directed terrorism against the government had
been gradually increasing. Since May, when General Maza Marquez had
miraculously averted an assassination attempt, the violence had moved into
the cities. In Bogota, the battle waged by Rodriguez Gacha to control the
emerald trade had taken to the streets. More than a dozen people had been
killed in July alone. And in a demonstration of the crudeness with which
Rodriguez Gacha ran his private system of justice, among those attacked was
the mayor of the town of Chia, located near Bogota, who was ambushed just
minutes after he publicly denounced Rodriguez Gacha; luckily, he survived the
attack.

I was deeply affected by one attack because I knew the victims well. It took
place at El Dorado Airport in Bogota on March 3, 1989, a Friday, at 6 pm.,
one of the busiest times of the week. A sicario assassin had gotten through
security with a machine gun and emptied his magazine, firing at the leader of
the Patriotic Union, Jose Antequera, a friend who had often come to my house
for dinner and parties. He died on the spot. Such was the ferocity of the
attack that three of the seven bullets that hit Antequera went through his
body and wounded Ernesto Samper, a wellknown, high-ranking official of the
Liberal party, and another close friend of mine, who had the bad luck to have
stopped to talk to Antequera. Samper was seriously injured but survived. In
the midst of the melee, the sicario was gunned down by Samper's bodyguard.
Samper's wife rescued her husband, putting him on a luggage cart and leading
him away. Protecting him with her own body, she took him to the hospital.

These attacks were devastating. We were completely helpless. People were
being killed not only by contract, but simply because they were on the street
at the wrong time. I couldn't tell which was worse. To this day, Samper, who
ran for president in the 1990 Liberal party primaries (and is a leading
contender in 1994 presidential polling), still has four bullets lodged in his
body. People joke that he carries the "heaviest artillery" of any
presidential candidate.

 In Medellin the escalating drug terrorism began to target high-ranking
government officials, as in July 1989 when the governor of Antioquia state
was murdered on his way to the office. A bomb was detonated by remote control
in his car; the force of the explosion was so strong that his body was almost
disintegrated. This assassination caused particular outrage and disgust in
Medellin, where the jovial, democratic-minded governor was universally
respected and loved. Most outrageous of all was the way he died, torn to
shreds, not even leaving a body to inter.

During the months of July and August, there were three assassinations per
week; judges were being picked off like ducks in a row. I was friends with
many of these judges, or a friend of their friends, and we all felt the
nightmare they were living through. All the judges had been involved in
investigating the murders ordered by the cartel and the paramilitary squads.
In most cases, when they got word they were targeted to be killed, they
quickly issued arrest warrants against the drug bosses and then fled the
country.

But the judges who did not flee were killed. On Wednesday, August 16, 1989, a
brazen assassination took place that would drive the judicial system over the
brink. That afternoon Bogota Municipal Magistrate Carlos Valencia was
assassinated after he indicted Rodriguez Gacha and Escobar for the murder of
Guillermo Cano. The week before he was assassinated, Valencia had called
Justice Minister de Greiff to ask for protection because of the constant
threats he was receiving. De Greiff gave the order to protect Valencia with
bodyguards and to provide an armored car. But on the day Valencia was gunned
down as he left his office, the armored car still had not arrived.

When Minister de Greiff arrived at the funeral services for Magistrate
Valencia, she was forcibly prevented from entering. "Nobody wants you here,"
one of Valencia's relatives whispered to her.

With Valencia's death, forty members of the judiciary had been murdered in
three years. Valencia's killing provoked a new wave of indignation among his
colleagues and associates. As a form of protest, judges who had drug cases
before them submitted their resignations, charging that they could not
operate under conditions in which their lives were constantly in danger.

The organization that represented lawyers, judges, and their associates, the
National Association of Jurists, besieged and disgusted by so many threats to
its members, came out in favor of a massive resignation of Criminal Court
judges to protest the lack of security.

On August 18, the day that President Barco called the cabinet meeting to
announce his war measures, ministers had been awakened at 6 A.M. with the
news of yet another killing: the murder of Colonel Waldemar Franklin
Quintero, commander of the Medellin metropolitan police. Franklin Quintero
had been at the forefront of the fight against the drug dealers and their
armies and therefore took his place on the drug bosses' hit list of the nation
's political leadership. The courts were on strike and the government, unable
to stop the terrorism, was being held accountable for the violence.

>From the moment at which the cabinet meeting began until 8 pm. that night,
Barco, preparing for his televised address, neither spoke nor offered any
opinion about what was taking place. Always impenetrable and unmoved, he
dedicated himself to listening as each of his ministers talked about the
decrees.

The debate surrounding extradition grew, and tempers were on the rise. Tense,
desperate, strained to the limits, the ministers were in the middle of a
battle without knowing exactly who was fighting whom. Such was the menacing
vise of the drug traffickers that the ministers even began to mistrust one
another. They all measured what they said, fearing that someone present might
have sold out to the drug bosses.

"We all know what this decision means. The question is, knowing that, are we
prepared to submit the country to what comes next?" asked Julio Londono, the
foreign minister, talking about whether to accept the consequences of
approving extradition. He put his finger right on the uncertainties they all
feltand for which there was no convincing answer. For an instant, even
President Barco, solid though he appeared throughout the day, seemed hesitant.

The possibility that Barco might have doubts brought an immediate reaction
from the ministers and aides who supported the measures. Some of them,
including the minister of defense, went to the chambers where the president
was waiting and again debated the subject behind closed doors. Such was the
weight of this historic moment, however, that none of the ministers, not even
those who had apprehensions about the desirability of extradition, considered
the possibility of resigning.


Everyone knew that with Barco one could not vacillate. Either you would
convince the president with your arguments or you would go along with him and
sign the decrees.

At 5:30, when the president called once more for the Council of Ministers to
read his speech, most of the decrees had been signed by everyone in the
cabinet. The debate about the timing of the extradition treaty was closed,
and the president was prepared to accept only one proposal made at the
session, which was offered by Education Minister Manuel Becerra.

"I believe that it is not possible to leave Monica de Greiff all by herself,"
he said. "If she is the one designated to sign the arrest warrants against
the Mafia chiefs, it does not necessarily have to be her burden as well to
sign the extraditions. It might be a good idea to have the extradition orders
signed by the National Council on Narcotics."

De Greiff felt relieved. The cabinet and the president approved that motion.
Under the new formula, the ministers of justice, defense, agriculture,
communication, health, and education would jointly sign authorizations for
extradition.

The proposal-or at least its source-surprised many of those in the chambers,
since Becerra had previously served as president of the America soccer club
in Cali owned by Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela, the brother of Gilberto Rodriguez
Orejuela, the presumed chief of the Cali cartel. At the beginning of the
Barco government, El Espectador had begun an investigation of Becerra. After
he found out about it, he showed up at the newspaper one morning loaded with
documents to prove that he no longer had any connection to the Cali soccer
team and that even though Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela was the brother of the
presumed chief of the Cali cartel, he was not facing any criminal charges and
was a well-known public figure in the Cali sports world, which was indeed the
case. A few months after Becerra's visit, Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela went
underground-an indictment in which he was named had been issued in the United
States. Nevertheless, the Becerra episode had been closed, and his
explanation apparently had satisfied the president, who first named him
governor of El Valle State, and later minister of education.

Despite Barco's trust of Becerra, that day many ministers and aides, without
saying so, looked upon him with certain reservations, especially when he
warned that the extradition decree could lead to the unification of the
Medellin and Cali cartels. "Extradition will put them under the same
umbrella," he said.

Yet if there had been any doubt concerning his commitment to the government's
measures, his proposal had buried it.

Ana Mena, the minister of mining, voiced another more general concern: "I
would like assurances that the people extradited will be the chiefs and not
the small fries."

The ministers had repeatedly asked Defense Minister Botero and General Maza
Marquez about their ability to place their forces on a virtual war footing
against the drug bosses. The president, always imperturbable and impassive,
looked toward his military chiefs, and responded, "The armed forces have the
capacity to deal with this." Maza Marquez, who often attended these meetings
as a de facto member of the cabinet, said that he was prepared to act
strongly: "We are informed of the whereabouts of the bosses and we have the
means to capture them. I think we can catch Pablo Escobar."

The preoccupation about the armed forces' ability and commitment was quite
valid. The national police and DAS were the lead agencies in the war on
drugs, and they were facing up to the task. But during the first two years of
the Barco administration, the army had been reluctant to enter the fray,
arguing that the drug problem was eminently a police matter and that the
army's involvement would only weaken its operations against guerrilla groups.
Botero's predecessor as defense minister, General Guerrero Paz, had told the
president on one occasion: "Listen, Mr. President, we are committed to
support your policy of negotiating peace with M-19, but please do not ask us
to get involved in drug interdiction."

That statement was really a smokescreen for the hidden reality that army
intelligence had been seriously compromised by the drug-trafficking
organizations and that many brigade-level generals were being investigated
for their relations with the drug militias. These new measures, established
as wartime edicts, would codify the army's entry into the drug battle to face
the same people with whom some members of the military were cooperating
behind the scenes.

"Upon their entry into the battle, the first thing they'll have to show is
that they themselves are not corrupt," a high-ranking aide to Barco told me.
"If they don't respond and get the job done, they're out."

Barco read the assembled ministers the speech that he was going to deliver on
television. It was already evening, and after the intense talks, the
ministers listened silently, their faces showing weariness and strain.

At around 8:30, moments before he was schedule to speak, the phone rang in
the adjoining reception room, and General Maza Marquez was called out of the
meeting. When he returned, one could immediately see that something had
happened. Barco stopped reading as the general took the floor. "I have the
sad duty to inform you, Mr. President, that there has just been a terrorist
attack on Senator Luis Carlos Galan."

For the first time, Barco's distressed, preoccupied look melted, and he
seemed genuinely, personally struck by this shattering report. He withdrew to
consult with Maza Marquez, and within ten minutes returned to the cabinet
room and sat down. His face had once again taken on that look of remoteness
and self-control. He then added a new first paragraph to the speech he was
about to deliver.

"I address you tonight to explain new measures adopted under stage-of-siege
provisions, at a time in which, with justification, the nation finds itself
indignant and distressed by the grave acts of violence which have taken place
in recent days. Deplorably, Luis Carlos Galan, Liberal party presidential
candidate, has been the target of yet another terrorist attack. Senator Galan
has been taken to a hospital. We pray to God-for him and for the country—that
he recovers from this difficult moment."

Then he continued with the rest of his speech.

"The criminal organizations and the drug dealers have unleashed a wave of
murder and death. They have attacked representatives and leaders of every
sector of the country and all its institutions. Judges, political leaders,
soldiers, citizens, and public officials have been victims of this barbarity.
The violence affects us all. It is not an offensive against the government or
against the system of justice. It is a war on the nation. And for that
reason, the nation must give its answer."

Surrounded by his entire cabinet, the president read his speech live from the
presidential palace, something that he had never done before. "Today more
than ever we need to show that this is a joint decision. Now there is more
reason than ever for us to be united," he told the ministers before the
speech.

As the president went on the air to read his announcement, Luis Carlos Galan
was still alive. The very possibility that he might die drove Colombians over
the brink-the announcement of the war measures and of the resumption of
extradition was greeted with immediate and unanimous approval.

"This is certainly a difficult moment," he said in closing his speech. "But
there have been other such occasions, and Colombia has endured. We must not
lose sight of our goal because that is what these violent men want to happen.
To fall into despair is to play the game of the terrorists. We will carry on,
decisively and firmly, rather than give in to arguments against a common
enemy. We must win this battle. I am certain that we shall succeed."

Less than an hour after the broadcast, Barco got the news that Senator Galan
was dead.

News of the attack on Galan reached me while I was at a diplomatic cocktail
party, in the midst of a conversation with my colleague Enrique Santos
Calderon and Philip McLean, who was the charge d'affaires at the U.S.
embassy. All day rumors had been brewing that Barco was about to make a major
policy address. The possibility that there would be a resumption of
extradition spread through the press corps. We, like the rest of the nation,
could sense that tough measures were about to be enacted.

McLean had asked us what we had heard about Barco's impending speech, and we
had argued the merits of resuming extradition. There were those who believed
that McLean in his position as charge d'affaires was even more important than
the ambassador himself. On receiving the news about Galan, McLean furrowed
his brow and, with a gesture, motioned to his numerous bodyguards to prepare
to leave immediately.

As McLean left, he swept along with him the majority of government officials,
academics, journalists, and presidential aides who were at the gathering.
Ordinarily Galan himself would have been there, but he was on the campaign
trail and had declined the invitation. He was on the hustings—a front-runner.
That night, instead of sipping cocktails with diplomats, he was on a campaign
swing through Soacha, a few miles from Bogota, as the Liberal party candidate
for president.

Some friends came back to my house around 8 pm. to monitor what was going on.
The radio reports were confusing, so I telephoned Rafael Pardo, one of
President Barco's aides. However, Pardo, in his customary clipped, serious
tone, told me only what we were hearing on the radio: "He is apparently
wounded, but we don't know what condition he is in. They're taking him to the
hospital right now."

When it was apparent that the president's office had no additional
information for us, all we could do was sit in front of the television and
await further news. A cameraman who had been covering the campaign swing to
Soacha was able to capture the sad and dramatic footage of the attack. The
power of the image, with all its devastating force, showed us in slow motion
how Galan, one of the most protected men in the country, moved fatefully into
the trap that had been prepared for him. The jostling crowd in Soacha's town
square raised him on their shoulders: His face jubilant, his arms raised as
if celebrating a battle victory, he was filled with vigor and energy. As he
was hoisted to the stage, six assassins who were camouflaged in the crowd
spread out to take their appointed positions. One of them, apparently located
at the foot of the podium, fired three shots at Galan. One of the bullets
perforated his aorta, producing internal hemorrhaging to such a degree that
this wound alone almost certainly killed him. These shots were followed by
volleys of gunfire. One of Galan's bodyguards threw himself to the ground to
protect the already dying man with his own body. Swiftly Galan was taken to
his armored limousine, which then raced to the nearest hospital. A Liberal
party colleague, who helped carry Galan to the car, later said that his
friend had still been conscious. "Don't let me die," Galan said, a distant
gaze already descending upon his countenance.

The president sent Eduardo Diaz, the minister of health, to Kennedy Hospital,
where Galan lay wounded. Diaz was taken to the operating room, but as he
donned hospital garb so that he could go in, an officer walked up to him and
said, "Don't bother putting it on, Minister ... he's dead."

Eduardo felt as if the world were collapsing on top of him. He went out
immediately to call the president and inform him about what had happened, but
he found that the few telephones available were occupied by radio reporters
who already had begun to broadcast the news. He finally found a public phone
and made the call.

"He's dead, Mr. President. Dr. Luis Carlos Galan is dead."

"Come back right away," was all Barco said to him.

Eduardo went outside in the company of three other ministers who had arrived
at the hospital after him. The crowds were surrounding the bulletproof cars
of the ministers, blocking their way. For an instant Eduardo thought he would
be dragged out and lynched. The radio was broadcasting the news, and people
were weeping, disconsolate but angry. Eduardo finally found his carthe only
one that was not armored-and got in with the other ministers, while one of
the other ministerial cars was taken over by a group of supporters of the
dead senator. Inside their car, the four ministers had an uncomfortable
feeling of impotence, anger, sadness, and fear.

President Barco called back his ministers for an extraordinary cabinet
meeting. In the hall of the Council of Ministers one could sense the
uncertainty that follows such a harsh blow. "Sadly, I must inform you that
Senator Luis Carlos Galan has died," Barco said. At his side was Gabriel
Rosas, a member of Galan's New Liberal faction who had served as minister of
development and had accompanied Galan throughout his political career. Rosas
could not hold back his tears.

He had also gone to Kennedy Hospital and had seen his friend and political
ally dead. "They have killed Galan, Dr. Rosas. Please take up his cause," one
follower of Galan had implored him as he left the hospital.

With the same pain and powerlessness that showed in his face when he met the
Galan follower at the hospital, Rosas looked to Barco and said pleadingly,
"Mr. President, what can we do? Help us! Help us!"

"I want to express condolences to you, Gabriel, on behalf of the New Liberals
... this loss is deeply saddening for the country," Barco replied.

Amid choking tears Rosas tried to answer, but the words came haltingly. "I am
happy to have been one of the supporters of the measures that you have just
announced. The death of my friend Luis Carlos confirms for me more than ever
that the path we have taken is the appropriate one."

The president turned to the minister of defense, Oscar Botero. "We have to
move to the offensive. This is going to be quite a prolonged war. I am today
establishing the Center for Joint Operations, an organization that will
coordinate the three armed forces and which will function in all cases when
we are engaged in war."

"Yes sir, commander," Botero replied, calling Barco by his title as commander
in chief of the armed forces. "We will begin immediately to search for the
drug dealers and to occupy their properties."

At that moment there was unanimity about the correctness of the wartime
measures Barco adopted. The doubts of the few who might have vacillated were
galvanized with the majority upon word of Galan's murder. All that could have
been done had, in fact, been done. All that could have happened in a single
day had, in fact, happened. Nevertheless, the situation of the country was
such that, it was clear, more tragedies would follow. And with whatever came
next even the harshest measures would seem to fall short.

The president adjourned the cabinet session that evening with a final note:
"Go home and get some rest because tomorrow is likely to be a very busy day,"
as if this one had not been long enough.

One of nine children of a middle-class family and a descendant of the comunero
 (revolutionary), Galan, one of the first criollos to challenge authorities
during the Spanish colonial period, Luis Carlos Galan was a unique figure in
Colombian politics, dominated as it was by the offspring of families who were
high in the hierarchies of power. A well-spoken, likable person, he had in a
deft thirty-year career become one of the transcendent figures in national
politics.

Carlos Galan was still quite young when he came to the newspaper El Tiempo whe
re he wrote his first stories as a cub reporter. At the paper he connected
easily with a select group of reporters who not only became his inseparable
friends, but also served as coconspirators in a romantic liaison he was
developing. After work the group would usually go out together to chat,
debating the political scene and the future. Gloria Pachon, a bright,
selfassured young woman, had unwittingly left Luis Carlos hopelessly smitten,
and he successfully courted her in the company of the entire press corps.
They eventually married.

I was introduced to Galan when I was fourteen, at a dinner organized by the
principal of my high school. The principal was an unabashed admirer of Carlos
Galan and had adopted at our school Galan's plan for joint governance by
students and administrators, a policy that Luis Carlos had pushed for in the
public university system to democratize internal debate. The idea was a novel
one, but it did not last long.

What began as power sharing quickly turned into anarchy, so the students'
power was quickly reined in. Luis Carlos never found out that the same
problem was the case at my school, which was privately run. Imbued with these
new democratic airs and full of ourselves, we rebelled against the principal
one day after she fired a teacher on grounds we thought were unjust. Under
the umbrella of cogovernance we called a general strike. What followed
closely paralleled the experience in the university system. Filled with
indignation, the principal quickly lost her love for Galan's democratic
experiment and expelled fifteen girls from the school. Not surprisingly, that
was the last that was heard from our idealistic principal about joint control
at our school.

It was a minor issue, of course, but it seemed, in miniature, to reflect what
was going on in the country. Neither at my school nor in the country at large
were we prepared for so much democracy all at once. Galan was the first to
recognize that problem. "I'm not interested in becoming president just for
the sake of getting there," he said to me more than once. "What I have tried
to do, above all, is to cultivate a process of political education so the
nation and its citizens understand the value of democratic institutions and
learn to use them to their own benefit."

By 1978 Galan had become convinced that there had to be fundamental changes
in the political structure, that the two traditional political parties had
become wrapped in self-absorbed bureaucracies and converted into mere centers
of political patronage. He decided, therefore, to found a dissident wing
within the Liberal party and called it New Liberalism.

His proposition from the outset was to seek changes in passe political
habits, to infuse a new social consciousness in political life. It was an
effort to modernize the Colombian state for the benefit of all Colombians
rather than a handful. Galan was, above all, a liberal who knew how to
analyze the values and aspirations of the long-suffering Colombian urban
middle class.

"Galan, more than a politician, was an idealist, a fundamentalist, a man of
principles," said President Cesar Gaviria, who was his closest aide during
the campaign and who was elected president in 1990. His political line found
strong sympathies among college students and among those of their parents
with liberal sentiments. These parents were solidly middle class,
conservative in their habits, who paid their taxes religiously and saved
every cent for their children's education. One could compare them to
middle-class Americans who clip coupons for -the supermarket and pay their
taxes regularly and have their own homes, although they never finish paying
them off.

Something was still lacking, however. As one leader of a grassroots barrio
put it, "Galan still has to get down deeper, to get even closer to the real
people." The truth is that in some of the barrios, like those of Medellin,
the "real people" were being trained as some of the sicario assassins who
would eventually kill the young political leader. For them, talk about
democracy had not the slightest connection to reality. "All that stuff
belongs to goodygoodies who have a mother and a father in the first place,"
one of these sicario gang members told me.

Luis Carlos waged his first presidential campaign in 1982. He lost, although
political analysts considered the large number of votes he received to be a
broad triumph and a sign of things to come. But the victories were still hard
to come by. Galan, who had always done well in public opinion polls, never
matched expectations on election day.

After he lost the parliamentary election in 1984, it was time for reflection
and analysis. Many of his assumptions were revised, not so much in conceptual
terms as in terms of organization. Luis Carlos decided it was time to start
traveling, to move around the country once more.

In 1986, after Barco was elected president, Galan took the most important
step in his political career. After ten years of being a dissident, he
decided to dismantle the barriers his faction had created within the party
and join the mainstream once more.

Although many of his colleagues resented his decision and saw it as a form of
surrender, Luis Carlos used his acumen as a political leader not only to coax
most of his fellow dissidents along with him, but also to set things up so he
would be welcomed back into the fold. In large part his reentry was made
possible by the great political affinity that existed between Galan and
Barco. Both were virulent critics of a political echelon that had abandoned
itself to bureaucracy; both had tangled with the power structure because of
that stand. Barco saw in Galan a powerful ally for his policies and a
stalwart defender of his administration. They were united not only by their
beliefs and by their roots in the same part of the country, Santander, but by
their same preoccupations. One of the main ones was the threat of drug
trafficking. By the end, their personal contact had been on the rise.

Barco, who rarely used the telephone, not even to speak with his own
ministers, spoke almost daily with Luis Carlos.

At the time of his death, Luis Carlos was clearly at his zenith. He had
successfully bridged the fundamental gap between dissidence and political
reality: He had done what had to be done. Now back inside the party, he had
begun an aggressive new campaign. Three days before his death, opinion polls
had given him a clear preference among Colombians to be the next president.
Nothing appeared to stand in his way.

Gloria was already in bed when she was informed of the attack on Luis Carlos
by her secretary, Lucila. She hung up the phone and got dressed quickly while
she called to the children to get ready to leave for the hospital. The whole
time she had been telling herself that nothing bad had happened to Luis
Carlos. They got to the Social Security Hospital at around 9 Pm. She
remembered being besieged by people asking for Luis Carlos's blood type,
which she told them was A negative, a relatively uncommon type. Rumors were
still circulating that he had been wounded in one arm and that he was not
seriously hurt. She kept telling herself that these stories were true. And
she was conscious of not wanting to scare the children.

Finally someone came up to her and said that Luis Carlos wasn't even at this
hospital, that he had been taken to Kennedy Hospital, which was closer to
where the attack had taken place. She left immediately. When she arrived,
there were many people milling about waiting to find out about their
political leader. Gloria and the children were taken to a room where the
bodyguards had also been taken. She was told that one of the bodyguards, who
had used his body to shield Luis Carlo, was dead, as was the Soacha city
councilman, who was killed instantly in the volley of gunfire. But no one
said anything about Luis Carlos. Finally, a doctor came up to her and led her
to an adjoining room. She motioned for the children to follow. And then,
through a half-open door, she could just make out Luis Carlos lying on a bed.
The doctor grasped her arm and led her to one corner of the room.

"I'm sorry to have to tell you that your husband has died."

Only at that moment did Gloria realize that Luis Carlos had been dead all
along and that no one had dared to break the news to her. She looked at the
children and felt profound grief enveloping her. Luis Carlos would never be
able to fulfill the promise he always made to them when they complained he
was spending too little time with them. She recalled the words he repeated
when he needed to find a way to talk himself out of their complaints: "There
will be time, there will be time, for us to enjoy ourselves like a normal
family."

One year after the death of Luis Carlos, I interviewed Gloria in her
apartment in Paris, where she had been sent by the government to serve as
Colombian ambassador to UNESCO. Tears came to her eyes when she recalled that
night. What she had felt, she said, was so terrible that she was still unable
to express it. "It is as if I myself had been killed. From that point on, I
started living something else, a life that had been given to me on loan, as
if I were no longer myself. As if they had taken my life away from me."

On the day he died, Luis Carlos left home as he always didquickly, without
eating breakfast or having time to chat with the boys as he sometimes was
able to do. As always, Gloria recalled, he was in a good mood. Gloria noticed
nothing strange. Or perhaps it was that she had decided to not worry anymore
about security. Gloria had spoken with Luis Carlos three times during that
day. One of those times it was to remind him that he had to discipline Juan
Manuel, their oldest son, who apparently had left the house the night before
without permission.

For several weeks, ever since Luis Carlos had received indications that
something might happen to his children, he had ordered them to stay home
after they returned from school. But Juan Manuel, in the full bloom of his
sixteen years, disobeyed his father's orders and went to visit his girlfriend.

The other thing that Gloria had told him was that he should avoid climbing up
on trucks and should not let people raise him on their shoulders-an act that
seemed especially dangerous to Gloria.

Gloria never remembered seeing Luis Carlos nervous about security questions.
Nevertheless, she now thinks that he avoided talking about all the threats he
received so he would not worry her excessively. But she remembered that after
the murder of Guillermo Cano in December 1986, he said something that left a
deep imprint on her. "I am condemned," he told her.

Around the time of Cano's death, Luis Carlos decided to leave the country for
a while. He had said that what was going on in Colombia was absurd and that
he would have to stay away. DAS was constantly discovering ambushes planned
against him.

Whenever particularly solid information was available, they warned him to
take special precautions. At the time, I lived down the street from the
Galans, and I could always tell when something was going on because the
security provisions around their apartment would be increased. Every morning
I could hear the caravan of security vehicles and armored cars leaving the
garage next door. I remember one day counting twenty-five bodyguards.

Threats that went beyond the routine, that spoke directly of attempts on
Galan's life, began to surface in August 1989. Oddly enough, no one gave them
much credibility. Luis Carlos had heard them all and decided to go ahead with
the campaign swing. It was only after the attempt on his life in Medellin on
August 6 that Gloria saw him really worried for the first time. He was in
MedelIin participating in a forum at the University of Antioquia when the
chief of police pulled him aside.

"We have just broken up a plot to kill you. Don't be alarmed now because we
have everything under control," he told the presidential candidate.

One block from the university, the police had discovered an abandoned vehicle
equipped with a grenade, two rockets ready for firing, two revolvers, and a
radio communications system. The car was found at a spot where the motorcade
carrying GaIan and Minister of the Interior Orlando Vazquez Velasquez were to
pass by. An anonymous phone call to the police enabled them to find the
assailants who had planned the attack in the barrio of Manrique, one of the
slum districts that surround Medellin. Many of the sicario assassins
contracted by the drug Mafia live in Manrique and the other outlying slums.
Like all makeshift squatter areas, Manrique was built on the side of a
mountain. The streets were not really streets but steep labyrinths that hid
the sicarios when authorities or rival gangs tried to move in on them. The
police found these men, however, and managed to surround them. Three suspects
were captured after a gun battle in which one policeman was killed. The group
confessed to having planned to launch one rocket against Galan's car and one
against that of his lead bodyguards, using the grenade to finish them off, if
necessary, or to cover their flight. Knowing that Galan had planned to come
to Medellin, they had concocted the scheme weeks in advance. The men were
working with a $400,000 war chest to carry out the attack.

Luis Carlos returned from Medellin anxious and upset. What perhaps troubled
him most was that even though the news media had published every detail of
the assassination plot in Medellin, many people dismissed the entire affair.
Others thought that the frustrated plot had been directed not against Luis
Carlos Galan but against the minister of the interior.

Gloria simply had no idea what was going through Luis Carlos's mind. If he
had really been anguished and distressed, he would have suspended
campaigning. But he chose not to do so. Few knew that Luis Carlos leaned
toward the metaphysical and had a particular interest in the influence of the
stars. He had his horoscope read in early August, as I knew because we went
to the same astrologist, Mauricio Puerta. Among other things, Puerta had
followed the astrological movements during the peace talks between the
government and the M-19 guerrillas. Frequently, on his own initiative, he
informed government negotiators about his astrological readings. According to
Puerta, Luis Carlos, a Libra with Libra in the ascent, was facing a violent
convergence on the days in question. Mars, the god of war, was passing
through the Twelfth House, where hidden enemies reside. That, in laymen's
terms, meant that his life was in danger. Perhaps recalling his fateful
astrological chart, GaIan had put on his bulletproof vest that night, en
route to Soacha, thinking that the precaution could avert his destiny with
death.

The day after his death, Galan's body was borne to the Plaza of Bolivar in
the center of Bogota, which was packed with thousands of Galan's supporters.
When Barco and his ministers arrived, they were reviled with contemptuous
jeers. "Justice, justice!" came the shouts from the throngs of people crying
for the fallen candidate. "Assassin! Assassin!" they called out as the
scornful shouts rose in pitch. One felt both the affinity people had for
GaIan and the atmosphere of hostility his death provoked toward the
government. The people felt orphaned and were deeply outraged at the drug
Mafia. I joined the huge line of Colombians who were marching to pay their
final respects to Galan in the\ Congress of the Republic. As I stood there, I
recalled how Colombia was filled with contradictions. In this same spot, five
years earlier, Pablo Escobar, as an elected alternate representative, had
gone head to head with Galan's uncompromising New Liberalism. I felt afraid
because for the first time there seemed no way to halt the onslaught of a
narco-controlled state. I was not sure we were strong enough to fight back.

The assassination of Luis Carlos Galan was felt in Colombia much the same way
that the killing of Benigno Aquino was felt in the Philippines, or the murder
of Pedro Joaquin Chamorro was felt in Nicaragua. It was a blow that made
Colombians react in unison as never before, that filled them with an
indignation that surprised the drug dealers themselves. GaIan's murder
convinced Colombians to go along with the only weapon that the drug Mafia
feared: extradition to the United States. One week later, the Supreme Court
would declare that Barco's extradition measures were constitutional in what
was considered the ultimate endorsement of his policy. "With Luis Carlos's
death, we lost not only our present, but our future," declared former
President Misael Pastrana.

Fear had been replaced by furor.

In Washington, Barco's decision was received with jubilation. At the White
House, President Bush immediately declared his unlimited support for "the war
on drugs declared by the people of Colombia and their president."

One week after the death of Galan, the declaration of a war on drugs by
Colombia and the United States was the top item in the news around the world.
>From one moment to the next, Colombia saw itself invaded as never before by
news media from around the world. Many of the reporters who came already knew
Colombia and thus were not surprised to see people walking down the streets,
cars driving around the city, and people dancing salsa in discotheques. But
since Colombia had always been in obscurity with little news interest, the
large majority of the reporters sent to the country had not the slightest
idea of what they would face. A crew from one American television network
showed up at the newspaper wearing bulletproof vests. Others, assuming that
Pablo Escobar walked freely about on the street, called to ask for his
telephone number, as if an interview could be set up as easily with Escobar
as with a Hollywood movie star.

In late August 1989, I came across a story in the French newspaper Liberation.
 It was prominently displayed on the front page with a headline that must
have surprised Escobar himself

WORLD EXCLUSIVE: AN INTERVIEW WITH THE CHIEF DRUG BOSS, PABLO ESCOBAR.

The report was wrong from beginning to end. The exalted world exclusive with
Pablo Escobar was in reality an interview that my friend and fellow reporter
Hernando Corral had conducted with another drug boss, Gonzalo Rodriguez
Gacha, the Mexican. The French correspondent had gotten the names mixed up.

In short order, this invasion by the news media managed to alter Colombia's
image. Colombia's problems were not well understood; nobody knew who was who
in the cartels; it was not clear whether the country was governed by Pablo
Escobar or Barco. The only thing anyone knew was that Bush and Barco had
declared a war on drugs in a country called Colombia.

This declaration of war, which the world celebrated optimistically by way of
their television screens, came across differently in Colombia. A few days
after the measures were approved, the entire Barco cabinet began receiving
the first telephone death threats at their homes. "No matter how many
bodyguards you have, we are going to kill you. We know the position of the
Council of Ministers on extradition, and we have infiltrated palace
security," said a letter signed by the Extraditables. If there was any
lingering doubt as to whether their lives were in danger, that ended with the
swiftness of the threats. "The day we signed the first extradition order I
was completely certain that they would kill me," one of the cabinet ministers
told me. That minister had suffered heart spasms because of the all the
pressure he was under. The concern about death that the ministers felt was
even more evident on the streets and in places of business. The war of nerves
intensified even more when a communique from the Extraditables was sent to
the news media, declaring total war on the oligarchy and on all Colombians
who supported extradition.

While the nations of the world sent their messages of solidarity to President
Barco on his decision to fight drugs, the government announced in the news
media a reward of $200,000 for anyone who could provide information on the
whereabouts of Pablo Escobar and Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha. Throughout
Colombia, one could smell death and perceive the inequality of the before us.
I was waiting for the next act of violence.

pps. 140-160
-----
Aloha, He'Ping,
Om, Shalom, Salaam.
Em Hotep, Peace Be,
Omnia Bona Bonis,
All My Relations.
Adieu, Adios, Aloha.
Amen.
Roads End

DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic
screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing!  These are sordid matters
and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright
frauds is used politically  by different groups with major and minor effects
spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL
gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers;
be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and
nazi's need not apply.

Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html

http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]

To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Om