Colext/Macondo
Cantina virtual de los COLombianos en el EXTerior
--------------------------------------------------
Ayyyjuepuente! hay dias en que coincido el 100% con los comentarios de Pio y
este es uno de ellos. En especial en aquello de convencer al gringo comun
(Y Pio te comento que no solo al raso pues pu'aqui me ha tocado discutir con
un poco de gente que supuestamente es educada con PhDs y de alto turmeque)
de que la "ayuda" gringa no es por cuestiones "humanitarias" ni
"desinteresadas".
Pio a veces tiene toda la jeroztica razon como en esta ocasion. Otras veces
lo que da es ganas es de patiarlo muergano fifuemichica :)
Aqui les retransmito un articulo aparecido en Times acerca del Coronel
James Hiett y su queridisima esposa en Colombia (se acuerdan?).
Tan tiernos ellos, no? :)
Saludos y feliz fin de semana,
Nestor Raul
____________ ===================================================
THE TIMES [London]
Monday, 1 November 1999
The colonel, his wife, the chauffeur and cocaine
------------------------------------------------
By Gabriella Gamini
BOGOTA -- Soon after taking up his post at the American Embassy in
Bogota, Colombia, US Army Colonel James Hiett stopped taking his feisty
wife to diplomatic soirees.
Life in those cloistered circles was not tailored to the "wild ways" of
Laurie Anne Hiett, 36, who gained a reputation for making a spectacle of
herself at cocktail parties hosted by US diplomats in their guarded
maisonettes.
"She was initially invited to all the social functions. But then she
would say the damndest things, so the colonel stopped taking her,"
recalls a retired American diplomat. So it came as no surprise to people
when she was suspected of being embroiled in a drug-smuggling plot
earlier this year which has rocked the American Embassy in Bogota.
Laurie Anne liked to have fun. Her cacophonic giggle, which drowned
polite chit-chat at parties, drew disapproving glances. Guests frowned
when she danced provocatively to salsa tunes rather than join
conversations with other embassy wives about Bogota's horrendous traffic
jams or where to buy the best American cheesecake. During one dinner
party, attended by high-society Colombians, soap opera stars and embassy
officials, she remarked what fun it would be if guests were to get high
on cocaine. "She was always a livewire and acted like a loose cannon,"
recalls the retired diplomat.
Rumour had it that Colonel Hiett was embarrassed by his wife because her
"wired" antics were seen as a sign that she might have a cocaine habit.
"He would blush when her behaviour suggested, rightly or wrongly, that
she wanted to do a line of coke in the toilet at parties," says another
former US Embassy official.
A businessman who had the Hietts to dinner on several occasions
discovered that they slept in separate beds and recalls how Laurie Anne
was "always going out with 'crazy' people from the embassy". Her fondness
for clingy leopardskin blouses and miniskirts didn't help either. Such
attire clashed with the frilly taffeta and rather more ample gowns that
are de rigueur among embassy wives.
Not surprisingly, Laurie Anne Hiett was ostracised by this closed
community. Instead of attending coffee mornings and luncheons at a
creperie overlooking the fashionable gardens of Parque 93, where
diplomats' spouses met to gossip, she forged a relationship with her
husband's Colombian chauffeur, often travelling to no-go areas of the city.
She became a regular at the bars and nightclubs of Bogota's trendy Zona
Rosa (Red Zone) district, which diplomats are advised to avoid because of
its thriving cocaine trade. She also ventured into the "underground"
nightclub scene despite a warning from the US Embassy to avoid the area
after an agent from the US Drug Enforcement Administration, Frank Moreno,
was shot there in December last year after a row outside a disco.
But ignoring all the warnings, she even spent weekends, accompanied by
her driver, in the Andean hill town of Chia, 70 miles outside Bogota. The
spa resort is a haven for late-night drinkers and a hideout for those on
a cocaine-sniffing binge. There have been reports of guerrilla
kidnappings on the mountain road, which is another reason why diplomats
are told to avoid the area. "But Laurie Anne did not like to follow the
rules," says a former embassy secretary.
In civil-war-torn Colombia, diplomats do not stray far from the
protective walls of the embassy, their bulletproof limousines or their
well-guarded homes. Bogota is one of the most violent cities in South
America and the embassy is the most protected US mission there. A moat
surrounds the compound. "We are always under siege here, so we stay
behind closed doors," said an official who, like all the others, refused
to be named.
But inside this giant bunker a bizarre drug-trafficking scandal - the
most embarrassing in the US's 20-year involvement in Colombia's narcotics
war - was revealed after a three-month investigation, which led to Laurie
Anne Hiett's arrest in New York.
A former diplomat quoted in the American press said "the weirdest things
happen in that embassy". Another added: "Much of the staff is made up of
non-Foreign Service officers, and that lends itself to a crazy atmosphere
down there." Another gave warning: "There is enough stuff down there for
a Hollywood movie."
When a US Customs official randomly unwrapped a parcel at a Miami airport
postal depot on May 24 - which Mrs Hiett had allegedly posted - he did
not expect to open Pandora's box. Only rarely are officers sent to riffle
through diplomatic post. But on this day the official's sniffer dog
lingered around a parcel sent from the Bogota embassy.
Despite an unwritten rule to let diplomatic post pass unchecked, this one
was too suspicious. Instead of the sweets, toys and Colombian coffee that
a customs declaration said it contained, it was packed with nearly 3lb of
top-quality cocaine. And, it is alleged, Mrs Hiett had written the false
customs declaration and put her name and signature on the remittance
slips. Ironically, the find came just days after Colonel Hiett was
nominated to lead 200 US troops at the anti-narcotics bases of Tres
Esquinas and Tolemaida, in Colombia's druginfested southern jungles.
A further six parcels were then traced, all containing between 2 and 3lb
of cocaine with a street value of some Pounds 150,000. They were
allegedly sent by Mrs Hiett to apartments in New York's Queens and
Manhattan districts. The New York Police, US Customs agents and the
Army's Criminal Division joined forces to investigate the case.
Meanwhile, a separate undercover military investigation cleared Colonel
Hiett of involvement in the drug-smuggling charges against his wife. He
was speedily transferred out of Colombia to an undisclosed posting.
The trail following his wife does indeed have all the ingredients for a
blockbuster movie. That first parcel found in Miami was rewrapped and
sent to its intended destination in Jackson Heights, New York. A postman
rang the doorbell, watched by detectives in neighbouring buildings. The
man who answered said the recipient lived in the basement flat but would
be out for another four hours.
When the postman returned to the apartment, a woman claimed she had been
authorised to accept the package and signed for it. Thirty minutes later
her brother was seen by detectives trying to jump over a wall with the
parcel under his arm. He ran into a police barricade and was arrested.
Meanwhile, other detectives raided the basement, where they detained the
sister and found 500g of cocaine and more than $ 13,000 in a suitcase.
One suspect confessed that he had received several parcels, allegedly
sent by Laurie Anne Hiett from Colombia - and that he had been paid $
1,500 for sending each one to various addresses in Queens.
Simultaneously, the US Army's Division of Criminal Investigations began a
scrupulous search for more packages arriving from Bogota via the
diplomatic mail system. After the Brooklyn Heights raid, investigators
traced another parcel, allegedly sent with Mrs Hiett's name on it, to a
New York resident who has turned witness in the inquiry. Criminal
investigation sheets say the witness confessed to sending the parcel to
Manhattan.
Detectives were led to a private post office, where they found another
parcel containing 2.7lb of cocaine. Again it was accompanied by a customs
declaration apparently signed by Mrs Hiett, which falsely claimed to
contain Colombian artefacts, books and a candle.
Mrs Hiett denied all charges and stressed that she had sent the parcels
for her husband's Colombian chauffeur without knowing the contents. In
her statements, she alleged that the chauffeur had asked her to send the
packages to a friend in the US; that he had received one package from a
couple who arrived at the embassy car park in a taxi; and that she had
just wrapped it up and sent it on as asked.
But the chauffeur alleged that Mrs Hiett was a cocaine addict who had
begged him on numerous occasions to find a supplier who would deliver
cocaine to the embassy. In his statement to investigators, he claimed
that he had taken his boss's wife to nightclubs in Zona Rosa on several
occasions to buy cocaine.
Behind one bar in the district - where barmen say they remember the
"blonde" and her moustached driver - you can buy a gram of cocaine for
less than $ 10 over the counter.
Mrs Hiett's allegations were regarded with suspicion since the false
customs declarations on all the packages were apparently in her
handwriting, backed by her signature. In a second interview, according to
the US Army investigators' report sheet, she became very nervous, saying
"I am afraid they will kill me", presumably referring to the drug
traffickers she accused her driver of knowing. She is said to have
stormed out of the interrogation room to run into her husband's office in
"hysterics".
The driver, meanwhile, absconded soon after being questioned and has been
on the run since giving his statement.
So sensitive is this case in Colombia that the state prosecutor who would
normally handle such a case has handed the investigation to a "faceless"
court - judges whose names are not revealed for fear of reprisals from
hired killers.
Early in August Mrs Hiett flew to New York and handed herself over to US
authorities, pleading innocent to all drug-trafficking charges. She
attended a hearing at a Federal Court in Brooklyn on August 5, where she
was charged with conspiracy to distribute cocaine. According to Lee
Dunst, an Assistant US Attorney, Mrs Hiett was freed on a $ 150,000 bail
to await trial and, if found guilty, she could face a 10-year prison
sentence.
While embassy officials in Bogota have tried to brush off her case as a
one off incident, investigators say there are "other suspects" at the
mission who are alleged to have collaborated in a drug-trafficking ring.
US and Colombian officials said that between six and eight embassy
employees are also being investigated for using the diplomatic postal
system to send cocaine. There are no pictures of Mrs Hiett, her
whereabouts are unknown and her lawyer declined to comment on the case.
Copyright 1999 Times Newspapers Limited
________________________________________________________________
>
> Muy cierto que mientras el gobierno Federal invierte millonadas en la guerra
> de Colombia los Estados (en USA) estan reduciendo la inversion en tratamiento
> y prevencion de la drogadiccion. El Estado de Nueva York es un ejemplo.
> Alli, a pesar de la bonanza economica, reducciones del presupuesto para
> 1999/00 esta obligando a suspender empleados encargados de prestar servicio a
> los drogadictos. Es interesante que esta politica es impulsada por los mismos
> Republicanos que insisten en invertir en la guerra colombiana a nivel del
> gobierno Federal. Y nadie dice nada...Lo mejor de todo es que cuando uno
> habla con los gringos rasos en cualquier Estado de los USA, la mayoria cree
> que el dinero invertido en la guerra colombiana es para ayudar a Colombia y
> esperan que uno les de las gracias. Toma tiempo explicarles como es la mano,
> pero escuchan y quedan aterrados de su propia ignorancia...!
> He dicho,
> Pio, Pio
>
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> cortesia de Anibal Monsalve Salazar
>
Nestor Raul Anzola Potes "The only Good is Knowledge,
Biological Sciences Department the only Evil is Ignorance"
University of Southern Mississippi n.p.i.q.d.e.
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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cortesia de Anibal Monsalve Salazar
