-Caveat Lector- Click Here: <A HREF="http://www.killingpablo.com/content/killingpablo/philly/1047343237.htm"> Killing Pablo</A> ----- Escobar's nemesis hones his troops for the hunt By Mark Bowden Police Academy in Medellin, Colombia, where Delta soldiers, DEA, and CIA set up shop in order to track Escobar. (Akira Suwa / Inquirer) PHOTO GALLERIES Chapter Eight of a continuing serial Sometimes the fate of an entire nation can hinge on the integrity of one man. Police Col. Hugo Martinez had been handed a suicide mission in 1989 - hunting down drug kingpin Pablo Escobar. This was during the Colombian government's first war against Escobar, before Martinez was called back in 1992 to rejoin the hunt. He and his men had worked in an atmosphere of terror throughout 1989 and into 1990, every man expecting to be betrayed by his fellows. The National Police had constructed special chapels in Medellin and in Bogota just to handle the heavy demand for funeral services for officers murdered by Escobar's assassins. >From the first day the colonel believed he would be killed in this war. He accepted the risk. But his greatest fear was for his wife, his daughter and his two sons. In late 1990, Martinez flew from his headquarters in Medellin to Bogota, where a car bomb had been discovered at his family's apartment building. As he was helping his family pack, he was approached by a retired police officer, an old friend, who offered him a $6 million bribe from Escobar to sabotage the hunt. This bribe had come after a chilling demonstration of his family's vulnerability. The bomb in their basement made it clear that Escobar could find them. Now he had shown that he could follow Martinez's every move - Martinez had told only his boss about flying to Bogota - and also send the colonel's old friend to do his bidding. The colonel's colleagues did not want the family in their building if it meant they were likely to be bombed. His own department was shunning him and his family and abandoning them to their fate. And for what? Martinez could not even see the wisdom of going after Escobar. Cocaine was not Colombia's problem, it was the norteamericanos' problem. And even if they got Escobar, as the United States insisted, it was not going to curb the cocaine industry. This first effort to get Escobar was being pushed hard by the U.S. Embassy, a fact that Escobar exploited skillfully in his public pronouncements. It resonated with the Colombian public because it was true. The public believed the violence was provoked by the Americans' desire to extradite Escobar. It was Martinez's own dogged effort on the gringos' behalf that made the drug boss more desperate and determined. If the search effort stopped, he felt, the bloodshed and kidnappings would probably end as well. There were car bombings in Bogota almost every day. By November 1990, Escobar's men had kidnapped 10 prominent men and women, including the editor-in-chief of the newspaper El Tiempo, and the daughter of a former Colombian president. These carefully chosen kidnappings had rocked Bogota to its social core. In Medellin there was open war. Escobar still had a bounty on the head of every policeman there, more for members of Martinez's search team. The colonel and his men were being accused of using torture to extract information. Colombia was locked in a nightmare of blood and pain, and the colonel felt sometimes that he alone was orchestrating the whole terrible symphony. Now he was being offered a generous ticket out. All he needed to do was side with Escobar, take his $6 million, and silently betray any tipster who contacted the Search Bloc. But the colonel did not consider the bribe for any longer than it took him to have those thoughts. His gut rebelled against the offer. His old friend showing up unannounced had spooked him badly; the whole conversation had seemed off-balance. Martinez cursed at his friend, and then his anger turned to pity and disgust. "Tell Pablo that you came but did not find me here, and then leave this matter as if it had never occurred," he said. Martinez had known other police officers who took bribes, and he had always held them in contempt. Once he had accepted the bribe, he knew, Escobar would own him, just as he owned the friend who had approached him with the words, "I come to you obligated." For Martinez, it would be like turning over his soul to the devil. After he dismissed his old friend, Martinez drove to police headquarters and informed his boss, Gen. Octavio Vargas, of the bribe attempt. They agreed it was a good sign. "It means we're getting to him," Martinez said. Two years later, in the summer of 1992, the Americans working with the Colombian police search team were more impressed by its new commander's will than his methods. This tall, taciturn colonel nicknamed "Flaco" (Skinny) meant business. Martinez had been the driving force behind the first hunt, which had hounded Escobar to his surrender in 1991. He began this second, more intensive search by rounding up top people from the first operation and recruiting police and army veterans to create a new, elite Bloque de Busqueda, or Search Bloc. It would eventually number 600 men. One of Col. Martinez's first acts at the Holquin Academy headquarters in Medellin was to line his lieutenants against a wall and tell them that if he discovered any of them betraying their mission, "I will personally shoot you in the head." He locked down his men to prevent uncontrolled communication in and out of the compound, and, perhaps most important, he showed genuine frustration and anger when a mission failed. The Americans had worked with Colombian officers who would joke about failed missions, who took them no more seriously than getting the wrong order at a restaurant. But the men of Delta Force and Centra Spike were appalled by the Search Bloc's lack of tactical sophistication. One morning, approaching a suspected Escobar hideout, the assault force lined up along a ridge and then simply walked toward the target house. A Centra Spike man accompanying them on the raid, helping to locate Escobar, suggested that the force drop down and crawl. "In the dirt?" a Colombian officer asked. "My guys don't crawl in the dirt and mud." The occupants of the target house easily spotted the slow-moving assault force and escaped. They had fled in such haste that they hadn't completely burned documents, so they had urinated and defecated on them. When an American from Centra Spike began fishing papers out of the mess, Col. Martinez himself had objected. "I can't believe you'd do that," he said. "That's human waste!" "Where I come from, we also low-crawl and get our uniforms dirty," the Centra Spike man said. After the documents were cleaned and dried, the unit found handwritten notes from Escobar, sealed with his thumbprint. The notes promised financial security for the caretaker of the farmhouse. Copies had been prepared for several other fincas, or estates, indicating that Escobar kept a string of such safe houses. The recovered documents provided valuable insights into how he recruited and nurtured assistance in the hills. After entering the finca, the assault force settled in front of the television and began drinking Escobar's sodas and cooking his steaks. Two men who had stayed behind in the farmhouse, the caretakers, were bound and gagged. Martinez's men began beating them severely. "What are your guys doing?" the Centra Spike man asked Martinez. "We're interrogating them," the colonel said. "If you want them to talk, why don't you take the gags out of their mouths?" "No, no," Martinez said. "Leave it alone. You shouldn't be here." He ushered the American away from the farmhouse. After that, the colonel tried to keep Americans away from the action - not to protect them, but to protect their eyes. Reports drifted back about Martinez's tactics - beatings, electroshock torture, killings - and it was evident to Americans working with the Search Bloc in Medellin that some of these things went on, but always out of sight. It was a smart move, one that some officials at the U.S. Embassy appreciated. Human rights abuses were problematic. But as long as the Americans didn't see them, they didn't feel obliged to report them. If the Search Bloc was torturing people, American soldiers in Medellin did not object. The fact that Martinez played rough with his fellow citizens was seen as an advantage. Let the word go out to anyone who cooperated with Escobar. Another thing the Americans working with the Search Bloc liked about the colonel was that he learned from his mistakes. His men did learn to low-crawl, and to fish documents out of latrines. He was candid about his unit's tactical shortcomings, and took steps to correct them. Martinez was skeptical of American technology, but he learned fast. When he overheard Escobar's voice on a portable radio monitor carried by one of the Centra Spike men during a raid, the colonel asked for the same equipment the next time out. Later, when rumors began to circulate that Martinez was eager to nail Escobar because he was secretly on the payroll of the rival Cali cartel - rumors that some of the DEA men took seriously - the group in charge at the U.S. Embassy discounted them. And Martinez himself vigorously denied them. Ambassador Morris Busby and CIA station chief Bill Wagner were not about to discard the colonel. As far as the embassy was concerned, Hugo Martinez was exactly the kind of man to go up against Escobar. The drug boss had finally met his match. Tomorrow: A tour of Escobar's prison suite. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Mark Bowden's e-mail address is [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, All My Relations. Omnia Bona Bonis, Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. 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