There Are No Dead Here

by Maria McFarland Sánchez-Moreno

  Meanwhile, Escobar, who came from the middle class and aspired to a sort of legitimacy among the country’s elites, had built up some popular support by pouring money into public works, including the construction of an entire neighborhood for low-income residents of Medellín, as well as multiple soccer fields across the city. While some of Medellín’s traditional circles of power shunned the new-money drug lords, others quickly attached themselves to their wealth. Escobar became famous for his supermodel lovers and his extravagant spending on parties, cars, and the personal zoo full of wild animals that he kept on his lavish property, the Hacienda Nápoles. In 1982, he even won a seat as an alternate (a substitute, in the event the primary office holder could not perform his duties) to a member of the Colombian Congress.

  But in the mid-1980s, the administration of Ronald Reagan in the United States, which was ramping up its own war on drugs, increased the pressure on Colombia’s government to take legal action against the drug lord. President Belisario Betancur named Rodrigo Lara, a strong critic of the Medellín cartel, minister of justice, and the Colombian Congress began to debate an extradition treaty with US officials that would allow the government to send narco-traffickers like Escobar to the United States for trial. Then, in March 1984, in a joint operation, the Colombian national police and the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) raided Tranquilandia, a vast cocaine-processing complex hiding in the jungle plains of the eastern Colombian states of Caquetá and Meta, run by the Medellín cartel.

  Escobar reacted furiously, unleashing a wave of terror in Medellín and in other cities that had escaped earlier bouts of large-scale violence in Colombia mostly unscathed. Within a month, assassins sent by the cartel had murdered Lara. Over the following years, murders—including assassinations of high-profile officials—would become commonplace. In 1986, assassins murdered Colonel Jaime Ramírez Gómez, the antinarcotics police chief who had led the raid on Tranquilandia. Escobar was believed to have ordered the 1989 assassination during a political rally of popular Liberal presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán, an anticorruption crusader and critic of the cartels, who supported the extradition treaty with the United States. Shortly afterward, Escobar ordered the planting of a bomb on a domestic passenger airplane on which he believed Galán’s replacement, César Gaviria, would be flying. Gaviria wasn’t on board, and went on to become president. But more than one hundred people died when the jet exploded five minutes after taking off from Bogotá.

  Hospitals in Medellín became dangerous places to go, as shooting victims who made it that far often had assassins on their heels—teenagers on motorcycles, gang members, or simply killers for hire. Many of the assassins would themselves die before ever becoming adults. Often, the sun would rise to find the city littered with human bodies, many of them never to be identified. Various criminal gangs and armed factions silently battled for control of the city and its profitable cocaine markets. With his seemingly limitless resources, Escobar gave public officials a choice between plata o plomo—silver or lead, meaning a bribe or death by a bullet. It became nearly impossible to tell who was with Escobar and who was against him. Meanwhile, the Colombian military and police engaged in their own acts of brutality, killing and “disappearing” young people believed to be Escobar’s associates.

  By 1991, when Velásquez became inspector general of Medellín, Escobar had agreed to a policy of “submission”—he turned himself in to the authorities, but on the condition that he would not be extradited to the United States and would stay at La Catedral, a “prison” he had built for himself on the top of a mountain with a view of all of Medellín. But the killings continued: the drug kingpin kept running his criminal operations from La Catedral, and at that point, he was conducting a war not only against the government, but also against the rival Cali cartel, run by the brothers Gilberto and Miguel Rodríguez Orejuela. And in his efforts to maintain ever tighter control over the cartel and its profits, he had alienated some of his closest associates.

  AS INSPECTOR GENERAL, the thirty-six-year-old Velásquez took his job seriously, and in one of his early investigations uncovered a torture chamber that he believed was being used by members of an elite joint anti-kidnapping squad operated by the army and police known as UNASE (Unidad Anti-Secuestro y Extorsion, or Anti-Kidnapping and Extortion Unit). His work angered sectors of the public security forces, but at the same time, Velásquez had to constantly worry about an attack from Escobar’s people: on one of his first days on the job, a former colleague had introduced him to two nicely dressed men who, claiming to be emissaries from Escobar, had offered him a suitcase full of tens of thousands of dollars, “in appreciation” for his work on behalf of the people of Medellín. Velásquez had rejected the money, insisting that his salary was paid by the government. But, concerned that Escobar would seek revenge, he had then visited the drug lord at La Catedral, to explain in person why he would not accept money from him. Fortunately, the sweaty Escobar, who was in the middle of a game of soccer when Velásquez arrived, had seemed to be in an amiable mood at the time. Far from being the scary, aggressive figure Velásquez had always imagined, Escobar acted surprisingly submissive, with his head bent down, staring at his feet as they moved pebbles around on the ground. Only occasionally did he look up at Velásquez, with an expression of something akin to shyness. Velásquez never was able to figure out why Escobar acted that way—it was not as though he had much power to intimidate the drug lord. Velásquez immediately explained what had happened with Escobar’s envoys, and that he could not accept money. Escobar listened, and apologetically told him not to worry: it was too bad that there had been a mistake, but he wasn’t seeking anything in exchange, he said. He simply wanted to recognize the good work Velásquez was doing. Velásquez repeated that he would not take money from anyone, as he was simply doing his job, and Escobar seemed to take it in stride. With that, Velásquez left, feeling a surge of relief: it looked like the drug lord was leaving him alone—at least for now.

  Velásquez would go to La Catedral two more times. In early 1992, his boss in Bogotá, Carlos Gustavo Arrieta, the national inspector general, ordered him to conduct an inspection of the inside of the prison. There were concerns about the prison’s security and the illegal activity possibly taking place inside. Few public officials had ventured inside La Catedral, but Velásquez got to meet Escobar again. He took photos of what he discovered was a luxurious, well-furnished house with a gym, kitchen, and several bedrooms. It was filled with expensive televisions, pool tables, and elegantly carved, heavy wooden furniture, all of which a prisoner was not supposed to have. There was even a large doll’s house for Escobar’s young daughter, Manuela, to play with when she visited. It would have been impossible for all that to get into La Catedral without National Prison Institute officials noticing. The photos were eventually made public, generating a national outcry over the government’s permissiveness, but as far as Velásquez could tell, the government did little to change the status quo.

  In July 1992, Velásquez received instructions to go to La Catedral again, though he was not told why. A few weeks earlier, Escobar had killed two of his associates, Fernando Galeano and Kiko Moncada, and had their bodies dismembered and incinerated on the grounds of La Catedral itself. That was the last straw for the government of César Gaviria, which then decided—according to official accounts—to transfer Escobar to another prison. But the operation was poorly coordinated. When Velásquez arrived outside the inner perimeter of the prison in the late afternoon, he encountered a stout but tough-looking army general, Gustavo Pardo Ariza, who was having an animated discussion with the young, polished vice minister of justice, Eduardo Mendoza, and the national prisons director, Colonel Hernando Navas. Mendoza and Navas, who had flown in from Bogotá, were arguing that they should go inside to explain the transfer to Escobar. Pardo Ariza opposed the idea, but upon their continued insistence, suggested that Velásquez join them. To Velásquez, it seemed odd that they disagreed: Why didn’t Mendoza an
d Navas want witnesses to whatever they were going to say? Navas then said that he should go in alone. After much back and forth, Pardo eventually relented. Navas went in, and, after a while, Mendoza was called in as well. Velásquez waited outside for a couple of hours. At one point, a guard came up to the fence and summoned Velásquez: Navas and Mendoza wanted him to join them, he said. Velásquez was uneasy, but got ready to go in, when Pardo stopped him—things didn’t look right. He instructed the guard to tell Escobar that nobody else was going in until he knew that Mendoza and Navas were safe. Well into the evening, they learned that Escobar was claiming he had taken Mendoza and Navas hostage. He was reportedly furious: he believed the transfer was really an effort to extradite him.

  Velásquez spent the rest of the night sitting on a small chair in a shack outside the prison, with only his suit to protect him from the dark mountain chill, as he and the army general waited for a breakthrough. At one point, he jumped when an airplane flew low overhead and all the lights went off in the prison. Finally, at dawn, as if in a dream, Velásquez glimpsed heavily armed soldiers materializing through the fog and trees, encircling La Catedral. He heard an explosion and shouts. Bullets whizzed by him, in both directions, and he ran out of the exposed shack to hide behind a tree. By 9 a.m., the news was out: special forces had seized the prison. Escobar was gone.

  Meanwhile, María Victoria had spent the whole night without news from Velásquez. She had told the kids that everything was fine, but she was worried sick. Had he been killed? Abducted? The news reports about the seizure of the prison did not mention him. So when morning came, she dropped the kids off at school and drove to Envigado, the hometown of Escobar, to try to talk to Mayor Jorge Mesa, who was rumored to be close to the drug kingpin. By sheer force of will, she got Mesa’s guards to let her in. Mesa was initially unfriendly, but eventually made a phone call. He then told her: “Your husband was a coward who didn’t want to go in and talk to Escobar. I recommend that you hide your children immediately. You don’t know who Pablo is when he’s mad.” Velásquez was alive, he said, but he reiterated that Escobar was angry, and their children would pay the price. Relieved to hear her husband was alive, María Victoria thanked him and rushed to the pay phone to call her sister, asking her to pick up the children from school right away and hide them.

  While María Victoria was in Envigado, Velásquez had completed an inspection—required by his position—of what had happened at La Catedral after special forces entered, and had come back to Medellín. But he was almost immediately pulled into a meeting at the office of Juan Pablo Gómez Martínez, the governor of Antioquia. In the middle of the meeting, a phone call came in from Escobar’s brother, Roberto, who was also known as “El Osito” (The Little Bear). The person with whom Velásquez was meeting turned on the speaker-phone: El Osito was railing against Velásquez, saying Pablo Escobar viewed Velásquez as part of a plot against him. “He has to pay, he knew what was going to happen,” Velásquez later recalled El Osito saying. That night, Velásquez appeared on local news shows, explaining what had happened from his perspective: he had been sent to La Catedral with no information about what was going to happen, and had not been involved in any of the planning about the transfer. Some of Escobar’s associates later told him that the interview had saved his life—it had corrected their impression that Velásquez had been planning to trick Escobar into being extradited to the United States.

  María Victoria Velásquez, Medellín, 1980s. © Iván and María Victoria Velásquez.

  The family was finally reunited that night. María Victoria later recalled that Velásquez was so stressed and tired that his hands were shaking as he lit one cigarette after another.

  Escobar’s escape marked the beginning of a long period of constant fear for Velásquez and his family, not only because of Escobar’s threats, but also because of what Escobar’s enemies might do. Now that Escobar was on the run, he had escalated his attacks on the government and his enemies in the drug world. At the same time, an elite Colombian police unit, the Bloque de Búsqueda, or Search Bloc, focused on finding Escobar; it worked closely with a US special forces team known as Centra Spike, which fed intelligence to the Colombians. There were also rumors of the involvement of a group of former associates of Escobar who had turned against him. Known as Los Pepes (for Persecuted by Pablo Escobar, or Perseguidos por Pablo Escobar), the group was said to be torturing, kidnapping, and killing Escobar’s cronies, weakening his influence. A few of Escobar’s associates had turned themselves in to the government through Velásquez’s office, which they viewed as safe—unlike the police, who might call in Los Pepes. At one point, Velásquez even sent officials to accompany Escobar’s family on a drive from the airport to their apartment in Medellín, as they feared an attack by Los Pepes. After all, “the fact that he was a killer did not mean that we had to tolerate other killers murdering his family,” recalled Velásquez. But all these actions meant that the members of Los Pepes might view Velásquez himself as an enemy. For months, the Velásquez family lived with a heavy military guard. For the first, but not last, time, María Victoria started receiving threatening phone calls at work, though she kept them to herself so as not to upset her husband. They kept the kids in their apartment—not even letting them go to the door of the apartment complex, much less to the park or to friends’ parties. Her parents tried to keep what was happening from her, but Catalina, who was then twelve, could sense the tension, and she had recurrent nightmares about something happening to her father.

  The tense atmosphere came to an abrupt end on December 2, 1993, when the government announced that a squad from the Search Bloc had located Escobar in a Medellín house and shot him to death as he tried to escape through the roof. US and Colombian officials celebrated the killing as a landmark success in the war on drugs, and many people in Medellín breathed a sigh of relief: with Escobar’s killing spree over, maybe now they would enter a time of renewed peace.

  For a while, as the slaughter slowed, that seemed to be the case. Few people understood that Escobar’s slaughter had planted the seeds for yet another brand of terror.

  BY THE TIME Velásquez came back to Medellín four years later, he was forty-two years old. Tall and gaunt, with large brown eyes set in a pale face, straight brown hair that crept over his ears, and a strong, slightly curved nose above a thick mustache, he usually projected a thoughtful calmness that only broke when he smiled or laughed, making his whole face light up. He could be very affectionate with his kids, but that would have surprised most people, as he usually came across as distant and formal with colleagues. His everyday attire was formal, too, though simple, consisting mainly of suits and sweaters in solid grays or earth tones; he didn’t spend much time or money on his appearance. Only his smoking habit hinted at the stress he sometimes felt.

  Velásquez had left his job as inspector general of Medellín in 1994, when a new national inspector general took over. For the next four years he had served as a representative of the inspector general’s office before an administrative tribunal in Antioquia, and then, in Bogotá, as an assistant justice for the Council of State, one of Colombia’s four high courts, which also focused on administrative matters. These jobs kept Velásquez busy, so he had little time to stay on top of how the war was evolving in Antioquia beyond what appeared in the news media.

  It was only when he took over as chief prosecutor in 1997 that Velásquez started to grasp the nature of the new threat facing the region: the newly organized, seemingly very well-funded paramilitary groups that were swiftly taking over the countryside. They were especially active in two of the states he was covering: Córdoba and Antioquia. Certainly, paramilitaries had been killing activists for years, but these groups seemed much larger, more brazen, and even more bloodthirsty than the death squads of the past. His bosses in Bogotá, Attorney General Alfonso Gómez Méndez and Deputy Attorney General Jaime Córdoba, had urged him to make investigating the paramilitaries a priority, but they had warned him that it wo
uld not be easy. Two criminal investigators from his office had been killed, apparently by paramilitaries, earlier that year, and there were reports that paramilitaries had infiltrated the CTI (Cuerpo Técnico de Investigación, or Technical Investigation Team, a branch of the attorney general’s office that conducted criminal investigations).

  Worse yet, if Velásquez’s old friend Jesús María Valle was to be believed, the military was actively backing the paramilitaries. In the preceding months, Velásquez had watched Valle embark on a one-man crusade to draw attention to what he viewed as complicity between the military and the paramilitaries.

  VELÁSQUEZ HAD KNOWN Valle since the mid-1980s, when his law school thesis adviser, J. Guillermo Escobar, had invited him to join an informal group of lawyers calling themselves the Group for Prisoners’ Human Rights. Velásquez had married and begun having children in his twenties, and had invested most of his energy in those years in working and supporting his family while María Victoria went to law school. But Velásquez had always had a quiet but deep passion for issues of social justice, so when J. Guillermo called, Velásquez jumped at the opportunity to join the group.

  The group organized prison visits to talk to inmates, found them legal representation, and checked on their prison conditions. In doing so, they found one prison where inmates who “misbehaved” were locked up in a narrow, windowless corridor known as the “tunnel.” There, they had to scurry, lest they get drenched in waste from other prisoners on the floors above, which poured down from openings in the ceiling. In another prison, inmates were punished by being locked up together in six-by-six-foot cells, ten prisoners to a cell, with no toilet and only a bottle they passed around to take care of their physical needs. Through letters, complaints, and public statements, the Group for Prisoners’ Human Rights protested the conditions, and sometimes they managed to get institutions to change the rules.