by Austin Galt
The paramilitary groups were then demobilised and given amnesty, although not everyone surrendered themselves to the government. Some continued their criminal activities, stealing from the rich landowners and distributing the loot among themselves and the poor peasants. One of these bandits, known as bandoleros or chusmeros, was Tirofijo. Having become more ideologically extreme, he left the liberals and started supporting the communists. Under attack from government forces, he would go on to form the FARC a decade later.
Civilian rule was restored in 1957 after the Conservative and Liberal parties formed a bipartisan coalition known as the Frente Nacional or National Front. This was led by the Liberal Party’s Alberto Lleras Camargo who became the 20th president of Colombia in 1958, ruling until 1962. Each political party took turns at the presidency until 1974 when the coalition was dissolved.
La Violencia derived its name from the brutal manner in which the killings were carried out. Apart from victims being beheaded and hacked to death, many deaths involved torture, such as cutting up a person’s body slowly and painfully and stabbing people ever so slightly multiple times so that they weren’t killed instantly but instead slowly bled to death. Another method involved slitting the victim’s throat and then pulling the tongue through the open wound. This was known as the Colombian necktie. This, however, may have been more myth and part of the psychological warfare waged and aimed at scaring the population.
The return to these extreme levels of violence several decades later was a disturbing trend. And to make matters worse, not only were the AUC warring against the guerrillas, disputes broke out within their own ranks and with their allies.
La Terraza, an ally of the AUC, was essentially the only surviving hitman squad from the Medellín Cartel era. After the cartel’s undoing, the money stopped flowing as freely and so La Terraza resorted to other forms of revenue, such as kidnapping-for-ransom, holding up banks and stealing cars. They also brought in cash through extorting local businesses, known as vacunas, while also receiving financial support from some of the city’s key drug traffickers such as Don Berna and Francisco ‘Pacho’ Cifuentes.
After previously being one of Pablo Escobar’s top pilots, Pacho Cifuentes had climbed the criminal ladder and eventually became Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán’s most trusted man in Colombia. Cifuentes controlled a hangar at Medellín’s Olaya Herrera airport situated in the middle of the Aburrá Valley. It was the second-busiest airport behind Bogotá with many drug flights beginning their journey there. The planes are generally diverted mid-flight to a clandestine airstrip to pick up the cocaine and drop it off at another location before continuing on to its original destination. The planes fly low or turn off their transponders so that they are not picked up by radar, while flight logs are changed so that the plane is registered as leaving later than it actually does. Pacho Cifuentes also owned a clandestine airstrip north of Medellín and he was later killed by Don Berna due to a dispute over it.
La Terraza was behind some high-profile crimes during the late 1990s, including the assassination of beloved comedian Jaime Garzón and the kidnapping of the politician Piedad Córdoba.
Jaime Garzón appeared regularly on Colombian television, poking fun at the country’s political leaders. He created many recognisable fictional characters, such as a shoe polisher who interviewed the main politicians of the day. In March 1998, the FARC kidnapped over 30 people, including several Americans, travelling on the road that connects Bogotá to Villavicencio. The Americans were freed a month later and Garzón, also a peace activist, was instrumental in negotiating their release. This put the noses of some top military and police leaders out of joint. They had begun to suspect he was a FARC collaborator and word of this had reached the ears of AUC leader, Carlos Castaño.
While driving his Jeep Cherokee late in the afternoon on 13 August 1999, two men on a motorbike rode up beside Garzón’s car and shot him five times. Carlos Castaño was accused of being the mastermind of the crime and paramilitary leaders subsequently backed this up, adding that it was likely part of a broader conspiracy between senior military and police figures. This has never been proven in a court of law.
Piedad Córdoba is a left-wing Colombian politician who was kidnapped in May 1999 by La Terraza members on behalf of Carlos Castaño. She was lucky to escape with her life after several important businessmen and government figures pushed for her execution. However, under both domestic and international pressure, she was released after a couple of weeks.
She went on to become a Colombian senator and a fiery critic of President Uribe, once calling him a ‘paramilitary president’ at a conference in Mexico. After the military operation which killed FARC leader Raúl Reyes in 2008, retrieved laptops and USB devices revealed correspondence between Reyes and Senator Córdoba. The scandal was dubbed ‘Farcpolitica’ and resulted in Córdoba being dismissed and barred from holding public office for 18 years. It was later ruled that the evidence had been illegally obtained and the chain of custody breached which led to the decision being overturned, due to insufficient evidence, in 2016.
In 1999, La Terraza started complaining that they were not making enough money and wanted a greater share of profits from the drug business. Complicating matters, they then took several million dollars from an apartment in the Laureles neighbourhood of Medellín which Carlos Castaño claimed belonged to him. La Terraza denied there was ever any money there.
Soon after, some drug routes became available after several traffickers, including Fabio Ochoa and Alejandro ‘Juvenal’ Bernal, another Medellín Cartel member who later testified against Fabio Ochoa, were arrested as part of Operation Millenium. La Terraza wanted to take over these routes but were prevented doing so by Don Berna. This led to La Terraza declaring their independence. It was the final straw for Berna.
Tired of La Terraza’s insubordination, Berna turned on the group and had its leader murdered. La Terraza replied by taking out Don Berna’s brother Rodolfo. Many members of La Terraza, which had over 200 assassins on the books, chose to leave and join up with the Oficina de Envigado.
La Terraza’s leadership was now under serious pressure and saw the offer of a truce by Carlos Castaño as a way out of their predicament. The offer, however, was just a ruse. They were invited to the Finca Perra Perdida or Lost Dog Farm in Córdoba where they would sort out their differences. Just before arriving at the farm on 3 August 2000, they were intercepted by the paramilitaries. A shoot-out followed and nine La Terraza leaders were wiped out with their bodies dumped in the Sinú River.
The AUC, who lost two members in the firefight, put out a public notice saying that they had eliminated most of La Terraza’s leadership and hence done the government and citizens a great service. La Terraza replied publicly, stating they had been set up by Don Berna and Carlos Castaño who had colluded with army and police figures, including police commander Mauricio Santoyo who would go on to become the head of security for President Álvaro Uribe.
Not long after the shoot-out, the security situation in Medellín really deteriorated. In the first half of 2001, two car bombs exploded and were attributed to the war between the Oficina de Envigado and La Terraza. At about 7.30 pm on 10 January 2001, a car bomb was detonated in the car park of the upmarket shopping mall El Tesoro. One woman was killed with 53 injured. The bomb damaged over 150 cars with many completely obliterated, while the main floor of the mall was also seriously damaged. At approximately 10 pm on 17 May 2001, a car bomb was detonated in Parque Lleras, the city’s nightlife zone, killing eight people and injuring around 100 others, while many of the surrounding establishments were damaged. It is widely believed that La Terraza was the author of both crimes, although they denied it.
After several more of its leaders were killed, La Terraza was on its knees and in order to deliver the coup de grâce Don Berna called in the help of Mauricio Santoyo. Don Berna had cultivated his connections within the government’s security forces after coming in contact with them during his time with
Los Pepes.
Police commander Danilo González, an intelligence expert, was the main contact between the Search Bloc and Los Pepes. It was Gonzalez who had convinced ‘The Dirty Dozen’ to collaborate with the government against Escobar in return for amnesty. Berna and González became very close and would often go on search patrols together.
After the takedown of Escobar, the Search Bloc with González in tow headed to Cali, eventually taking down the Cali Cartel as well. A similar modus operandi would be employed in using other crime figures to gain intelligence. In 1996, Cali Cartel leader Chepe Santacruz was on the run after escaping jail in Bogotá. With the Search Bloc looking desperately for him, González began to tap into his underworld contacts. In Medellín that was his old Los Pepes cohorts, Don Berna and Carlos Castaño. When Santacruz turned up dead on the Las Palmas mountainside above Medellín, it was likely on orders of one of the leaders of Los Pepes. A favour was done for González who received the tip-off. The Search Bloc arrived and the body was handed over for them to stage the death and take the credit.
González had well and truly become the go-to man for getting things done that involved the underworld. Information is power and with all his police and underworld contacts Danilo González was the top dog. He retired from the police force in 1998 and set up his own criminal organisation based on his network of both active and retired policemen. It was known in the underworld as the ‘Cartel de los Diablos’ or ‘Devil’s Cartel’.
González likely introduced Don Berna to Mauricio Santoyo, the leader of Medellín’s anti-kidnapping unit known by its acronym GAULA – Grupo de Acción Unificada por la Libertad Personal or Unified Action Group for Personal Freedom. This was a massive source of information, having control over all the wiretaps involving the criminal world. By the time Don Berna called on Santoyo for help in eliminating La Terraza once and for all, he had just been promoted to lead the Cuerpo Élite Antiterrorista (CEAT) or Elite Anti-Terrorist Unit. A drug trafficker linked with the AUC subsequently testified that Santoyo was one of the recipients of Don Berna’s million-dollar payroll set aside for corrupt officers. Santoyo came through with the goods and by 2002 La Terraza was no more.
By now, there were two paramilitary blocs operating in and around Medellín – the Metro Bloc and the Cacique Nutibara Bloc. The Metro Bloc arose in 1997 and was led by Doble Cero, while the Cacique Nutibara Bloc came to prominence in 2000 and was led by Don Berna who took on the nom de guerre Adolfo Paz. These two paramilitary blocs controlled all of Medellín except for one area.
The city’s most dangerous barrio or suburb, Comuna 13, was where left-wing urban guerrillas, inspired by the FARC and ELN, had been operating since the 1980s. These militias originated from the need to protect the neighbourhood from criminal gangs and cleanse it of undesirables. The Milicias Populares del Pueblo y para el Pueblo (MPPP) or Militias of the People and for the People was aligned with the FARC, while the Milicias Metropolitanas (MM) or Metropolitan Militias was linked to the ELN. By 1996, these groups had morphed into the Comandos Armados del Pueblo (CAP) or Armed Commandos of the People. Heading into the next decade, this armed group held sway over Comuna 13. It was the last little pocket of resistance remaining in the city. That was about to end.
On 16 October 2002, the Cacique Nutibara paramilitary bloc joined forces with the police and military to expel these criminal elements. Residents were barred from leaving the area for the duration of the operation. Soldiers on board helicopters opened fire on the densely populated area, backed up by paramilitary and security forces on the ground. An AUC paramilitary who operated in the comuna, known by his alias of King Kong, was able to help identify guerrillas to be disposed of. On his orders, many were chopped up and buried in the local garbage dump.
The fighting left several dead on both sides, while over 200 criminals were arrested. Hundreds more disappeared, allegedly at the hands of the paramilitaries. Over 20 kidnapping victims were also discovered and liberated. The operation lasted several days and successfully rid the city of communist insurgents. Operation Orión, as it was called, was the biggest urban military operation in Colombia’s history.
The only barrier that now remained in the way of Don Berna’s complete control of the city was Doble Cero. That was also about to be rectified. Doble Cero was a paramilitary purist like his good friend Carlos Castaño whose power was waning thanks to the infiltration of pure narcos into the paramilitary leadership ranks. Doble Cero disagreed with drug trafficking and publicly denounced its influence on the paramilitary movement which put him in opposition to many in the AUC, including Don Berna.
The AUC was heavily funded by the cocaine trade and paramilitary chiefs had designed a plan to further incorporate drug trafficking into its framework. In January 2001, the top paramilitary brass met at Carlos Castaño’s ranch where they laid out El Plan Birmania or The Burma Plan whereby the paramilitaries, financially backed by drug trafficking, would assume political power beginning at the local level before going national. A military junta would eventually be set up similar to that in Burma (now Myanmar) which is supported by the production and manufacture of opium and heroin in the Golden Triangle. Castaño rejected the plan outright and gave up the leadership several months later in May 2001.
A secret pact was then made by paramilitary chiefs and numerous politicians faithful to the paramilitary cause aimed at ‘re-founding’ the country. The Ralito Pact was signed on 23 July 2001 at a farm owned by the AUC’s third-in-command, Salomón Feris Chadid. The AUC commanders who signed the document included Adolfo Paz, Jorge 40, Diego Vecino and Santander Lozada (the nom de guerre of Salvatore Mancuso). The purpose of the pact was to help the paramilitaries increase their political power before heading into a peace process. The discovery of the document several years later would give rise to the ‘parapolitics’ scandal, as the paramilitary infiltration of Colombian politics is known.
Doble Cero was left exposed after the abdication of Carlos Castaño, and in 2002, he and the Metro Bloc decided to leave the AUC and go it alone. When initial peace talks between the Uribe government and the AUC commenced in mid-2003, Doble Cero refused to demobilise and war subsequently broke out with Don Berna’s Cacique Nutibara Bloc which received support from some members of the military.
Medellín was the epicentre of the bloody conflict which also spread to surrounding municipalities. By late 2003, the war was over. More than 1000 people had lost their lives. The Metro Bloc had been decimated and many of those who still remained joined the Cacique Nutibara Bloc. Doble Cero fled but would be assassinated the following year in Santa Marta.
Don Berna was now the undisputed king of Medellín. He ordered all of the city’s crime gangs to celebrate his reign at the start of December 2003. The celebration consisted of firecrackers being let off throughout the Aburrá Valley from midnight on the cusp of 30 November and 1 December. This mafia tradition, known as La Alborada or The Dawn, continues in the city to this day.
Much of Medellín’s population also celebrated the peace that enveloped the city with homicide rates dropping by half virtually overnight. Authorisation for murders went through Don Berna, who also mediated disputes. Some murders that were authorised would then be handed over to the police for them to claim which decreased the murder rate even more. Everything was now running smoothly, greased by the immense profits from the cocaine trade.
Lasting until 2008, this period of peace under Don Berna’s governance would come to be known as ‘Donbernabilidad’. The term was coined by Colombian politician Rodrigo Lara Restrepo, the son of Rodrigo Lara Bonilla who had been assassinated over two decades earlier. It was a governability made possible only by the coming together of criminal and government forces. Criminals don’t fear the government security forces but they do fear a criminal overlord. Don Berna had risen to heights only dreamed of by Pablo Escobar.
Peace negotiations between the Uribe administration and the AUC officially commenced on 15 July 2003 with the signing of the Santa Fe de Rali
to Agreement. It was named after the village in the municipality of Tierralta in Córdoba where many of the demobilisations (which involved paramilitaries handing over their weapons) would take place. The demobilisations took place under the legal framework Ley de Justicia y Paz or Justice and Peace Law, also known as Law 975, which was approved by Congress in July 2005 and also required participants to confess their crimes in return for a prison sentence of no longer than eight years.
The Cacique Nutibara Bloc was the first to demobilise on 25 November 2003. Don Berna’s paramilitary days weren’t over, though. He immediately replaced the demobilised bloc with a new paramilitary bloc – Heroes of Granada – thus making a mockery of the demobilisation process. He also set up another bloc, Heroes of Tolová, which protected his drug-trafficking operations in Córdoba.
A month later, the Corporación Democracia or Democracy Corporation was formed to help those demobilised paramilitaries in Medellín make the transition to normal civilian life. However, it was largely funded by the Oficina de Envigado and it essentially became a front for that criminal organisation. The Democracy Corporation was headed by Antonio ‘Job’ López who spoke on behalf of the demobilised fighters.
Job was previously an ELN guerrilla who demobilised with the CRS in 1994 before continuing his criminal ways as a right-wing paramilitary, proving crime was his true love. The Heroes of Tolová Bloc demobilised in June 2005 while the Heroes of Granada Bloc demobilised in August 2005, helping the Democracy Corporation reach its peak membership of at least 4500 ex-paramilitaries, all of whom now had ‘clean’ criminal records.
While leading paramilitary figures, such as Don Berna, negotiated peace with the Colombian government in order to avoid extradition, Carlos Castaño thought it was inevitable and was supposedly negotiating with the DEA. The narcos who had infiltrated the paramilitary ranks became uneasy and, for this reason, Vicente Castaño was pressured to give the order to take out his brother; on 16 April 2004 that order was given.
