by Austin Galt
I arranged for him to meet Lily over some drinks out on the patio of the Bogotá Beer Company. It was late October 2003 and just a few weeks before the grenade attack. The next evening we all dined together at the French restaurant in La Macarena – the same French restaurant I had previously lived above and which was a FARC military target. After a delicious meal, Lily went to the bathroom and my father immediately turned to me and said, ‘Never lose that girl’.
I was already comfortable with my decision but, of course, it was nice to have my father’s blessing too. However, we still had to get through 2004 first.
Heading into the Easter break, military and police forces began receiving information from confidential sources that the FARC were preparing to attack tourists travelling via La Linea. Later in the week, Lily and I were totally unaware of these developments as we made our way back from Cali where we had caught up with Pedro and Carolina. After safely traversing the mountain pass we were both in need of some sustenance and so stopped at a restaurant at the bottom of the mountain in Cajamarca. As we ate some fairly forgettable food, the FARC guerrillas were approaching the area. The army was readying itself for action as we paid the bill and resumed our homeward journey. An hour later the battle commenced. We only learnt about it upon watching the evening news. Admittedly, a part of me wished we’d stayed another hour to see the action!
A more immediate threat was still to come.
It was cold and eerily silent as I made my way down one of the main roads in Bogotá’s downtown area. It was 3 am in the morning and I had just bid farewell to an ex-housemate at the casa in La Candelaria, and was now in search of a taxi. This is not where I wanted to find myself alone at this time in the morning. You could’ve heard a pin drop but there were plenty of people around. Hundreds of homeless people packed the footpath as they slept side by side. (They paid the local mafia boss 2000 pesos or $1 for the privilege to do so.)
I was getting a little anxious now. I had come to this area plenty of times during the day, but this was my first time here at the witching hour. A couple of men across the road spotted me and started crossing over towards me. Shit. I kept one hand in my jacket pocket and made it look like I had a gun, while I gave them a firm wave of my index finger on my other hand and the meanest look I could muster. I prayed that was enough. Thankfully, the bluff worked and they backed off, returning to their side of the road. To my relief, a taxi then appeared and I jumped in.
While at home one evening chatting to a couple of friends online in Australia, I was nearly knocked off my chair by a loud bang. It seemed so close I thought the explosion had occurred in my building. I told my friends I needed to investigate and after going downstairs there was a bit of commotion. A government building located 50 metres down the road had been bombed. Rubble was strewn across the footpath and road but there was only superficial damage to the building. However, it was lucky no one was walking by at the time of the explosion, including me. I had passed by just an hour earlier on my way to the local store to buy some milk.
Having scraped through most of the year unscathed, a friend from Sydney, who had agreed to be my best man, flew over a few weeks early to get the party started. The festivities commenced with a trip down to Cali to see Pedro before flying up to Santa Marta where we stayed at the Casa Blanca, a cheap but ideally located hotel right on the water’s edge at Taganga. It was good to be back in paradise.
There wasn’t much to do at night. One of the locals had set up a little bar in his garage and backyard, while one of his neighbours was the local cocaine supplier and upon requesting some I was asked if I wanted the ‘smooth, medium or strong’. This was a first. I was a bit unsure which to choose so I boringly settled on the medium. A good time was had but it didn’t beat kicking back by the bay and drinking a beer at one of the kiosks, though.
While it may have seemed an idyllic setting, it had been anything but in the region’s criminal underworld. I didn’t know it then but Santa Marta and the surrounding region was under the control of paramilitary boss Hernán Giraldo. Don Giraldo, as he was simply known, had been given several nicknames such as El Patrón – The Boss, El Señor de la Sierra – The Lord of the Mountain and El Taladro – The Drill. This last nickname stemmed from his penchant for underage virgin girls.
Giraldo arrived in Santa Marta in 1969 after fleeing the violence that was plaguing his home in Caldas state. The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is a large coffee growing territory and he started out collecting coffee from the various farms which allowed him to meet many people and he quickly gained their confidence. He then turned to the better paying wood-cutting business and before long he had bought his first farm.
During the 1970s, the drug trade was blossoming and the fertile ground of the Sierra Nevada provided excellent growing conditions. The marijuana bonanza saw many people get rich with high-quality strains such as ‘Santa Marta Gold’ in high demand in the United States. Coca came later when the cocaine boom commenced during the 1980s. The region was also conveniently far away from the prying eyes of the government’s security forces. Giraldo got into the mix and his land holdings in the region began to grow rapidly, along with the illegal crops he planted on them.
After his brother was murdered in Santa Marta’s fruit and vegetable market in 1977, Giraldo used his connections to form a vigilante group called Los Chamizos or The Charred Trees which rid the area of common criminals whether by threat or by force. They also began extorting the market’s store owners under the guise of providing security. As his reputation grew, he began to form strong alliances with the businessmen who supplied the markets with its produce. There were no supermarkets in the city back then so these businessmen wielded great economic power and these alliances allowed Don Giraldo to consolidate his power.
By the 1980s he had converted the north-eastern Sierra Nevada into his personal fiefdom, controlling the region’s thoroughfares and ports. He formed partnerships with both the Cali Cartel and Medellín Cartel and would receive a commission on all drugs that came through the region. But his dominion would soon be targeted by the arrival of the guerrillas. The FARC arrived on the scene in 1982 and immediately identified Giraldo as a threat.
Don Giraldo survived two unsuccessful FARC attacks in 1983 and 1984. The first attack consisted of a grenade being thrown at a car he was supposed to be travelling in, however, he had changed his plans at the last moment and wasn’t in the car. Ten-year-old twin sisters were killed as well as two adults. The second attack occurred one night after Giraldo was drinking in the village of El Mamey. After leaving in a convoy of cars headed for one of his nearby farms, the guerrillas fired on the first car in which they were expecting Giraldo to travel in. However, his car had become stuck in the mud and so, after being pulled free, he was travelling at the back. The FARC killed four of his bodyguards while Giraldo was unhurt.
Giraldo was extremely lucky to escape unscathed after the FARC’s third attempt in 1986. The guerrillas had put more time and effort into this attack, planting small bombs on the road between El Mamey and Quebrada de Sol with armed men hiding by the side ready to follow up the initial assault. They waited three days for Giraldo to come through which he eventually did, travelling in a convoy of three cars with Giraldo driving the middle car. As the first car passed by, the guerrillas detonated the bombs slightly ahead of schedule which led to a firefight and, in the confusion, Giraldo was able to escape down a ravine. However, three other people travelling in the car with him were all killed, including his son.
Vowing revenge on the guerrillas, Giraldo set up paramilitary groups called Autodefensas Campesinas de la Vertiente Nororiente de la Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta or Peasant Self-Defence Forces of the Northeastern Slope of the Snowy Mountain of Santa Marta and Autodefensas Campesinas de El Mamey or Peasant Self-Defence Forces of El Mamey. The groups were extensions of Los Chamizos and operated in the northern part of the Sierra Nevada which straddles the border of Magdalena and La Guajira states.
W
hile Giraldo had cemented his place in the north, another powerful clan was operating in the western region of the Sierra Nevada – the Rojas clan. Adán Rojas, the patriarch of the clan, was only 11 years old when his father was murdered in front of him and his family by the communist insurgents Tirofijo and Charro Negro. The pair had come to the Rojas family farm to kill him because he had given panela or unrefined sugar cane to members of the Colombian army. Adán then took up arms with the Limpios paramilitary group, led by Jesús María ‘Mariachi’ Oviedo, which hunted Tirofijo. They came very close to killing the guerrilla leader several times, but after six years he decided to leave and head for greener pastures in Santa Marta.
Rojas lived on a coffee farm in the Sierra Nevada but he didn’t stay there long, moving further up the mountain to the village of Palmor where he bought some land and cattle. He was happy here as he raised his six young children, but the family’s tranquillity was eventually upset by the arrival of the guerrillas around the beginning of the 1980s. Both the FARC and ELN had entered the zone and tried extorting Adán. Still bitter over the death of his father at the hands of the guerrillas, he refused to pay and instead took up arms with other farmers in the area who were also being extorted.
His band of vigilantes was joined by several of his sons and they became known as the Autodefensas de Los Rojas or The Rojas Self-Defence Forces. Some members of the group, including Adán’s son Rigoberto, later travelled to Puerto Boyacá to train with Carlos Castaño under the guidance of Yair Klein. The Rojas’ connection to the Castaños would prove useful in the years to come. They were also helped out by the Durán brothers from the nearby municipality of Fundación. Jairo ‘El Mico’ Durán would donate some of his drug-trafficking profits to the cause, while Alex provided them with any information he came across on the guerrillas and their collaborators in the area.
Over the years, Adán Rojas became good friends with Don Giraldo, and in 1984, they agreed to divide up the Sierra Nevada. Giraldo would control everything on the north side of the Sierra Nevada, while Rojas controlled everything on the west side. They also essentially merged their paramilitary forces with those of José María ‘Chepe’ Barrera. Los Cheperos, as they were called, controlled territory to the south of Magdalena state. The combined paramilitary group became known as ‘Los Señores de la Guerra’ or ‘The Lords of War’ with Don Giraldo as its leader.
Don Giraldo was arrested in 1989 by the DAS, which had begun preliminary investigations into the paramilitary boss. After transferring him to prison in Bogotá, he used his political connections to get the investigation cut short which facilitated his release. Upon his arrival back in Santa Marta, hundreds of people gathered at the airport to greet him while a band played to celebrate the occasion, all at the expense of one of the city’s most powerful families. Giraldo immediately returned to the Sierra Nevada and, with his partners, resumed his battle against the guerrillas and their supporters. The FARC, ELN, Patriotic Union members and anyone else with communist sympathies were all targets and it wasn’t long before the frequency of massacres began to increase.
On 25 April 1992, a group of 10 paramilitaries dressed in Colombian military attire installed a fake checkpoint in the village of Santa Rosa de Lima. They stopped a car coming through carrying five people, including wealthy businessman Ambrosio Plata who owned a coal-transport company. Adán Rojas had been told by his military contacts that guerrillas used the company’s vehicles to move around. Rigoberto ordered his men to kidnap Plata and kill the rest after which Plata was taken before Don Giraldo. A big ransom was demanded and was paid. Nonetheless, his carved-up body was found two weeks later in Bolívar state.
On 24 February 1994, paramilitaries stopped a taxi carrying five passengers in La Ceiba. Three of them belonged to Sintrainagro, the union of banana workers, and for that reason were killed. The taxi driver and the other passenger, a minor, were killed so as not to leave witnesses.
Many people lost their lives for the smallest of things, such as Anibal Sierra who was driving a friend’s car in which Patriotic Union propaganda had been seen. He was killed in March 1998. The car’s owner, Fernando Cervantes, was killed the following month.
The most well-known left-winger to die during this time was ex-senator Ricardo Villa. He was a human-rights attorney and member of the M-19 Democratic Alliance, the political extension of the old guerrilla movement. He was also a newspaper columnist who had recently published an article denouncing the illegal invasion of land in the tourist zone of Pozos Colorados. This upset some of the city’s powerful families who were allied with Don Giraldo, and on 23 December 1992, a gunman approached the car he was in and killed him. The owner of a motorbike used in the crime was arrested, but the real intellectual author of the murder was suspected to be José Ignacio ‘Nacho’ Vives, Santa Marta’s former mayor who would go on to be mentioned in a DIA list of alleged drug traffickers along with his nephew Carlos Vives.
In the mid-1990s, as the guerrilla threat continued to grow, Giraldo participated in the CONVIVIR program, forming a group called Conservar or Conserve which acted as a façade for his illegal paramilitary activities. The group, which was just another extension of Los Chamizos, provided security for the Santa Marta market and some other neighbourhoods, including the hotel sector. When the program was abolished he just merged its members into his new paramilitary group called Autodefensas Campesinas del Magdalena y la Guajira (ACMG) or Peasant Self-Defence Forces of Magdalena and La Guajira. He also recruited more young men who were sent to the army for training after which they would enter the ranks of this paramilitary group.
Don Giraldo was the most powerful man in the region with a personal army reputed to be 400-men strong. Not only did he maintain control over the drug routes, crops and laboratories in the area, he was paid to guard drugs coming in from other regions. He also had many politicians in his pocket, including congressmen, mayors and governors who courted the votes and large donations his influence could bring them.
Adán Rojas was captured by the authorities in 1996, leaving his son Rigoberto, known as ‘Escorpión’ or ‘Scorpion’, in charge. Giraldo soon began receiving complaints about abuses committed by the Rojas Clan under Rigoberto’s leadership, including a football game that Rigoberto had played with a group of boys. After losing, instead of shaking hands and congratulating the winners, he reportedly had them all shot and buried in a pit. With Rigoberto running amok, Giraldo started having second thoughts about his longstanding pact with the Rojas.
After being condemned to 20 years in prison for his crimes, Adán Rojas was busted out of jail in October 1999. There would be no welcoming party from Hernán Giraldo, though. The previous month, Rojas’s men had killed a good friend of Giraldo’s – a prominent rancher in the region, Emérito Rueda. It was the final straw. The friendship between Giraldo and Rojas, which had lasted for two decades, was over.
The beginning of the year 2000 saw some fierce battles between the two opposing paramilitary groups and hundreds of people died in the violence. It came to an end in early February after Giraldo attacked a Rojas camp in the village of Bonda. After two hours of fighting, three members of the Rojas clan lay dead. Adán and his son Rigoberto were injured in the attack but were able to escape.
Rigoberto was captured immediately by authorities as he travelled to Barranquilla to seek medical attention, while Adán was arrested a few weeks later as he recuperated from a bullet wound to his left shoulder in a private residence in the north of the city. Adán had arrest warrants out for the formation of vigilante justice groups, aggravated homicide, illegal carrying of arms and, of course, for escaping jail a few months earlier. His criminal career was now over.
The Rojas clan were no match for Giraldo’s military might and they retreated to lick their wounds with many seeking protection from the Castaños in Córdoba. Danger still existed for Don Giraldo, and in late February, the FARC launched another attempt at taking down the paramilitary boss. This time, however, he was backed up by
the Colombian army and police, and the guerrillas were forced to retreat.
By 2001, Don Giraldo stood alone at the top of the mountain. He had been the region’s top crime boss for over two decades. The US magazine Newsweek called him, ‘The Next Escobar’. It would prove to be the height of his power, though. The AUC, unhappy about the Rojas’ plight and itching for complete control over the strategic drug-trafficking region, was about to turn up the heat. The first sign Giraldo was under serious threat came in August 2001, when one of his key allies, Jorge Gnecco, was assassinated by paramilitaries from the AUC’s Northern Bloc led by Jorge 40 and under orders from Salvatore Mancuso.
Jorge Gnecco Cerchar came from one of the region’s most powerful families which had tentacles stretching throughout both the political and criminal worlds of north-eastern Colombia. He was born to parents Lucas Gnecco and Elvia Cerchar in the south of La Guajira state. His father, a cousin of Andrés Samper Gnecco who was the father of Colombian president Ernesto Samper, made his fortune through contraband and marijuana which he then invested in cattle ranches.
Jorge was the real brains of the clan and he expanded his father’s empire, becoming involved in the contraband gasoline business which saw cheap gasoline smuggled in from Venezuela. He also had a fleet of trucks which transported coal from the mines in Cesar to the ports in Magdalena and La Guajira. Cocaine would be hidden in these shipments.
Cesar, a big cotton producing state, was experiencing hard times due to the collapse in cotton prices in the mid-1980s and the arrival on the scene of Jorge, who literally had truckloads full of cash, was welcomed by the cash-strapped families. A political dynasty was about to be born which would help to further his criminal empire.