Prosecutor General Alfonso Valdivieso has set himself the
goal of separating Colombia’s political elite from its
murderous friendships and entanglements with drug
mobsters. The “ruling class” is being out-smarted
and humiliated at every turn.
In the office of the Prosecutor
General hangs an immense pho-
tograph of the late dissident
Liberal Party leader and anti-mafia
crusader, Luis Carlos Galdn.
Throughout the 1980s, as the drug
cartels flourished and the killings
escalated, Galn pressed his attacks
on the corruption of his own politi-
cal class. By the time he ran for the
presidency in 1989, he had become
a serious threat to the mafia’s
encroaching grip on the Colombian
political establishment.
Galin was murdered on the cam-
paign trail in order allegedly to clear
the path to the Presidential Palace
for more pliable men who would cut
deals, not fight. Now, as the deals
these politicians struck and the
crimes they allowed to go unpun-
ished have come under scrutiny,
Galdn’s restless ghost has returned
to haunt his killers. Alfonso
Valdivieso, the man on whose wall
Galdn’s portrait hangs, is Galin’s
cousin. His ongoing investigation of
the links between the Cali cartel and
the election campaign of current
President Ernesto Samper has trig-
gered the gravest political crisis in
Colombian history.
Valdivieso is an unlikely hero.
His lack of political profile may
explain Samper’s last-minute addi-
tion of his name to the list of candi-
dates for consideration by the
Council of State. He got the Chief
Prosecutor’s job by capturing the
judges’ imagination with his vision
of an activist approach to law
enforcement based on the model of
the Italian magistrates’ assault on
the Cosa Nostra mafia. Valdivieso’s
appointment in August, 1994 was a
watershed moment. For the first
time, a political outsider-an
unknown quantity-infiltrated and
took control of one of the most
powerful institutions in the
Colombian state. The office of the
Prosecutor General, established by
the Constitution of 1991 to deal
with drug traffickers and terrorists,
would now be turned on the gov-
ernment itself.
By May, 1996, one government
minister and the Attorney General
were behind bars. The Minister of
the Interior, the Foreign Secretary,
and the Minister of Com-
munications were charged with
complicity in the cover-up of drug-
mafia contributions to the Samper
campaign. Eight Congress members
have also been arrested, while a fur-
ther 170–out of a total of 230–are
under investigation for drug corrup-
tion. The Comptroller General and
several army generals were report-
edly denied visas to the United
States allegedly for drug-related
activities. The Commander-in-Chief
of the army was forced, under U.S.
pressure, to retire.
Samper was given a temporary
reprieve in May with the decision
of a congressional commission to
exonerate him of drug-corruption
charges. Yet he has essentially lost
control of the process of governing.
With its mission to separate
Colombia’s political elite from its
murderous friendships and entan-
glements with drug mobsters,
Valdivieso’s investigation is off and
running. The “ruling class,” with its
celebrated flexibility and its unfail-
ing instinct for survival, is being
out-smarted and humiliated at
every turn.
6NMJLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS
Ana Carrigan won several awards for her independent film, Roses in December. She is the author of The Palace of Justice: A Colombian Tragedy (Four Walls Eight Windows, 1993).
NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 6UPDATE / COLOMBIA
Prosecutor General Alfonso Valdivieso at a news conference in Bogotd this year.
verything in Colombia begins with land. Power and wealth
have traditionally been con-
centrated in the hands of those who
own land. In the late 1970s, when
the drug traffickers made their first
billions, they began buying up land.
This was a period of political
upheaval and violence on the large
estates. A highly organized
campesino movement, which had
been promised land reform since the
1950s, was in revolt, marching,
seizing cattle, and joining the guer-
rillas. The bitterness between
landowners and campesinos was so
intense that the landowners were no
longer able to enjoy or exploit their
estates. So, the landowners were
happy to sell their land. The drug
mafias were happy to buy it because
the land gave them what they need-
ed-a legal investment with which
to launder their illicit wealth.
Moreover, land ownership con-
ferred on them status as well as
wealth. They were no longer just
drug traffickers; they were land-
holders and agro-businessmen.
The drug mafia needed to protect
their new investments from pro-
testing, land-hungry campesinos
and guerrillas. At first, the drug
traffickers paid a tax to the guerril-
las to leave them in peace. When
they got fed up with the pay-offs,
they made a marriage of conve-
nience with the military to recruit,
train and arm their own private
armies. The regional politicians and
the Liberal leaders in Bogoti took
note of how the mafias were dis-
banding and cleaning out the
campesino organizations. They had
an idea: Just as this new wealthy
class, with money to burn, had
solved the problems of the old land-
lords, so too could the mafia solve
the “security” problems in these
regions. The politicians struck a
deal with the drug mafia. The mafia
would help the politicians to
cleanse these areas of sundry “com-
munists,” radicals, and campesino
and union leaders. In return, the
mafia would be given a free hand to
pursue its business interests and
develop its properties.
This pact continues to operate to
this day, leaving a trail of blood in
its wake. The drug traffickers took
their assignment seriously. They
hired and trained hitmen and set
them loose to kill the “commu-
nists.” They eliminated grassroots
organizations and local community
groups wherever they found them.
They exterminated a generation of
opposition leaders, including the
entire active membership-over
2,000 people-of the left-wing
Patriotic Union (UP). On occasion,
they killed an honest establishment
politician: Former Minister of
Justice Enrique Low Murtra and
Attorney General Carlos Maura
Hoyos were both gunned down in
the early 1990s. Journalists died.
And judges. And lawyers. And
teachers. And human rights activists.
And thousands of campesinos.
Today, according to a recent
study by National University pro-
fessor Alejandro Reyes, 42% of the
best land in Colombia is owned by
the drug mafia. The mafia has
bought land in over 400 of the 1,067
municipalities nationwide. Mafia
land investments, and the paramili-
tary squads which accompany
them, have driven some 800,000
campesinos from their villages and
small farms over the last decade.
As time went on, the drug mafia
penetrated and corrupted the intelli-
gence organizations of the state.
When the Cali and Medellin cartels
went to war with each other in the
late 1980s, they bought and used the
state intelligence services in their
internecine conflicts. In the early
1990s, when President C6sar
Gaviria’s government went to war
with Pablo Escobar and the
Medellin cartel, Gaviria was forced
to rely on the intelligence network
of the Cali cartel. The Cali cartel
Vol XXX, No 1 JULY/AUG 1996
2 Z
>
B
7UPDATE / COLOMBIA
delivered the bodies, and the
Medellin cartel was disbanded
forthwith. The Cali cartel then gave
Gaviria and his chief prosecutor
general, Gustavo de Greiff, the bill
for services rendered: surrender to
the Colombian authorities on their
own terms.
Since 1978, the only Colombian
president who has used the power
of the government to try to disman-
tle these alliances and to attack the
drug cartels directly was Virgilio
Barco (1986-90), who declared war
on the mafia after Galdin’s death in
1989. In response, the mafia
unleashed a wave of phenomenal
violence, which forced Barco’s
efforts to an abrupt halt. The legacy
of Barco’s defeat produced the
1991 Constitutional ban on extradi-
tion. The rest of the established
political forces have since chosen
to look the other way, while the
power of the state has slipped away
from them.
uspicions of his ties to the
drug cartels have dogged
Samper throughout his career.
In 1982, as campaign manager
for Alfonso L6pez Michaelsen’s
second presidential bid,
Samper allegedly arranged for
a $300,000 contribution from
the Medellin cartel and the free
use of the Cali cartel Ochoa
brothers’ private fleet of air-
planes. Two years later,
Samper’s unlisted phone num-
ber was found by the Spanish
police on Cali cartel leader
Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela
when he was arrested in
Madrid. In 1989, an informant
from the Drug Enforcement
Agency (DEA) claimed to have
witnessed a meeting between
Samper and Cali leaders
Rodriguez Orejuela and Jos6
Santacruz Londono, from
which the future president
allegedly walked away with Pres the several briefcases stuffed with that
$300,000 in cash. traf
Then, 48 hours before the 1994
presidential elections, the so-called
“narco-cassettes” scandal erupted.
Recordings surfaced of a telephone
conversation, presumably taped by
the DEA, between the Cali cartel’s
Rodriguez Orejuela and a journalist
who was the mafia contact and
“bag-man” for Samper election-
campaign officials.
On June 29, 1994, just 10 days
after his electoral victory, Samper
and Fernando Botero Zea, his clos-
est colleague, made their first visit
to Washington. The trip was a cata-
strophe for the new government.
The Clinton administration was not
impressed by Samper’s protesta-
tions of innocence of drug ties. The
U.S. government used its leverage
over Samper to lay down tough
terms for the future of U.S.-
Colombian relations.
The U.S. government demanded
Samper’s support for a multi-
pronged strategy designed to wipe
out the Cali cartel: an increase in
the size of the permanent DEA task
force; permission for the presence
in Colombia of a new CIA drug-
;ident Ernesto Samper opens a special session legislature in January to investigate accusatik his electoral campaign received money from di fickers.
fighting force which would collab-
orate with the DEA; the appoint-
ment of the DEA’s choice of Gen-
eral Jos6 Serrano as chief of the
Colombian police; permission for
the DEA to accompany the Col-
ombian army and police on all
searches and arrests; a two-year
program to eradicate poppy and
coca crops; and the arrest of the
Cali cartel’s leaders.
Samper wanted to satisfy Wash-
ington, but he felt trapped. The terms
of his deal with the Cali leaders had
committed his administration to
allowing them to surrender under
the lenient terms of the existing
1991 legislation according to which
they would serve minimum sen-
tences and emerge from jail with
their vast wealth intact. But with the
U.S. government turning the screws,
Samper lost his room to maneuver.
Throughout 1995, as allegations that
he knowingly paid for his election
with drug money continued to sur-
face, Samper reluctantly agreed with
Botero to the arrest of the Cali lead-
ers. By late July of 1995, six of the
top seven Cali traffickers were in
jail. But by then, things had
already begun to unravel for
Samper.
Prosecutor General Valdivieso
got off the ground by doubling
the number of investigators on
his staff from 10,000 to 20,000.
In building his case against
President Samper and the hier-
archy of the Liberal Party
establishment, Valdivieso has
had the unconditional trust and
support of the Clinton adminis-
tration. Colombian investiga-
tors and prosecutors have
unlimited access to DEA, CIA
and U.S. Justice Department
information at a moment when
U.S. intelligence gathering in
Colombia has intensified. Key
DEA informants working
undercover within the Cali car- of tel have also handed over arm- ons ug fuls of incriminating docu-
ments.
8 NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS
g
g
I
z
NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 8UPDATE / COLOMBIA
Valdivieso’s first target was
Samper’s campaign treasurer,
Santiago Medina. Arrested in July,
1995, Medina accused Defense Min-
ister Fernando Botero, Samper’s
former campaign director, of open-
ing a secret fund to receive the drug
contributions. Medina also provid-
ed investigators with vital cam-
paign financial records.
Three weeks later, Valdivieso
arrested Botero. Initially, Botero
denied everything and insisted on
Samper’s innocence. But after five
months in jail, a failed conspiracy
to derail Valdivieso’s reappoint-
ment for an additional two years,
and the exoneration of Samper by a
preliminary congressional investi-
gation into Medina’s charges,
Botero changed his testimony. On
January 22, 1996, he accused
Samper of soliciting the drug funds
from the Cali cartel. On February
14, Valdivieso filed criminal
charges against the President.
Only the Prosecutor General
knows the extent of the evidence
against Samper, who has consis-
tently maintained ignorance of
what was done “behind my back.”
As president, Samper could only be
tried by a congressional commis-
sion. With 13 of the 15 members of
the commission investigating the
case for the President’s impeach-
ment under investigation them-
selves for drug corruption, the ver-
dict was virtually preordained. In
late May, the commission exonerat-
ed Samper of all charges. The case
for impeachment will now be
decided by the full Congress, where
Samper’s allies vastly outnumber
his critics. A favorable decision, to
be reached by secret ballot, is wide-
ly anticipated. Nevertheless, the
facts and the testimonies of the
principal actors are part of the pub-
lic record, and the key events that
they document leave little room for
doubt. In the court of public opin-
ion, the principle of the President’s
presumption of innocence until
proven guilty has worn thin.
The U.S. decision to
“decertify” Colombia
confirmed a major
shift in U.S. foreign
policy towards a
country whose
political elites have
had Washington’s
unswerving support
for the past 50 years.
n March of this year, the Clinton
administration made its feelings
about the crisis clear with the
decision to “decertify” Colombia
for insufficient progress in the fight
against drug-trafficking. The law
suspends bilateral aid, and requires
the U.S. government to oppose–
though not veto-new loans from
multilateral financial institutions
such as the International Monetary
Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.
The decertification decision con-
firmed a major shift in U.S. foreign
policy towards a country whose pol-
itical elites have had Washington’s
unswerving support, through thick
and thin, for the past 50 years.
In Colombia, the decertification
provoked predictable outrage from
infuriated citizens. They con-
demned what they called Wash-
ington’s heavy-handed effort to
destabilize the Colombian govern-
ment and force Samper from the
Presidential Palace. In the short
term, the U.S. action backfired by
unifying the country behind the
embattled President and against
U.S. intervention. In the longer
term, however, the discretionary
power that the law gives the U:S.
president to invoke sanctions, such
as the revocation of trade privileges
or a reduction in the sugar quota,
increases pressure on Samper.
Because if the crisis dragged on, it
would be hard to postpone trade
sanctions indefinitely. Such sanc-
tions would have devastating impli-
cations for Colombian exports like
the $400 million industry in cut
flowers.
The United States’ new bel-
ligerency towards Colombia’s lead-
ers seems puzzling at first glance.
There is, after all, nothing new
about the intersection of drugs and
politics in Colombia. Nor is this the
first time that the drug mafia has
had access to the Presidential
Palace. Drug traffickers purportedly
contributed to Liberal Party candi-
date C6sar Turbay Ayala’s cam-
paign in his successful race for pres-
ident in 1978. In that same general
election, 10% of the national
Congress were allegedly elected
with mafia money.
But the political context has
changed. In 1978, the United States
was still fighting the Cold War. The
Sandinista victory in Nicaragua
was just over the horizon, while the
civil war in El Salvador was about
to erupt. The perceived threat to
U.S. security from “communist”
guerrillas “in our own backyard”
defined Washington’s relationships
throughout the hemisphere. So
although the United States was
fully aware of the drug cartel’s
influence in Colombian politics,
Turbay promptly made friends with
Washington upon assuming office.
To prove his pro-U.S. credentials,
he instituted a Draconian security
statute to fight the guerrilla insur-
gency and to clamp down on civil-
ian opposition. In the process, he
created a civil-military government
with the military in the driving seat
for the first time in recent
Colombian history. The United
States turned a blind eye at
Turbay’s ties to the drug mafia, and
ignored the evidence of drug
money infiltrating the Congress.
Vol XXX, No 1 JULY/AUG 1996 9UPDATE / COLOMBIA
Throughout the 1980s, the United
States intensified its support for the
Colombian military. According to
the official scenario that the U.S.
government promoted, Colombia’s
valiant democrats in the two tradi-
tional parties were fighting for their
lives against the combined forces of
communist “narco-guerrillas” and
the violence of ruthless drug mafias.
U.S. policymakers neglected to
notice that Colombia’s counter-
insurgency war had changed dra-
matically. By the mid-1980s, it had
become a murderous struggle for
control of territories and popula-
tions, fought between a guerrilla
force and a narco-military
alliance. Both sides were
operating not against each
other, but against the civil-
ian population living within
the opponent’s zone of con-
trol. Looking at the land-
scape through the distorting
lens of the Cold War,
Washington was apparently
unable, or unwilling, to see
what was happening in
front of its eyes.
When the Berlin Wall
crumbled, the U.S. govern-
ment finally removed its Pedestria Cold War blinders. U.S.- police a
Colombian relations under- the polit
went a seismic shift.
Friends were no longer friends; they
were crooks. The Colombian mili-
tary that had fed at the Cold War
trough for decades was now deemed
a hive of human rights abusers in
alliance with the unchecked power
and violence of the transnational
drug cartels. The Colombian guer-
rilla forces, who had been “narco-
guerrillas” months before, were
now discovered to be outside the
loop of cocaine production and
shipment to the United States.
A strong anti-U.S., nationalist
sentiment has emerged this year
among the corrupt members of the
High Command, who feel aban-
doned by their erstwhile U.S. allies.
For the first time ever, Wash-
ington’s only friends in BogotA are
to be found in left-wing intellectual
circles, where gratitude for U.S.
help in prying their country loose
from the grip of the mafias is min-
gled with a sense of ironic astonish-
ment at the suddenness of their own
pro-gringo conversion.
n the heart of downtown
BogotA, about three blocks from
the Presidential Palace, a lonely
graffiti reads: “In the Crisis of the
State, No Side Serves the People.”
Another message, scrawled on the
ruins of an abandoned shack within
the National University campus,
ans in downtown BogotJ are checked for we nd the military. Security measures were increa
ical crisis escalated.
reads: “The Wars Between the
Elites Change Nothing.” The two
graffiti bear a single message: the
Colombian people are sitting this
crisis out. In any other country in
the hemisphere, a government scan-
dal of these dimensions would have
the population in the streets, yelling
for the heads of the crooks. But that
requires hope that things can
change and that an alternative
exists. In Colombia, hope is in short
supply. National amnesia has long
erased the memory of a better time
before the drug mafias took over
the store. Today, there is alienation,
silence, indifference.
Valdivieso’s investigation offers
the only shard of hope. It is said by
those who know him that
Valdivieso has adopted Luis Carlos
Galin’s unfinished mission and will
not rest until it is completed. If so,
the current crisis may figure as a
prelude to a drama more fascinating
and more terrible than any seen so
far. The drug mafia’s friendships
and entanglements, not just with
the Samper administration, but with
governments over the past 25 years,
may finally come to light. That
would shatter the distorting myths
and lies which have projected a
smokescreen of confusion behind
which an institutionalized 97%
impunity rate has perpetuated so
much evil. Only if
Valdivieso’s investigation
is allowed to run its course
will Colombians have the
opportunity to redefine
and reinvent their national
identity.
It will take time. And a
large commitment from
Washington to stay with
the process. The recent
emergence of a sinister
new terrorist organization,
“Dignity for Colombia,”
provided chilling evidence
apons by that even from jail, the
sed after drug traffickers continue
to threaten and manipulate
Colombia’s future. This
organization is allegedly comprised
of an alliance of Cali cartel hit-men,
corrupt elements of police and army
intelligence, paramilitary followers
of the notorious Fidel Castano, and
former members of the guerrilla. It
has claimed responsibility for a
string of bizarre murders and the
kidnapping in early April of former
president C6sar Gaviria’s brother.
Dignity for Colombia’s ugly pres-
ence is a warning from the drug
chiefs that they will not allow their
deals with Colombia’s political
establishment to be betrayed with-
out reprisals. No quick fixes are in
the offing given the complexity and
darkness of the Colombian sce-
nario.
Menu
