Capítulo 34: War:-PART4
Decriminalizing drugs is even more urgent now than in 1972, but we must recognize that the harm done in the interim cannot be wiped out, certainly not immediately. Postponing decriminalisation will only make matters worse, and make the problem appear even more intractable.
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Alcohol and tobacco cause many more deaths in users than do drugs. Decriminalization would not prevent us from treating drugs as we now treat alcohol and tobacco: prohibiting sales of drugs to minors, outlawing the advertising of drugs and similar measures. Such measures could be enforced, while out. right prohibition cannot be. Moreover, if even a small fraction of the money we now spend on trying to enforce drug prohibition were devoted to treatment and rehabilitation, in an atmosphere of compassion not punishment, the reduction in drug usage and in the harm done to the users could be dramatic.
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This plea comes from the bottom of my heart. Every friend of freedom, and I know you are one, must be as revolted as I am by the prospect of turning the United States into an armed camp, by the vision of jails filled with casual drug users and of an army of enforcers empowered to invade the liberty of citizens on slight evidence. A country in which shooting down unidentified planes "on suspicion" can be seriously considered as a drug war tactic is not the kind of United States that either you or I want to hand on to future generations.
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Milton Friedman's mistake was assuming that Bush was genuinely concerned about the drug problem. Bush was using Pablo and the traffickers to justify transferring billions of taxpayers' money over to weapons manufacturers and prison industries - small change compared to the trillions US taxpayers would spend fighting a War on Drugs that only exacerbated the problem exactly as Milton had predicted. The black market in cocaine was as profitable for those fighting the traffickers as it was for the cartels. Decriminalisation would have wiped out the profit for both sides. Milton was also unaware of the CIA's role in drug trafficking, because anyone who blew the whistle back then was silenced.
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On September 17, Pablo responded to Bush in a slightly more aggressive fashion than Milton Friedman. Near the US embassy - which was on a high state of alert - a man was taking a stroll in a park. After scoping out his surroundings for witnesses, he pulled out a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, took aim and fired. The rocket hit the embassy building, but failed to explode. It only damaged the cement facade. Diplomats sent their families home.
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On November 27, 1989, a presidential candidate was expected to board Avianca Airlines Flight 203 from Bogotá to Cali. At a meeting with Pablo present, it was decided to eliminate the candidate by putting a bomb- consisting of five kilos of dynamite - on board the plane. A ticket for seat 15F was purchased in a fake name. An unwitting accomplice was given a suitcase he was told contained a recording device, and instructed to use it to record the conversations of the Cali Cartel people scheduled to sit in front of him.
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At 7:13 am, the plane took off. It was in the air for five minutes and flying at a speed of 794 kilometres per hour when the accomplice turned a knob on the recording device. At an altitude of 13,000 feet, the bomb blasted a hole in the floor and the side of the plane and ripped the airliner apart. The nose section separated from the tail section, which tumbled down in flames. All 107 people on board were killed, as well as three on the ground from the falling debris.
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At the last minute, the presidential candidate had switched to a private flight. Eventually, he became the president.
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After the explosion, a Bogotá radio station received a call from a member of the Extraditable's, claiming responsibility because the passengers had included five informants. Four years later, the bomb maker confessed to the DAS that he'd been paid a million pesos by a senior Medellín Cartel member.
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The death of two Americans on-board Avianca Airlines Flight 203 prompted the Bush administration to classify Pablo as a clear and present danger and to begin Intelligence Support Activity on him. George HW Bush dispatched the CIA, a secret surveillance unit called Centra Spike and Delta Force, the top counterterrorism unit.
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Mostly language experts and technicians, Centra Spike specialised in eavesdropping on electronic communications to find people. By tracking Pablo's phone calls, they mapped out the members of the Medellín Cartel. They forwarded the information to Search Bloc, a group of elite Colombian police and soldiers hunting Pablo.
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Pablo announced he would destroy the Search Bloc within eight days. Two car bombs killed twenty-five officers. Instead of disbanding, they received more men and ammunition, turning them into a seven hundred-strong SWAT team.
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In November 1989, Gacha's son was released from jail. Two months earlier, he'd been arrested during a raid on a ranch north of Bogotá, and charged with possessing illegal arms. Hoping he'd lead them to Gacha, the police shadowed him. In December, he joined his father at a small ranch. Having finally pinpointed his location, the government sent more than 1,000 Colombian National Police and Marines.
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Colombian military personnel aboard two helicopters opened fire on Gacha, hitting him in the leg. In a gun battle, Gacha, his son and fifteen bodyguards ended up disfigured by bullets. A chunk of Gacha's head had been blown off. Initially, the extent of the damage to his head and the noise of grenades going off led the neighbours to believe that he'd committed suicide by holding a grenade to his head. But this was debunked when it was confirmed that his hands had not been damaged. It is believed that a bullet to the face from a helicopter-mounted machine gun killed him. Even though he'd been a murderous cocaine trafficker, 15,000 people attended his burial, many of whom viewed him as a public benefactor due to his building projects and assistance to the poor.
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In December, 1989, Pablo launched his biggest attack on General Maza. A bus brought a 500 -pound bomb to the DAS building. Inside the lobby, one of Pablo's workers was waiting for the arrival of Maza and his bodyguards to give the signal. A man outside was supposed to send the bus into the lobby. But Maza arrived through a different entrance, thwarting the original plan. The man in the lobby gave up waiting for Maza and exited the building. Upon seeing him, the men outside detonated the bomb at 7:30 am, almost killing Pablo's man as he walked out.
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It was one of the biggest ever explosions in Colombia. The blast opened a crater ten feet deep and demolished a complex of two-story commercial buildings next to the avenue where the bus had been parked. The bus crashed into a car. The entire front of the eleven-story DAS building fell off. Numerous buildings were damaged and windows shattered in a twenty-six-block area. Out of the almost one thousand injured, those who could stand wandered through an area strewn with rubble, destroyed cars, corpses, blood-splatter and body parts.
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Despite the devastation and dozens of deaths, Maza emerged without a scratch. "'It was like a mini-atom bomb," he told reporters. "The ceiling fell down on top of me." He said that the bomb was positioned to aim shock waves at the upper floors of the building. "Without a doubt, it was aimed at me." He credited his survival to the grace of God and the steel protecting his office. Pablo put a $1.3 million contract on him.
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On August 7, 1990, a new president called for a reduction in the demand for cocaine from the consumer countries, which was viewed as a peace offering to the traffickers. But on August 12, Pablo's cousin, Gustavo, was located in a house in Medellín. In what the police claimed was an exchange of gunfire, he was killed by members of the Search Bloc. Any hope of peace was off. Devastated by the loss of his right-hand man, Pablo started to torture and kill people inside his organisation whom he felt were cooperating with the authorities.
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According to the Colombian National Police, there were 25,000 murders in Colombia in 1990. They included judges, politicians, three presidential candidates and many of Pablo's associates, friends and family.
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