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.
