Using Troops to Fight Mexico's Drug Lords Has Pushed the Death Toll to New Highs, Testing Public Patience and Support. The government official had just turned his SUV in to a narrow alley near his office on May 14 when a red Pontiac cut him off. Next, according to eyewitnesses, three gunmen on motorcycles pulled up alongside and opened fire. The flawless assassination bore all the hallmarks of the murders once carried out in Bogota and Medellin by the henchmen of Colombia's notorious drug lords. But the mayhem this time was in the upscale Mexico City district of Coyoacan. The victim was Jose Nemesio Lugo, a 55-year-old Justice Department official who, only a month earlier, had been put in charge of the attorney general's national crime-intelligence center. [continues 1130 words]
A Declassified Pentagon Report Claims Uribe Once Worked for Pablo Escobar In September 1991 the U.S. Department of Defense compiled a list of individuals believed to be associated with Colombia's notorious Medellin drug cartel. There are 106 names on the newly declassified intelligence document, and they read like a who's who of thugs, assassins, midlevel traffickers and crooked attorneys. The cartel's ruthless kingpin, Pablo Escobar, was prominent on the list, of course, along with the former Panamanian dictator Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega. But the real head turner is item No. 82, which reads as follows: "Alvaro Uribe Velez--a Colombian politician and senator dedicated to collaboration with the Medellin cartel at high government levels. Uribe was linked to a business involved in narcotics activities in the U.S.... Uribe has worked for the Medellin cartel and is a close personal friend of Pablo Escobar Gaviria." [continues 281 words]
Salvatore Mancuso And His Right-Wing Militiamen Already Reign Supreme In Parts Of The Colombian Countryside. Now They Are Gaining Power In The Political Arena April 8 issue - Salvatore Mancuso is a wanted man. The 37-year-old military chief of Colombia's outlawed right-wing militias was convicted in absentia last month of organizing armed "vigilante groups" and sentenced to 11 years in prison on charges arising from the November 1997 murder of a small-town mayor. But in the humid lowlands of northwestern Colombia, where the country's ruthless paramilitary forces reign supreme, Mancuso is an untouchable warlord whom no one dares cross. [continues 1208 words]
Alvaro Uribe Velez was a dark horse. Then rebels went on a bloody rampage and Uribe became the presidential favorite. Will the hard-liner finally bring peace-or a deadly new escalation? March 25 issue - Alvaro Uribe Velez-slight and bespectacled-looks more like a high-school math teacher than a hard-charging ideologue. But there's nothing wimpy about his message: from the moment he declared his candidacy for Colombia's 2002 presidential election, the former state governor promised to halt peace negotiations with the rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and restore law and order. At first, his tough talk didn't garner much support. [continues 2140 words]
Peru's drug lords are gaining ground, and so are rebels. Toledo's Battle Against A Return To The Bad Old Days Mario Ayala Otarola is running scared. The mayor of San Miguel de Ene fled his isolated village in the jungles of eastern Peru last December. He had heard that a column of Shining Path guerrillas operating in the area planned to assassinate him. Three local mayors have gone into hiding after receiving death threats, and the rebels have warned employees of a U.S.-funded development project that they are under surveillance and should not interfere with local coca farming. "Either you're with Shining Path or you must leave the area," says the 50-year-old sesame farmer who escaped with his wife and five children. "The narcos and Shining Path are helping each other, and that puts us in great danger." [continues 1673 words]
In the foothills of the snowcapped Sierra Nevadas in northeastern Colombia, the Kogi Indians whisper his name in fear. Along the docks of the Caribbean port city of Santa Marta, gangsters speak with awe of his 400-man private army. But everyone knows that when it comes to Hernan Giraldo Serna, it's usually best not to know too much. The gangsters quietly recall, for instance, that in 1999 Giraldo ordered the brutal murders of four construction workers, whose bodies were then cut to bits with a chain saw. Their offense? They had built a special basement to store his multimillion-dollar cache of cocaine, and they knew where it was. [continues 1041 words]
Why Washington And Bogota Should Be Worried About Hernan Giraldo In the foothills of the snow-capped Sierra Nevadas in northeastern Colombia, the Kogi Indians whisper his name in fear. And along the docks of the Caribbean port city of Santa Marta, gangsters speak with awe of his 400-man private army. But everyone knows that when it comes to Hernan Giraldo Serna, it's usually best not to know too much. The gangsters quietly recall, for instance, that Giraldo once ordered the brutal murders of four construction workers, and then had their bodies cut to bits with a chain saw. Their offense? [continues 1609 words]
But-So Far-The Country's Rebels Don't Seem To Be The Ones Who Are Suffering First, Jose Argati heard the low rumble of the engines. Soon five light aircraft appeared low in the skies above his farm. Accompanied by Army helicopters, the crop dusters doused Argati's cornfields with herbicide. After four runs over his property in Colombia's southern Putumayo province, 17 acres of corn withered into a wasteland. But like most farmers at the epicenter of Colombia's booming cocaine economy, Argati was in no position to play the innocent victim: he had been growing five acres of bright green coca bushes alongside his banana and plantain trees. Still, the grizzled 56-year-old peasant cursed Colombian authorities. "We didn't get to taste a single kernel," he said, plucking a shriveled ear of corn. "The worst enemy of the small farmer is the government, and in particular President [Andres] Pastrana. He wants to finish us off." [continues 1354 words]
Gustavo Diaz fears for his livelihood. The 33-year-old peasant came to the southern Colombian state of Putumayo two months ago, looking for work on a cattle ranch. Failing to find any, he took a job on one of the many local coca farms. Diaz earns about $150 a month dousing the dense undergrowth with weedkiller and harvesting the bright green leaves, the raw material for cocaine. But, like his absentee employer, he's spooked by reports that a massive U.S. anti-drug assistance program will finance large-scale fumigation of the farms. "If they get rid of the coca they'll wipe out the work," he says. "I will leave." [continues 478 words]
Can Colombia Clean Up Its Army's Human-Rights Act? September 4 issue — Bill Clinton had every reason to expect a deeply enthusiastic welcome on this week's visit to Colombia. The smiles and handshakes you get for $1 billion and change are just about guaranteed to be heartfelt. IN WASHINGTON LAST WEEK Clinton formally approved the release of $1.3 billion in U.S. anti-drug aid for Colombia and its neighbors. The question now is what kind of cooperation the money will buy for the United States. [continues 454 words]
The DEA's nightmare: Colombian targets get smart, techno-hip and phenomenally successful Aside from a few human weaknesses, Alejandro Bernal Madrigal was the very image of respectability--at least by the strict but skin-deep standards of Colombia's upper-middle class. The light-complexioned, blue-eyed businessman, 40, lavished millions of dollars on his pampered stable of top-of-the-line show horses. Another favorite pastime was taking Caribbean cruises with bosomy young models aboard his yacht, the Claudia V. He was also said to enjoy an occasional puff or two of marijuana. [continues 2231 words]
Before she was arrested for smuggling drugs from Colombia, Laurie Hiett was a respectable U.S. Army colonel's wife with fast friends. Few people in Fayetteville, N.C., who met Laurie Hiett will soon forget her. Not the students in the Spanish course she taught at Westover High School, who remember when the moody wife of a U.S. Army colonel admitted in class to a history of smoking dope. Not Mike Fernandez, the jailed cocaine dealer who says Laurie hung out at his apartment during her lunch breaks. [continues 1684 words]
Before Her Arrest For Drug Smuggling, Laurie Hiett Was Just A Military Wife Few people in Fayetteville, N.C., who met Laurie Hiett will soon forget her. Not the students in the Spanish course she taught at Westover High School, who remember when the moody wife of a U.S. Army colonel admitted in class to a history of smoking dope. Not Mike Fernandez, the jailed cocaine dealer who says Laurie hung out at his apartment during her lunch breaks. And certainly not a 25-year-old ex-stripper named Celeste Wilcox, who describes herself as Hiett's cocaine-snorting "partner in crime." Wilcox says Laurie needed to escape occasionally from the straitlaced world of nearby Fort Bragg, where her husband, James, was stationed for two years. Recalls Wilcox: "She taught me a lot about how to lead two lives." [continues 1467 words]
