Escobar VS Cali by Ron Chepesiuk

Author:Ron Chepesiuk
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781939521316
Publisher: Strategic Media
Published: 2013-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

The dapper Pacho Herrera dressed like a GQ model (inset) but was shot dead while playing a football match in prison in a hit organized by a rival trafficker. (Reuters)

Gilberto Rodriguez, aged 65, is escorted by Colombian soldiers to a flight to Miami after his extradition to face serious drug charges in December 2004. (Associated Press)

CHAPTER SIX

A WAR OF ATTRITION

AS THE WAR dragged on, the attitude of Colombia’s security forces increasingly frustrated and angered Escobar. From Escobar’s perspective, the Colombian government seemed interested only in taking down his cartel, not the one in Cali, and he suspected that the security forces were in bed with his bitter rivals.

Rumors circulated that Escobar believed Gilberto Rodriguez had worked out a deal with the DEA. There were good signs that Escobar was right. In April 1988, for example, Colombian General Ruiz told the press that Escobar was plotting to eliminate the top members of the Cali cartel, but he failed to mention the similar plan the Cali men had for Escobar and his associates.

Later, former Colombian officials confirmed what Escobar suspected, but made no apology for focusing their attention and resources on him and his Medellin associates. “We viewed Escobar and the Medellin cartel as the worst of two evils,” explained Cesar Gaviria Trujillo, the president of Colombia from 1988 to 1992, and former the president of the Organization of American States. “That’s why the Colombian government directed all its attention and resources against the Medellin cartel.”

“The DEA office in Colombia had to follow the Colombian government’s lead,” said Joe Toft, a retired DEA agent who joined the agency’s office in Bogota in 1988. “We were concerned about the Cali cartel, of course,” Toft said. “We had agents working on both cartels, and the group assigned to the Cali cartel worked just as hard as the Medellin group. But the Colombian government’s focus was on Medellin, which had declared war on the state. So we couldn’t get the Colombian government to do much on Cali.”

As the War of the Cartels dragged on, Escobar continued to see plenty of evidence documenting the collusion. In June 1989, for example, police seized government documents from former army captain Luis Javier Wanomen and Jose Rivera, a civilian, showing that two top government officials, Raul Orejuela, the interior minister, and Colonel Oscar Pelaez, director of the F-2 intelligence agency, were collaborating with the Cali cartel by passing on information from agencies staffed by high-level Colombian officials.

The Colombian government could have cared less about such revelations, so Escobar decided to take care of his problems. He targeted Miguel Masa, the head of DAS (Administrative Department of Security), Colombia’s equivalent of the FBI, whom he believed was on the Cali payroll. Escobar flooded the streets with leaflets, offering $1.3 million for Masa’s head.

When Escobar seethed, Colombia shivered. On 25 May 1989, a 220-pound car bomb exploded near a convoy carrying Masa and his bodyguards through downtown Bogota, killing six people and injuring more than fifty. Three months later, Escobar and

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