Cocaina: A Book on Those Who Make It (6 page)

Since the death of Escobar, Medellín’s criminal elements had been kept in check by Diego Murillo, aka Don Berna, El Patrón’s one-time partner who then allied himself with the Colombian military and the United States in the war against the Medellín Cartel. As long as he ruled the city’s criminal network with an iron fist, everything was calm. Berna’s philosophy was quite simple: don’t rock the boat. The criminal world soon became the lubricant for the law-abiding one, and because it strengthened the already existing power structures, it was allowed to carry on without obstruction. Between 1998 and 2002, with the help of the military, Don Berna succeeded in purging Medellín of all guerrilla groups, a process that resulted in a temporary spike in the murder rate — in 2001 the city once again reported unparalleled statistics, with 220 murders per 100,000 inhabitants. However, when the last urban strongholds of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (the FARC) were dealt the final deathblow, peace prevailed. Shortly thereafter Don Berna consolidated his rule over the 200 crime gangs in town, totaling 8000 young people. Homicide rates dropped dramatically. As long as law enforcement kept out of drug matters — along with any number of other, more sophisticated illegal activities associated with his criminal syndicate — Berna was more than willing to cooperate with the government in its efforts to combat common revolutionaries, as well as street crime such as robbery, car theft, rape, riots, and other atrocities committed against the general public.

It looked as though Medellín was finally entering a golden age. The price tag, however, was not just the death of the guerrillas, but also of thousands of innocent people. Human-rights organisations reported finding large numbers of bodies in the shantytowns, and Don Berna would later explain that this was the unfortunate price of having to re-create the ‘necessary climate [for] investment returns, particularly foreign, which is fundamental if we do not want to be left behind by the engine of globalisation’.

Diego Cuevas’ downfall was that Don Berna’s reign, like Escobar’s before it, came to an end. In an effort to demobilise the Colombian paramilitary groups, the government ran a demobilisation program in the 2000s. Berna, along with a number of other drug terrorists, decided to turn himself in, in exchange for a greatly reduced prison sentence for the mass murders he had committed. Most of the prisoners, including Berna, were able to continue their illegal business activities from prison — as Escobar had once done — so in May 2008 the government extradited 13 paramilitary leaders to the United States. One year later, a US court condemned Don Berna, the anti-communist who had brought peace to Medellín, to 31 years in prison, on a conviction for major drug offences.

When Don Berna was sentenced in the United States, his mafia network, La Oficina de Envigado, began to crack. Mass confusion ensued, and new positions soon became available. No one was sure from whom to take orders, so paranoia and murder spread throughout the ranks of the drug industry. It became clear that one of the most lucrative cocaine infrastructures in the world, the portal to the Caribbean, was no longer the tight operation it had once been. No one was at the helm; everything was free for the taking. War became a fact, gang fights broke out, murder rates soared, and it was soon obvious that the ultimate guarantor of Medellín’s newfound security had not been the police or the military, but Don Berna himself. In 2009 alone there were a total of 2185 murders in Medellín, more than twice as many as in 2008, and in just about every case the killing could be traced back to drugs.

Lina’s brother Diego was far down the ladder in terms of rank and suffered a fate similar to that of many others. His job, which he did on motorcycle, had simply been to collect the daily take at various sales points and deliver it to a certain man at a certain time — a task completely cut and dried. But when the gang’s leader was killed, fighting broke out among the middle ranks and the group Diego was working for split up, causing chaos. Which gang, which leader, was strongest? Who would come out on top? These are the issues most in the bottom ranks have to address; they have to quickly choose a new leader to support and work for, and then pray that they have made the right decision and that the group they abandoned does not have time to seek revenge before the new organisation has assured them of protection. And it was in this respect that Diego made a fatal error.

Lina looks down. Her brother was not the only one she knew to pay with his life; two of her closest friends were also recently shot and killed. Though these two deaths were unrelated, both occurred on the same day. And six months earlier, just before her brother was killed, her boyfriend had been murdered. Before that, it was her uncle. ‘This sort of violence is completely new. I’d never been afraid prior to this. My daughter is seven years old, and in the days before all this happened I used to let her play outside. I would never let her do that today. Mama hasn’t left the house since Diego was killed. We’ll have to move. The fact that he was murdered right outside our front door isn’t just something you can shake off. You’re never able to forget what happened. As soon as you open the door, there it is again.’

IN THE PLACE
HÅKAN
calls ‘the shopping centre’ — Barrio Antioquia, Medellín’s premier drug district — some 50,000-peso bills change eager hands in what looks like an ordinary office supplies store while people enjoy themselves outside. The area is aflutter with all sorts of activity. A happy mother stumbles while pushing her prattling daughter along in a pram. An old man cruises down the street on a bicycle, a box of popcorn balanced precariously on the handlebars. Small glasses of brandy pass from hand to hand between men sitting in plastic chairs that flank the sidewalk. Salsa music blasts from loudspeakers, and the smell of marijuana fills the air. It is Friday. People are laughing and having a good time. The most recent body has been removed and the sidewalk has been cleaned.

Alonso, Javier, and Deyner have been saving up their money for a Llama Martial .38 Special revolver, though it is still unclear what the weapon will be used for. Perhaps for exacting revenge on the person who killed Javier’s brother here exactly six months ago. Maybe it will be used to carry out Alonso’s next murder assignment. Or perhaps Deyner will use it in his newly formed vigilante group, which tries to rid his neighbourhood of crime. Or maybe for all these things.

Alonso, a hit man who is busy cleaning his glasses, steps off to the side a bit before he begins philosophising about his particular areas of expertise: murder and drugs. Mostly the former, through what is almost always a consequence of the latter. ‘Here the power isn’t to the people, but to the drugs. They are what steer all decision-making, and ultimately reign supreme. All the wars and fighting between gangs, leaders, children, mafias, cities, neighbourhoods — everything is attributable to drugs. Cocaine is the main culprit, but marijuana also plays a role. Actually, it’s pretty much 50-50. The reason there’s so much violence at Barrio Antioquia is because historically it’s the part of the city with the most drug activity. Drugs are sold on absolutely every street corner. Literally in every nook and cranny.’

Christmas decorations twinkle from a balcony across the street while scooters, taxis, and SUVs cruise by. Occasionally someone makes a mad dash between a car window and the front door of a building, but overall the drug activity is inconspicuous, lost in the pleasant, everyday bustle of the neighbourhood. Eighty per cent of the residents here make their living on drugs, and the remaining 20 per cent get by on
remesas
, remittances — money sent to them by family in the United States or Europe. Pharmacies, stationery shops, kiosks, and bars serve as facades for dealing, and the vast majority of those who purchase their drugs here know exactly which dealer they are looking for and what the going rate is at any given moment. All business is carried out in silence.

Suddenly, two police motorcycles appear on the scene and park in the middle of the intersection. Alonso sniggers. ‘It’s a little lockdown, but it won’t last long.’

Routine police checks in Barrio Antioquia are merely a way for the officers to play up to the crowd. These two men in shiny reflector vests, Alonso explains, have taken up a place in the middle of the street because they are disgruntled over their poor earnings. Normally they just pass through to collect their bribes, which are more like salaries, lying in wait for them in one of the shops. But tonight something has gone awry: they didn’t get as much as they usually do and are irate. The motorcycles serve as a blockade, and the policemen are fully aware that as long as their vehicles remain parked in the middle of the intersection like luminous protest placards, all drug trading will cease. The customers will not recommence with their activities until the officers are gone. The standstill will only come to an end once the dealers have had a chance to quickly scrape together enough bribe money to appease the officers.

The policemen know exactly what they are doing. Ten minutes later they are gone.

‘
Listo
. There we go,’ says Javier.

Alonso spent 13 years in prison, convicted for nine counts of murder, but was released two years ago. Since then, he has continued to work in a violent profession that in other countries would have made him a rare breed, but in Colombia during the cocaine boom of the 1980s became an accepted way of getting by: he is one of
los sicarios
, hit men, men who murder for pay.

Alonso never takes less than ‘
cinco
’ — five million pesos, or 2500 USD. Often much more, in fact. It depends on who will be killed, but never why. ‘Motives are no concern of mine. The customer simply says what he wants and I do as he says. I don’t ask questions. Price, place, person; that’s all. It’s no more complicated than ordering at a restaurant. I’m like the waiter: tell me what dish you want and how you want it, but I’ll never ask you
why
you want it. The victims are like the courses — they can vary greatly in price. Foreigners are expensive. My latest victim was an American, and for him I charged 70 million pesos.’

The murder of the American is a telling anecdote of how labyrinths of violence are constructed and dissipated in a society in which lies, poverty, drugs, informing, murder, and fast cash have all become so woven into the social fabric of life that almost everything revolves around them in some way. After an affair the American and his Colombian mistress decided to do away with the mistress’s husband, a Colombian. Alonso charged 12 million pesos for the hit and carried out the deed. But the American was away in the States when the murder took place, and when his mistress asked him to send the money to pay Alonso she told him that it had cost 40 million. When the money arrived, she pocketed the extra 28 million pesos. The American immediately smelled a rat when he returned to Medellín, and soon worked out that he had been conned. A huge fight ensued. The woman phoned Alonso. ‘For me it was just good business. I not only got the 12 million, but an additional 70 million pesos in hand. Even considering that I had a ten-man team working for me on both hits, when all the expenses were accounted for and everyone was paid, I had made a grand total of 25 million. Two months transpired between these jobs. I usually never do more than one hit in any three-month period.’

Alonso has lived nearly his entire life among Medellín’s criminal elements. During the brutal Pablo Escobar years he was just a teenager, but in the mid-1990s he became involved in the violent battle against Las Milicias Populares, an urban guerrilla network that was gaining control of the city’s favelas. Gang crime had existed in Medellín since the 1960s, but before Escobar it had never posed any significant threat to the inhabitants of the favelas. This all changed in the 1980s, when gang activity became a serious plague, threatening poor communities and the inhabitants’ efforts to organise infrastructure such as housing, water, healthcare, schools, and law enforcement in the urban slopes neglected by the state. At the national level, negotiations continued with several guerrilla groups; a new, progressive constitution was drafted; a few new left-leaning parties were established; and a major issue was whether or not the new urban masses would play an active role in decisions about the nation’s future, or if the impoverished parts of the city would be overtaken by gangsterism.

In view of the clear threat of such a takeover, and in the absence of governmental involvement, young men and women began to organise local armed militias to combat the degeneration of their neighbourhoods. The militias took an active interest in matters of safety, dispute resolution, and self-determination — at least in theory. They patrolled the alleys at night, kept the sidewalks clean, and organised daytime sporting events. During the first phase, up until 1991, these militias were mostly independent, had a great deal of popular support, and grew rapidly, as they successfully kept petty and gang-related criminal activity away. But it was not long before the rural guerrillas — the National Liberation Army in the northern shantytowns and the FARC in the western ones — took control, and the Medellín suburbs soon fell victim to one of the most pervasive democratic problems in Colombia; large political movements have tended, for complex historical reasons, to become increasingly dependent on arms, after which they lose popular support and end up more along the lines of armed sects than popular movements.

Alonso, who was at the time a teenager heavily into marijuana, says that during this period the militias were extremely dangerous for those who refused to comply with their social and political regulations. ‘They killed people for just smoking dope or for hanging out on street corners in the evening. I killed three
milicianos
, and it wasn’t because I wanted to but because if I hadn’t, they would’ve killed me. We started robbing so that we could afford weapons, and after that established a vigilante group to drive the guerrillas out of the neighbourhood. People were incredibly grateful to us.’