Colombia: bloodletting in Medellin?

I spent two years free-lancing my way through South America, beginning in late 1986 in Colombia. While spending two months in Colombia, I was told that going to Medellin was too dangerous for a gringo journalist. Pablo Escobar and his henchmen were wreaking havoc.

I finally made it to Medellin for the first time in early June this year, when the Organization of American States held its annual meeting there. OAS meetings, of course, are hardly scintillating. So I looked for something else to cover. I was struck by how everyone in Medellin hailed the transformation of the city. I chose to investigate and produced a news article outlining how violence in Medellin had dropped dramatically.

My former colleague Steve Dudley, who wrote an excellent book about Colombia, "Walking Ghosts," told me the killings may begin to rise, however, with the extradition of paramilitary leader "Don Berna" to the United States. Don Berna, Steve said, wielded so much control over drug trafficking in Medellin that sending him from a prison in Colombia to the United States might unleash bloody turf battles.

I saw a Spanish language news story last week which reported that paramilitary groups are beginning to kill each other. I can't find the story, but it made me think that Steve may be correct. Certainly, it is a news story that bears watching.

Comments

[Blaine Sheldon]

Interesting note...Medellín has indeed seemingly transformed from the days of Escobar and 'los Pepes'. John Negroponte was in the city just a short time ago to capitalize on the aura of progress and cite the fruits of multinational cooperation on behalf of the US.

Yet, the question remains to what degree does that play with remobilizing paras in early 2008 (Águilas Negras, etc)?...murder rates are surging again this first semester of the year after falling in 2007. As Tyler notes, certainly a sign of the consolidation Murillo had fomented among narcobands in Antioquia.

A thorough breakdown of this complex trend covered here by
International Crisis Group:

http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=5564

Yet another perspective on Medellín's progress from the Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/10/AR2008071002746.html?nav=rss_business

Certainly a welcomed trend in Colombia, but its history cautions us to draw measured conclusions and avoid the myopic.

[Marvin L Foushee]

With all the interest in the political prisoners at Gitmo, I took it upon myself to study up on our base in Cuba. The lease signed by Teddy Roosevelt is up. If Saddham Hussein signed a oil well lease with Russians on their Iraqi oil fields before the Jokers in Washington, D.C., drove him out of office, what is the validity of his Russian leases? If Castro overthrew a corrupt and gangster puppet American regime in Cuba, are the leases and treaties signed by a corrupt and Stalinist dictator of any value? The lease is up on Gitmo. Marxist-Stalinist, Jew Klux Klan reason is the only obstacle to peace in this S.A. region. America, get out of Dodge City!