Word: barco
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...brutal war between the government of President Virgilio Barco Vargas and the Medellin cocaine cartel, the drug lords have scored the latest hit. Last week the cartel's paramilitary group, the "Extraditables," claimed responsibility for the Dec. 20 abduction of investment broker Alvaro Diego Montoya, 36, the son of Barco's closest political adviser, general secretary of the presidency German Montoya...
...four months the Barco government has waged a campaign to shut down drug operations. Last week the government raised the reward for information leading to Escobar's capture to more than $500,000. Police read the kidnapings as a warning to Barco to halt the expropriations of kingpins' property and the extraditions of drug lords to the U.S. -- or pay the price...
Increasingly, Colombian public opinion favors negotiating with the narcos. It is a notion that Barco's associates know better than to utter around the office. When police foiled a plot to kill Barco's daughter, the flinty President said, "With common criminals and gutless assassins, dialogue is not possible...
...drug lords seem to be getting the message. An authorized spokesman for one of the cartels told TIME that Escobar, Gacha and Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela, don of the Cali cartel, recognize Barco's inflexibility and are waiting for his term to expire next August. Says the source: "They'll try to reason with the next President." But "reason" is surely a euphemism for "control." Through intermediaries, the narcos are putting money behind candidates for President, Congress and mayors of key cities. After election day, the bill will come...
Having endured Barco's best shot so far, the drug chieftains appear to be rebuilding their scorched empire. Cocaine production, which in September dropped to a quarter of its usual level of about 50 tons, is back up to 75%. Says a Western diplomat: "They were knocked off balance, but never out of business. If they need to boost production, they offer people double or triple salary. Money means nothing to them...