Word: colombia
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General Miguel Maza Marquez narrows his hard brown eyes when he mentions his quarry. "He's somewhere in Medellin, and very soon we'll get him." The chief of Colombia's secret police, or DAS, has been offering that prediction for nearly a year. But each time authorities announce that the capture of Pablo Escobar Gaviria is imminent, the overlord of the Medellin drug cartel slithers away. Just last week Escobar managed to elude the police once again after a massive drug raid in the northeastern part of the country. But 11 top advisers of his drug ring, including...
...extradited to the U.S. In response, Escobar has unleashed a campaign of terror that has claimed some 300 civilian lives. After two successive weekends of violence in Medellin took more than 40 lives, the government two weeks ago extradited two more suspected cartel money launderers to the U.S., reaffirming Colombia's will...
...cartel profits remain solid, and Colombia is still the undisputed axis of cocaine trafficking. "It's an extraordinarily exhausting and frustrating fight," says a Western diplomat in Bogota, "and it's nowhere near being over." The stalemate raises questions about the government's inability to defeat the bad guys...
...Colombian authorities really want to destroy the cartels? No. The goal is primarily to drive them out of Colombia, which would not necessarily curtail cocaine production. Officials distinguish between drug trafficking, which mainly threatens the consumer countries, and narcoterrorism inside Colombia, which they are determined to stop. The constant terror bombings and assassinations have led to widespread calls for negotiation with the cartels. But that option has been rejected by both Barco and President-elect Cesar Gaviria Trujillo, who has promised to pursue the war when he takes office in August...
...supporting the cartel? Anyone who buys cocaine. But foreign governments help too. Earlier this year, Colombia disclosed that Israel had sold a large consignment of automatic weapons to Antigua, purportedly for its army. The guns wound up on one of Rodriguez Gacha's country ranches, where they were confiscated after his death. Chemicals needed to refine cocaine, once ordered from the U.S. and Western Europe, now come from Brazil and Ecuador, which are also becoming new production centers...