Word: ochoa
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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President Virgilio Barco Vargas' four-month-old war against his country's top narcos -- Gacha, Pablo Escobar Gaviria and the three brothers of Medellin's Ochoa family -- has not gone as well as he or the nation had hoped. Since Mob hit men assassinated presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galan in August and ignited Barco's offensive, the leaders of Colombia's coke cartels have gone into hiding, forfeiting posh estates and bank accounts; some law- enforcement officials believe that the drug princes have even undergone plastic surgery. Nevertheless, Gacha and company remain immensely powerful, with their pipeline...
...Salinas de Gortari is prosecuting some formerly untouchable drug lords and officials, notably Jose Antonio Zorrilla Perez, the feared former chief of the Federal Security Directorate. But the State Department and the DEA are split over what to do about Cuba. State officials dismiss the executions of General Arnaldo Ochoa Sanchez and three other officers, allegedly for drug trafficking, as being really intended to destroy Fidel Castro's rivals. DEA officials argue that whatever Castro's motives, his antidrug posturing should be exploited...
...only five men recognized as a Hero of the Republic of Cuba, the country's highest honor, former Major General Arnaldo Ochoa Sanchez had reason to hope for clemency from his comrade of 30 years, Fidel Castro. It did not come. At dawn last Thursday, Ochoa, 57, and three other former army officers convicted only 16 days earlier of drug trafficking were executed by firing squad near Havana...
...that the Ruiz operation had secured cooperation from Cuban officers to use military runways as transit points. Of Cuba's compensation, Ruben said, "The money went into Fidel's drawer" -- a charge that has not been substantiated. Lehtinen says that the names of some of those arrested in the Ochoa scandal turned up during the Ruiz investigation...
Castro's true motives for Ochoa's unceremonious ouster may eventually become clear. In the meantime, Cubans are watching Granma for the next twist, and the Bush Administration is proceeding with caution. Last week the President told the Miami Herald that Cuba would have to do "much more" to improve ties with the U.S. Meanwhile, there were reports that planes continue to smuggle drugs over Cuba, making a mockery of a recent pledge by Cuban officials to shoot down unauthorized planes violating its airspace on the grounds that they were probably carrying drugs...