Colombia Elites and Organized Crime www.InSightCrime.org Colombia Elites and Organized Crime Table of Contents Introduction ............................................................................................... 3 Land and Trade - Colombia's Elites ..................................................................... 4 Liberals and Conservatives ................................................................................. 5 La Violencia ........................................................................................................ 7 Organized Crime and Elites in Colombia ............................................................ 9 Crime, Cocaine and Guerrillas ................................................................................................. 9 Emerging or periphery elite (aka 'Narco-elite') ...................................................................... 12 A New Politics .......................................................................................................................... 13 The AUC and the Rise of the Periphery and Bureaucratic Elites .......................................... 16 Parapolitics ............................................................................................................................. 18 BACRIM and the Guerrillas ................................................................................................... 19 ‘Don Berna’ ............................................................................................... 26 Phase I: 'Don Berna' and the Hunt for Pablo Escobar (1985 - 1993) .................. 28 From Guerrilla Soldier to Bodyguard .................................................................................... 28 'This was the beginning of the end' ......................................................................................... 31 The PEPES .............................................................................................................................. 35 The PEPES and Their Bureaucratic Elite Connections ......................................................... 36 The PEPES and the Search Bloc ............................................................................................. 37 Phase II: 'Don Berna' Consolidates Medellin (1994-2000) ................................ 40 The Oficina de Envigado ........................................................................................................ 40 Berna and the Bureaucratic Elites ......................................................................................... 42 Phase III: 'Don Berna,' the Paramilitary Commander (2000 - 2005) ................ 46 Don Berna and the AUC ......................................................................................................... 46 Operation Orión ..................................................................................................................... 48 Destroying Bloque Metro ........................................................................................................ 51 'Donbernabilidad' ................................................................................................................... 52 Analysis - Conclusion ........................................................................................ 55 Epilogue ........................................................................................................... 58 ‘Jorge 40’ ................................................................................................... 72 Grand Magdalena Elites ..................................................................................... 75 Contraband, War and the Rise of the Gnecco Family ........................................ 80 The Education of Rodrigo Tovar Pupo .............................................................. 84 The Birth of a Paramilitary ............................................................................... 88 The Rise of 'Jorge 40' ........................................................................................ 90 Jorge 40's Political Machine ............................................................................. 92 The Jorge 40 Network: Reaping the Benefits .................................................... 98 Conclusion - Victims or Victimizers? .............................................................. 102 Epilogue ......................................................................................................... 106 Project Description .................................................................................. 114 Disclaimer ....................................................................................................... 114 Team ............................................................................................................... 114 The InSight Crime Foundation ................................................................. 115 Copyright ................................................................................................. 116 www.InSightCrime.org 2 Colombia Elites and Organized Crime Introduction By Hannah Stone he power of Colombia's elites is founded upon one of the most unequal divisions of land in the world. As of the early 21st century, one percent of landowners own T more than half the country's agricultural land.1 Under Spanish rule, Colombia's agriculture was organized on the hacienda system, in which "landless peasants" worked, often as sharecroppers or indentured labor, for the landowners. The fight for land redistribution began with the struggle for independence and continues to this day. Bolstered by a relatively stable economy, Colombia's elites have been able to repeatedly block attempts to redistribute land or carry out significant political reform. The country largely avoided the military coups and economic crises that beset its neighbors in the 20th century, but this very stability helped store up a legacy of social problems that remain unresolved. Colombia is, "the only Latin American country in which the traditional parties and elites neutralized all political reform efforts," Francisco Thoumi argues. "There were never reforms that challenged the power structure and weakened its control over society."2 www.InSightCrime.org 3 Colombia Elites and Organized Crime Land and Trade - Colombia's Elites The landowning elite of the 19th century used its land to develop agriculture and cattle ranching businesses. For the first half of the century, the economy remained small, isolated and undeveloped, with a low level of exports, dominated by gold. The development of the tobacco and then coffee export industries from 1850 helped create a merchant class. The associated export booms disproportionately benefited the economic elites -- both landowners and commercial middlemen. While much of Colombia's coffee was grown on small farms, the industry was run by a wealthy elite of distributors who controlled the sale and export of the crop.3 The coffee boom of the 1910s to 1930s was also the motor for the country's industrialization. Centered on the city of Medellín, it catapulted the city's merchant-industrialists "to national pre-eminence."4 Though the elite has been able to prevent major reform that would disrupt its power, it has not itself remained static. Successive generations of capitalists have been able to clamber into the ranks of the elite by generating wealth, first through industrial manufacturing and later through the drug trade. "The dominant groups -- large-scale owners of the means of production and the main political power brokers, who might or www.InSightCrime.org 4 Colombia Elites and Organized Crime might not be the same people -- have always been open to new blood from outside or from below," argues Forrest Hylton.5 As Colombia's economy grew and modernized in the early 20th century, the old landowning class joined forces with the expanding commercial class created by the coffee boom, protecting its position and avoiding disruption to the existing social order. The manufacturers and industrialists created by the coffee boom also found common ground with the landowners, allowing the old elites to maintain their position.6 The traditional elite has been flexible enough to absorb and co-opt rising groups, who "end up reproducing the exclusionary behaviors that many criticized before."7 Colombia's elite has always been made up predominantly of Colombian nationals unlike other Latin American countries, such as Honduras, where the export industries were largely foreign-owned. The country's economic and political elites overlap to a large extent, and the wealthy exert political power. Still, there are some divisions within them. The political elite can be considered as two groups: the elites of the country's periphery - - everything outside Bogotá -- and the elites of the center, or capital. The periphery elites can exert great power in their local sphere, while the elites of the center largely determine national policy. For its part, the economic elite can be divided into the modern industrial-financial bourgeoisie and the traditional landowning elite. A super- elite has developed since the 1970s, made up of several family-owned economic conglomerates that dominate the business world.8 The state has lacked effective presence in many areas of the country for much of Colombia's history, allowing local elites to grow powerful and largely autonomous in their regions. Until the mid-20th century, communications were very