Death and Drugs in Colombia

Daniel Wilkinson

Y refundaron la patria: De cmo mafiosos y polticos reconfiguraron el Estado colombiano [And They Refounded the Nation: How Mafiosi and Politicians Reconfigured the Colombian State]
edited by Claudia Lpez Hernndez

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Stephen Ferry

Downtown Medelln viewed through bullet-punctured glass, with a billboard reproduction of a painting by the Colombian artist Fernando Botero at lower left, February 2004

In February 2003, the mayor of a small town on Colombias Caribbean coast stood up at a nationally televised meeting with then President lvaro Uribe and announced his own murder. Seor Presidente, I am the mayor of El Roble, Tito Daz said as he walked toward the stage where Uribe sat with several cabinet ministers and officials from the state of Sucre, where the meeting was held. Pacing back and forth before the President, Daz delivered what was probably the first public denunciation of a web of violence and corruption involving politicians and paramilitary groupswhat he called a macabre alliancethat would eventually become an explosive national scandal. Singling out several local officials, including the governor, Salvador Arana, seated at the Presidents side, Daz declared: And now theyre going to kill me.


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