MAP's index for the series: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n000/a251.html

Bookmark: Reports about Colombia: http://www.mapinc.org/area/Colombia

MARTINEZ PUSHES AHEAD WITH THE HUNT

Chapter 22 of a continuing serial

Col. Hugo Martinez did not protest when he learned that his superiors
in Bogota were planning to replace him, and had even picked his
successor. He offered to step aside. As the first anniversary of Pablo
Escobar's escape passed in July 1993, there seemed to be better
reasons to leave than to stay.

Col. Jose Perez, his proposed replacement, was a respected officer who
had been working on a poppy eradication program, which meant he
probably had a comfortable relationship with the U.S. Embassy. So
Martinez requested a transfer to Bogota, citing stresses caused by
long separations from his family, who had been sent back to the
capital from Medellin for their protection.

The hunt for Pablo Escobar had created strains in many families, the
colonel's perhaps most of all. His children had been forced out of
school for long periods when they were in hiding, and he hardly saw
them or his wife, who blamed him for the problems in their marriage.
As much as he wanted to finish the job, and as much as he felt that to
step down would be an admission of failure, he was ready to quit. The
manhunt simply demanded too much.

But his request was again rejected, and Perez never came. Despite
Martinez's alleged ties to the vigilantes of Los Pepes, detailed in
Ambassador Morris Busby's memos to Washington, the colonel continued
to receive American support, even when he wasn't sure he wanted it. He
was certain that was the primary reason he remained, for it was the
Americans who had bankrolled and pushed the effort from the beginning.

Besides, no one else in the National Police wanted the job. In the
year that Martinez had commanded the Search Bloc, the unit had
conducted thousands of raids, arrested or killed scores of Escobar's
closest associates, and seen scores of police and civilians killed in
return. The hunt for Escobar had evolved into a kind of civil war
between Medellin and Bogota. The Search Bloc conducted its raids in
Medellin, and Escobar set off his retaliatory bombs in the capital.

The toll of the hunt was terrible, but the police could afford to lose
more men than Escobar could. By the summer of 1993, the once powerful
Medellin cartel was in shambles. Escobar's fincas stood empty and
looted. His most palatial estate, Napoles, was now a police
headquarters.

Many of his former allies had abandoned him, offering to trade
information for government acquiescence in their own drug trafficking
(or for protection from the vigilante group Los Pepes). But the man
himself was still at large, moving from hideout to hideout, trying to
hold together his crumbling empire, still setting off bombs, still
sowing terror.

So long as Escobar was free, the Search Bloc's lesser successes
amounted to little. Every day Escobar remained at large was an insult
to the rule of law, and a blot on the reputation of Colombia . . . and
Col. Martinez's force.

There were those who refused to believe Martinez was really trying to
catch Escobar. Semana magazine polled officials in Bogota about the
Search Bloc's failure to get Escobar, and reported that "corruption"
was believed to be the primary reason. The second reason most
frequently cited was "inefficiency." Meanwhile, prosecutors in Bogota
were investigating the disappearance of some of the $1 million seized
in Search Bloc raids.

Inside the fences at the Search Bloc base, Martinez wrestled daily
with disappointment and frustration. He and his men lived there apart
from their families for months at a time, always under the shadow of
death. Escobar had evaded the police raids for so long that many had
begun to doubt he would ever be caught. The colonel's top men
complained that the effort was ruining their careers and often asked
to be recommended for other assignments. The Americans provided money,
guidance and information, and their support kept him in command, but
Martinez knew he still lacked their complete trust.

One day in late summer of 1993, Santos, the Delta commander at the
Search Bloc base, and DEA agent Javier Pena brought him a tape Centra
Spike had recorded of a radio conversation between Escobar and his
son.

Martinez was excited. It was the first time he had actually heard
Escobar's voice in more than a year. He wanted his men to analyze it.
The Americans allowed him to listen to the tape but refused to give
him a copy. They remembered an embarrassing leak in 1989, when the
transcript of a phone conversation recorded by Centra Spike wound up
in the newspapers, tipping off Escobar to their capability. The orders
were that no copies or transcripts could be made.

Martinez was furious. Pena and Santos were apologetic.

"Look, Colonel," Pena said. "I feel bad about it myself. You want to
kick us all out of here . . . kick us out. We'll leave right now."

They secretly allowed the colonel to copy the tape, but Martinez
stayed angry about the official snub. He had long since embraced
American technology. He had been skeptical at first, and it had led
them in the wrong direction often enough. But they had come so close
to nailing Escobar on several occasions that he no longer doubted the
spooks from Centra Spike and the CIA knew what they were doing.

The colonel had allowed the American role in his command to grow. On
July 14, he met at the Search Bloc base with U.S. Army Col. John
Alexander, visiting from Delta Force's headquarters at Fort Bragg, and
agreed to allow the unit to establish a ground-based listening post in
the Medellin suburbs to supplement its Beechcraft spy flights. This
allowed the U.S. Army's snoops to keep constant tabs on radio and cell
phone traffic in Medellin - but it was a potentially controversial and
embarrassing move for both countries.

The presence of Delta operatives at the Search Bloc base was a closely
guarded secret. Having more U.S. Army personnel living in Medellin
exposed them to danger and increased the likelihood that their
presence would be discovered by the Colombian press.

Revelations that gringo soldiers had been allowed not only to operate
on Colombian soil but to conduct electronic surveillance in a major
city might bring down the Gaviria administration. And for Washington,
the presence of American soldiers set up just outside a city as
violent as Medellin was fraught with danger.

As it was, Centra Spike's Steve Jacoby and Delta's commanders were
being summoned to the Pentagon on a regular basis to reassure nervous
administrators. But having a permanent presence on the ground gave the
unit a 24-hour capability, instead of being limited to the hours the
Beechcrafts were in the air.

Martinez had also agreed to Alexander's suggestion that Delta begin
playing a more active role in "development of targets and subsequent
operational planning," according to a memo Alexander wrote to Busby
about the meeting. The ambassador himself met with Martinez at the
Search Bloc base on July 22, the first anniversary of Escobar's
escape, to tour the facility and underscore America's continued commitment.

Martinez hardly needed convincing. If his superiors would not let him
off the hook, then finding Escobar, finishing this thing, was the only
way out. When he learned that a special unit of Colombian police had
been successful in tests with a new portable direction-finding kit, he
requested that it, too, be sent to Medellin to aid the hunt for Escobar.

There was only one problem. The special unit included his son Hugo.