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

DELTA FORCE, IN BOGOTA, GETS THE LAY OF A CONFUSING LAND

Chapter Four Of A Continuing Serial

Hopes at the U.S. Embassy soared when a Delta Force team led by Col.
Jerry Boykin arrived in Bogota late in the evening of Sunday, July 26,
1992.

Ambassador Morris Busby's request for Delta to assist in the hunt for
Pablo Escobar, much to his surprise, had sailed through Washington.
The State Department had approved it and passed it up to the White
House, where President George Bush consulted with Joint Chiefs
Chairman Colin Powell and then instructed Secretary of Defense Dick
Cheney to give the ambassador anything he needed. The word was that
Bush, who had poured millions into a new effort to stanch the flow of
drugs from South America, had taken a strong personal interest.

The order came through Maj. Gen. George Joulwon, commander of the U.S.
Army Southern Command in Panama, and Maj. Gen. William F. Garrison,
commander of the Joint Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, N.C.
Col. Boykin and his crew flew south that evening with authorization to
get the job done. Their mission was code-named Heavy Shadow. They
arrived on a U.S. Air Force jet painted to look like a standard
commercial flight.

Eight very fit American men dressed in civilian clothes were met at El
Dorado airport in Bogota by midlevel embassy officials and driven
downtown in the dark, moving swiftly along roads that in daylight
would have been choked with traffic.

The U.S. Embassy was just north of central Bogota, a gray, four-story,
L-shaped structure with a windowless fifth floor atop one arm. It was
set back behind high walls. In the vault on the closed fifth floor,
Busby was waiting with CIA Station Chief Bill Wagner and Joe Toft, the
top DEA man in Bogota.

Busby and Boykin were old friends, and after a few minutes of getting
caught up, the ambassador began briefing the Delta colonel on the
situation. It was, to say the least, confusing.

From the rondos of blame taking place in the government palaces to the
furious caterwauling of the Colombian press, the July 22 prison escape
of Pablo Escobar had set off a great storm in Bogota. There were
hourly contradictory reports: Pablo had been captured; Pablo had been
killed; Pablo had surrendered; Pablo was still hiding in the jail.

To an extent that no one had anticipated, the Escobar problem was a
keystone that touched every fissure of Colombia's confusing power
structure. When Escobar walked out of jail, the hopeful administration
of President Cesar Gaviria had begun to splinter. Every day a new
official investigation began. The Ministry of Justice accused the army
of accepting bribes to allow Escobar's escape; one widely circulated
(and false) report held that Escobar had paid huge sums to the
soldiers around the prison, then walked out dressed as a woman.

President Gaviria had already fired all the guards and army officers
associated with the disaster, as well as the air force general whose
pilots had kept the assault force waiting for hours on the ground in
Bogota after they were ordered to attack the prison.

The military began spreading rumors that Escobar had escaped through a
secret underground tunnel. It seemed possible: On intercepted phone
calls from the prison in the weeks before the escape, Escobar and his
men had been overheard speaking about using "the tunnel."

Escobar had, in fact, left by more conventional means. The "tunnel"
turned out to be the drug boss' term for the covered truck that was
used to roll contraband - women, weapons, bodies, alcohol - up and
down the mountain under the studiously uninterested noses of prison
guards and army patrols. The truck helped Escobar maintain his
extravagant lifestyle inside the comfortable "prison" that he had paid
to have built and that was guarded by men he controlled.

The day after his disappearance, Escobar's lawyers had presented the
government with a surrender offer. In his typical arrogant, formal
style, the drug boss' demands were enumerated:

(1) That he would be able to return to prison;

(2) That his guards be rehired;

(3) That aerial surveillance of the prison be stopped;

(4) That no additional charges be brought against him;

(5) That his family and those of the others be allowed unrestricted
prison visits;

(6) That the National Police have nothing to do with his rearrest or
imprisonment.

Much to the satisfaction of the U.S. Embassy, President Gaviria had
flatly refused to negotiate.

The following day an odd communique was broadcast by the national
radio station Caracol, from someone calling himself "Dakota," who
claimed to speak for "The Extradictables," the theatrical form Escobar
often used when making formal statements to the public. The term
referred to the period, a few years earlier, when the drug barons had
waged a successful campaign of terror and bribes to outlaw their
extradition to the United States.

Ever concerned with his image and mindful of the storm of speculation
around his escape, Escobar listed the following helpful
clarifications:

One billion pesos (about $475,000 in today's dollars) were paid to
bribe the army to let him escape.

Escobar was hiding at a safe location and would not
surrender.

While there would be retaliation against high officials, there would
be no acts of violence against the public.

There were no tunnels beneath the prison.

Seventy armed men met Escobar when he left the prison.

Escobar originally intended to kidnap and execute Vice Minister of
Justice Eduardo Mendoza, and return his body "in pieces" to Bogota,
but did not only because he had been forced to hurry off.

President Gaviria's pledge to protect the lives and rights of Escobar
and the confederates who escaped with him were "a joke."

In addition, the U.S. Embassy had received a fax on the day of
Escobar's escape - an ugly threat issued politely:

"We, the Extradictables declare: That if anything happens to Mr. Pablo
Escobar Gaviria, we will hold President Gaviria responsible and will
again mount attacks on the entire country. We will target the United
States embassy in the country, where we will plant the largest
quantity of dynamite ever.

"We hereby declare: The blame for this whole mess lies with President
Gaviria. If Pablo Escobar or any of the others turn up dead, we will
immediately mount attacks throughout the entire country. Thank you
very much."

The slightly adolescent flavor of this message led the embassy to
suspect Escobar's teenage son, Juan Pablo, a chubby would-be heir to
the cocaine dynasty who had lately taken to making threats on his
father's behalf. To further confuse matters, Escobar's mother,
Hermilda, in a newspaper interview in Medellin, said her son had fled
to southern Colombia, and would turn himself in when it was safe.

Trying to cut through all this noise - it was hard to tell what was
true and what wasn't - the embassy was fortunate to have Maj. Steve
Jacoby's secret electronic eavesdropping unit, Centra Spike, in the
air high over Medellin. On July 24, just two days after his escape,
the unit picked up Escobar talking at length on a cell phone. They
pinpointed his location to an area about four miles from the prison,
in a wealthy suburb of Medellin called Tres Esquinax.

Evidently assuming that the government could not yet have him under
surveillance, Escobar was doing a lot of talking, using as many as
eight cell phones. Already, he was providing solid leads for the Delta
manhunters.

Col. Boykin boasted to Colombian National Police Col. Oscar Naranjo
that he and his men would find Escobar within the week.