DEA Implicated In Deal With Terrorists, Part 2 of 3

THE CALI CARTEL, THE GOVERNMENT AND THE DEA BAND AGAINST PABLO ESCOBAR

In the war against Pablo Escobar, all was fair, even alliances with foes.

For years, the antidrug agencies of Colombia and (indirectly) the United
States depended in good part on the tips provided by the Cali drug cartel
and the accurate blows inflicted by Los Pepes (People Persecuted by Pablo
Escobar) on the leader of the Medellin Cartel, according to documents and
testimony obtained by El Nuevo Herald.

That fact was hard to swallow, however.

In April 1999, the head of the Cali Cartel, Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela,
expressed in his own words what neither government had dared to admit.

Rodriguez, who is serving a sentence for drug trafficking, told the
Colombian Attorney General that, during the search for Pablo Escobar, "the
high authorities always were aware that it was us -- and no one else -- who
gathered and placed at their disposal all this valuable information, as
well as some informers who occasionally were utilized by them."

By "high authorities," Rodriguez meant presidents Virgilio Barco (1986-90)
and Cesar Gaviria (1990-94).

"On a specific occasion, and so as not to compromise the chiefs of the Army
and the police, we had to appeal to a brother of the late President
Virgilio Barco, named Jorge Barco," Rodriguez said.

According to Rodriguez, Jorge Barco met with him and was given "irrefutable
evidence" of events going on in Colombia.

"Being a righteous person, he was enormously surprised and after securing
documentation . . . he met with his brother, President Barco," Rodriguez said.

From that day on, the government tuned its radio receivers to the Cali
Cartel's frequencies, Rodriguez said, and the members of that organization
were given a secret password so they could communicate with the director of
the Administrative Department of Security (DAS), Gen. Miguel Maza Marquez.

Their code name: Los Canarios -- The Canaries.

El Nuevo Herald has been unable to obtain comment from Jorge Barco. Maza
Marquez has denied any strategic ties with the Cali Cartel in other
instances where his name has been mentioned.

According to Rodriguez, the confidential information the Cali Cartel shared
with the government lasted until early December 1993, when the reason for
their concern came to an end.

Pablo Escobar was gunned down by police Dec. 2, 1993.

Aided by operatives of the Central Intelligence Agency and other American
agents, members of the National Police's Search Bloc located the drug lord
in a house in a Medellin neighborhood by tracing his phone conversations
with his son, Juan Pablo.

To avoid leaks, only four agents were sent in. Two of them kicked down the
front door and shot dead Escobar's bodyguard, Alvaro de Jesus Agudelo,
nicknamed "El Limon," The Lemon.

As Escobar slipped out through a third-floor window, he was shot in an arm
and fell on a nearby roof, wounded. The police don't rule out that, as
Escobar lay on the roof, one of the agents shot him dead.

"There was so much excitement that that could have happened," said Col.
Oscar Naranjo, who directed the police department's intelligence service at
that time.

Years later, the Cali Cartel's accountant, Guillermo Pallomari, told a
Miami prosecutor that when Miguel Rodriguez was told by phone that Escobar
was dead he burst into tears of joy and immediately phoned Attorney General
Gustavo de Greiff to tell him the news.

Pallomari, a computers expert now in the U.S. witness-protection system,
had designed a data base in Cali that tracked down Escobar's movements and
telephone conversations. The cartel shared that information with the
Colombian government, he said.

In a long letter to Miami prosecutor Bill Pearson, which was submitted as
evidence in a trial against members of the Cali Cartel, the Chilean-born
accountant provided details about the information network.

"It's important for you to know that the President of Colombia himself, Dr.
Gaviria, knew about the collaboration [provided by the Cali Cartel] to
eradicate the evil known as Pablo Escobar," Pallomari wrote.

The alliance between the Cali Cartel, Los Pepes and the antidrug agencies
of Colombia and the United States cost the latter dearly.

While the cartel's chieftains posed as fighters against drug-funded
terrorism and enjoyed a certain freedom of action as a result of their
alliance with law-enforcement agencies, their own drug-related profits soared.

After the war against Escobar ended, yesterday's allies became the new enemies.