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alessandro Lannes

Drugs, Violence, and State-Sponsored Protection Rackets in Mexico and Colombia/Drogas, ... - 2 views

    • alessandro Lannes
       
      Alessandro Lannes
  • Some authors have argued that high violence was the result of Escobar's excessive political ambition (Camacho and López 2001), which made traffickers unnecessarily visible
  • Colombian traffickers faced in penetrating and making stable connections with the political establishment, the event does not by itself explain the highly violent methods of Escobar's organization, which preceded his brief transit through Congress and persisted well after it. The relative centralization and coherence of Escobar's organization were also crucial factors that help explain its employment of highly organized and brutally violent methods.
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  • Pablo Escobar was arrested for the first time for drug trafficking. By 1978 Carlos Lehder had consolidated a network of cocaine trafficking both with us and Colombian citizens, and by the early 1980s two organizations, based in the cities of Medellin and Cali, controlled most cocaine exports (Camacho and López 2001). Since the early 1980s the Medellin traffickers began to employ increasingly violent methods. This violence was the result of three interrelated factors: (1) the inability of Medellin traffickers to successfully penetrate the political establishment, (2) the government's decision to confront traffickers by approving an extradition treaty with the United States, and (3) the relative centralization and internal coherence of Medellin traffickers under the leadership of Pablo Escobar.
  • Escobar was elected to represent Medellin in the Lower Chamber of Congress. Escobar's election generated a strong negative reaction among a wide range of political elites, who opposed the public presence of a trafficker in Congress and successfully pushed for Escobar's loss of political immunity and expulsion from Congress in 1983 (Camacho and López 2001). These events motivated Escobar to react violently against political "oligarchs", who in turn publicly declared war on traffickers by approving an extradition treaty with the us that included narcotics offences. As a reaction to this policy, traffickers led by Escobar created the group "Los Extraditables," responsible for initiating the period of "narco-terrorism" by engaging in strategic violence against the state, targeting high level politicians and carrying out terrorist attacks against the civilian population in an effort to push the government to refrain from making extradition effective
  • sign of Escobar's war against the state was the assassination of the Minister of Justice Rodrigo Lara Bonilla in 1984, and, as of 1990, the violence of Medellin traffickers had claimed the lives of some 500 police officers in Medellin, hundreds of civilians in terrorist attacks in Bogota and Medellin, and prominent politicians, including presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galá
    • alessandro Lannes
       
      Pablo Escobar was desperate to get into Congress, when he was kicked out he took drastic measures to get revenge on the people responsible
miller kinlin

South America, Central America and ... - Google Books - 0 views

    • miller kinlin
       
      Virgilio Barco Vargas declared total war against the drug cartels, and re-established an extradiction policy with the Usa and sent more than a dozen middle ranking traffickers there. but the cartels responded viciously, blowing up planes, killing people, bombing the headquarters of the secret police. but as a result pablo escobar offered to negotiate with the government. but while attention was focused on the leaders of the medellin cartel, smaller groups like the Cali cartel emerged and increased its share of the us cocaine market to 30%
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    Virgilio Barco Vargas against medellin cartel
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    Miller Kinlin
miller kinlin

Drug use and drug policy - Google Books - 0 views

    • miller kinlin
       
      he organization that it has developed employs up to 120,000 people, including 2,000 to 3,000 in the us. controlled by pablo escobar, who ran it even in prison. primary target of us. Belisario Betancur in 1988: "we are up against an organization that is stronger than the state
    • miller kinlin
       
      ormed in 1982 in response to the kidnapping of a member of the ochoa family by the m-19 guerrillas. rapid increase in profits led to the cocaine wars. as the cartels became more powerful, they expanded into politics, media, private armies, real estate, and international banking
    • miller kinlin
       
      payed bribes to curropt police officials, judges were also paid as well, assassinated people, and offered to pay 10 billion to pay off national debt. and even killed the justice minister in 1984.
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    • miller kinlin
       
      argue its good for state: brings in so much money, aids development and keeps down unemployment. the cartels employed huge numbers of different types of workers, from farmers to airplane pilots, to engineers and scientists. they invested heavily in local elections and politicians, and including the presidential election.. and escobar even was elected to the comombian house of reps.
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    Miller Kinlin
William Fromm

Expert Witness Details Secrets of a Drug Cartel - New York Times - 1 views

  • Testifying for the prosecution in a Federal drug conspiracy and money laundering trial, Mr. Mermelstein said that from 1981 to 1985 he was one of the cartel's main representatives in the United States. He said that for four years he supervised the distribution of 56 tons of cocaine brought into the country and that he was responsible for transferring about $300 million from drug sales back to Colombia.
  • More Like ThisJackson Heights Streets Familiar to Drug CartelsCOLOMBIANS SEIZE DRUG RING SUSPECT AND 134 AIRCRAFTBanking's Technology Helps Drug Dealers Export Cash . . .Find More StoriesFederal LawDrug CartelMedellin CartelExpert Witness
    • Katy Field
       
      Sticky note on Bill's Stuff
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    • William Fromm
       
      Finally gives a testimony about the drug cartels, and it turns out to be the most extensive and most informative about the drug cartels.
  • testimony came at the trial of Carlos Eduardo Restrepo, who is accused of laundering more than $10 million for the Medellin cartel through a currency-exchange company in Greenwich that was an undercover ''sting'' operation set up by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Money laundering, under a 1986 Federal law, is the concealment and illegal transfer of money obtained through unlawful acts.The United States Attorney in Connecticut, Stanley A. Twardy Jr., said in an interview that Mr. Restrepo is the first person to be tried under the Federal law. Mr. Restrepo, who is 38 and who has described himself as a businessman, has pleaded not guilty.
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    This New York Times article shows how an eyewitness might have been treated under the colombian government, and how it later on seeked safety in the U.S. Federal Witness Protection Program.
William Fromm

UN raises Colombia's internally displaced figure to 3.6M - Colombia news | Colombia Rep... - 1 views

  • The U.N.'s refugee agency (UNHCR) has increased the figure of officially recognized internally displaced people in Colombia from 3.4 to 3.67 million, maintaining its undesired position as the first in the world, Caracol Radio reported Monday. UNHCR explains that in 2010 there were 57 "massive displacements," up from 42 the year before, while indigenous communities and Afro-Colombians continue to be the most prominently victimized by forced displacements, who tend to be concentrated in the areas that have witnessed intensified conflict in recent years such as the Pacific coastal regions. The latest U.N. report claimed that ethnic groups have been further affected by the development of illegal mining as a source of finance for illegal armed groups in the country, while inter-city displacement continues to rise, particularly in the Antioquian capital of Medellin. The U.N. agency noted concern for the situation of young people affected by the country's ongoing armed conflict and the emergence of criminal organizations following the 2006 demobilization process that have largely continued the narco-trafficking work of the paramilitaries. The figure of 3.6 million internally displaced people contrasts strikingly with that of Colombian non-governmental organization CODHES, which released a report earlier this year citing 5.2 million displaced Colombians, over 11% of the population, evidently using different criteria with which to classify what constitutes a "forcibly displaced" person. The government's figure by the close of 2010 rested closer to that of the U.N. with around 3.6 million people. The Internal Displacement Monitoring Center (IDMC), however, indicates that "the rates of under-registration are substantially high."
  • "The national-survey by the Civil Society Follow-up Commission showed that 65,7% of IDPs [Internally Displaced Persons] are registered," the IDMC explains, while the remaining 34.3% are not. The Colombian government puts the percentage of unregistered IDPs at 21%. The IDMC notes that many people remain outside of the government's official registry "as IDPs did not come forward out of fear or ignorance of procedures, and because many who requested it were denied registration."
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    Colombian Internally displaced figures have been increasing instead of decreasing.
Cole Blum

Youth and Violence in Medellin, Colombia - 1 views

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    This article is about the youth in Colombia and their involvement in the violence there. The part that I extracted the most from this article for my video was talking about the sicarios signifying the first youth involvement in the violence, which meant that pretty much everyone had become involved.
Austin Buben

From smugglers to warlords: twentieth century Colombian drug traffickers - ProQuest Res... - 1 views

    • Austin Buben
       
      Austin Buben Found this First
  • The main suppliers of Cuban traffickers during the 1960s were Colombians. They would buy the coca paste from peasant farmers in Peru and Bolivia, transform it into cocaine in laboratories in Medellin, and then sell it to Cubans for distribution in the United States.
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    From smugglers to warlords: twentieth century Colombian drug traffickers
Austin Buben

Timeline: America's War on Drugs : NPR - 0 views

  • October 1986: Reagan signs the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, which appropriates $1.7 billion to fight the drug war. The bill also creates mandatory minimum penalties for drug offenses, which are increasingly criticized for promoting significant racial disparities in the prison population because of the differences in sentencing for crack and powder cocaine. Possession of crack, which is cheaper, results in a harsher sentence; the majority of crack users are lower income.
  • Mid-1980s: Because of the South Florida Drug Task Force's work, cocaine trafficking slowly changes transport routes. The Mexican border becomes the major point of entry for cocaine headed into the United States. Crack, a cheap, addictive and potent form of cocaine, is first developed in the early '80s; it becomes popular in the New York region, devastating inner-city neighborhoods.
  • Nixon creates the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to coordinate the efforts of all other agencies.
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  • In the United States, Vice-President George H.W. Bush combines agents from multiple agencies and military branches to form the South Florida Drug Task Force, Miami being the main entry point at the time.
  • January 2006: Authorities announce the discovery of the longest cross-border tunnel in U.S. history, the work of what they call a well-organized and well-financed drug-smuggling group. The half-mile long tunnel links a warehouse in Tijuana, where about two tons of marijuana were seized, to a warehouse in the United States, where 200 pounds of the drug were found.
  • November 1993: President Clinton signs the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which increases the amount of trade and traffic across the U.S.-Mexican border. This makes it more difficult for U.S. Customs to find narcotics moving across the border.
    • Austin Buben
       
      This is a giant summary and the history of the DEA and War on Drugs.
    • Austin Buben
       
      Austin Found This First
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