The Implosion of Memory. City and Drug Trafficking in Medellín and the Aburrá Valley

In Medellín (Colombia), the implosion of a building by local authorities, as it was considered a negative symbol inasmuch as it caused a bad image for the city, is the leitmotiv to question the reasons for its demolition and to propose a more complex insight with regard to the origins and permanence of drug trafficking in urban planning and urban culture. This is what this text proposes, a look not at an episodic or circumstantial event but as part of a complex framework that involved a strong urban conflict, with triggering effects not only on the architectures built by illegally injected besieged capital, but on recognized urban works, while, in the configuration of the urban landscape, and in the social and cultural practices that are projected up to the present and that in some way have already been naturalized. The implosion of a building, in turn an “uncomfortable heritage”, is the metaphor of a city and a society besieged, that although at the time were almost in “ruins”, did not succumb and were reconfigured, even incorporating new non-recognized practices, but that are latent there as part of their cultural language and landscape.

1. 1.

   The Medellin Report ¡Basta Ya! (Stop Now!) recognizes 6819, but underreporting has been pointed out in these data. Due to it, the figures even rise to 7237 murders, with a rate of 266 homicides per 100,000.

2. 2.

   The aforementioned Medellin Report ¡Basta Ya! establishes four periods: a first period, 1965–1985, that of the antecedents that shaped the factors that later triggered the armed conflict; the second, from 1982 to 1994, properly associated with the Medellín Cartel, but also associated with political violence, and a “dirty war” due to the complicity of state institutions; the third, 1995–2005, when the paramilitary and rural guerrilla expansion turned Medellín into the geographical and logistical center of the conflict; and the fourth period, 2006–2014, marked by the decline of the guerrilla and paramilitary forces, and the containment of violence by the state (National Center for Historical Memory 2014; 23–25). Although, as will be seen at the end of this text, it is a reconfiguration of the conflict.

3. 3.

   The Área Metropolitana del Valle de Aburrá (Valle de Aburrá Metropolitan Area) incorporates 10 municipalities: Barbosa, Girardota, Copacabana, Bello, Medellín, Envigado, Itagüí, Sabaneta, La Estrella, and Caldas.

4. 4.

   Monaco was one of the real estate properties owned by Colombian drug trafficker Pablo Escobar, located in the barrio Santa María de los Ángeles, in the exclusive sector of El Poblado.

5. 5.

   This quote, taken from official press information, appears on several virtual pages which gave the news of the inauguration of the Inflection Memorial Park, such as: https://www.eje21.com.co/2019/12/medellin-inaugura-park-in-memory-of-the-thousands-of-victims-of-drug-trafficking/, among others that repeat the phrase.

6. 6.

   Paisa is the way in which those who belong to the region of Antioquia and the Coffee Region of Colombia are commonly called.

7. 7.

   Television presenter Gloria Valencia de Castaño wrote in 1983: I belong to the group of lucky people who receive the first ecological newspaper in Colombia on a monthly basis. 25 years ago “Medellín Cívico” appeared, and since then, the director has put its pages at the service of a cause that at that time was quite strange, and today is everyone’s concern: the defense of the environment. Hernando Gaviria goes so far in his goals that in the delivery for the month of January he asks for the creation of an “ecologist party” and a “ministry of the environment” (Valencia de Castaño 1983).

8. 8.

   In that year, “he asked a German factory for the prices of cocaine and heroin in quantities greater than one kilogram. Both the Colombian authorities and the German police suspected that it was illicit trafficking” (Sáenz Rovner 2021: 40).

9. 9.

   The brothers, Javier, Rodolfo, and Mariano Ospina Baraya, were grandchildren of former President Mariano Ospina Pérez (Castle 1987: 66 and 67).

10. 10.

    Alberto Bravo “high-class paisa gentleman, well-spoken, and graduated from Colegio San Ignacio”. His brother, Carlos Bruno, was a former soldier who was in the Korean War (Soto 2013: 22).

11. 11.

    Like the case of Alberto Prieto Escobar, “a powerful individual who managed the strings of power in Antioquia for years” (Soto 2013: 61).

12. 12.

    “The fundamental change is in the transition from the large corporations and the economic guilds of those fractions of the ruling class to the formation of an economic group. This constitutes both a new form of property organization and a new center of power, which also integrates different fractions of the ruling class” (Franco Restrepo 2005: 163). That economic group, called Sindicato Antioqueño (Antioquenian Union), was formed in 1978 and would be renamed the GEA—Grupo Empresarial Antioqueño—as it is known today.

13. 13.

    Among many family groups, the Clan de los Ochoa (Ochoa clan) is referents of this various social class, several of whose members were leaders of the Medellin Cartel, in whose family background there were prominent and recognized professionals, and before being part of the mafia, they already stood out as horsemen and managed the Las Margaritas restaurant an stables, which would later become a symbol of the new emerging power; or the so-called Clan de los Tomates (Tomato clan), headed by the brothers Diego and Carlos Arcila, also partners of Pablo Escobar who “came from a middle-class family from Antioquia, with a certain degree of education and social renown, typical of their social status” (Salazar Pineda 2005: 54).

14. 14.

    This term derived from the declaration by the government of General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla in 1953 of the Island of San Andrés, located in the Caribbean Sea, as a Free Port. Colombian tourists who entered the island were allowed to return, bringing a quota of merchandise without paying tariffs. This initiative to encourage the island economy led to a practice in which the quotas were bought by merchants, and, incidentally, they managed to get a larger quota. The places where these merchandise were sold were known as the “sanandresitos” throughout the country.

15. 15.

    In the immediate term, since 1977, the Plan Metropolitano de Medellín (Medellín Metropolitan Plan) contemplated a project in this sense, by including a study called Proyecto de Transporte Rápido Masivo en el Valle de Aburrá (Massive Rapid Transportation Project in the Aburrá Valley). But the Pilot Plan drawn up by Paul Wiener and José Luis Sert, between 1948 and 1951, raised the need to create a road system parallel to the river that would connect the urban settlements of the Aburrá Valley. After that, the Regulatory Plan and its derivatives of road plans were formulated. Among them the one of 1968, with the so-called Espina dorsal del Valle de Aburrá (Backbone of the Aburrá Valley), with which the strips on both sides of the river were reserved for a multimodal corridor that include the metro layout.

16. 16.

    In statements given on April 28, 2001 in the local newspaper El Colombiano, in the note entitled El poder que había era superior a la justicia (The power that existed was superior to justice), the lawyer Ignacio Mejía Velásquez, who had the power of attorney for one of the companies that participated in the bidding for the works: the French company S.G.T.—Societé Generale de Techniques et d’Etudes—pointed out: “It was always said that this was not a contract for a metro, but a metro for a contract, because what mattered was awarding it, not so much the work. Through this, it became known that there were posh characters who were behind the benefits of the contract” (Restrepo 2005: 368).

17. 17.

    Denounces made at the time were either not investigated or died slowly in the courts. Although a posteriori, in 2001, the Attorney General’s Office “confirmed the payment of at least 20 million dollars in commissions… nothing could be done about it, since the criminal action had already prescribed” (Restrepo 2005: 369).

18. 18.

    This consortium was made up of three Spanish companies—Entrecanales y Tavora S.A., Construcciones y Contratas S.A., Ateinsa—and three German companies—Man AG, Dickerhoff & Widmann, Siemens AG.

19. 19.

    For example, the enactment of Law 86 of December 29, 1989, “by which rules are issued on urban public service systems for mass passenger transportation, and resources are provided for their financing”, known as the Metro Law. It included in Chap. II, “Of the Aburrá Valley mass transportation system”, that in order to “deal with the expenses caused by the construction of the Aburrá Valley mass transportation system, and primarily the debt service, a surtax will be charged on the consumption of motor gasoline of 10% of its price to the public on the sales of Ecopetrol at the supply plant located in the Aburrá Valley as of January 1, 1990”. In addition, “as a condition for the granting of the guarantee of the Nation, rents must be pledged in sufficient amounts that, added to the resources generated by the gasoline surcharge referred to in the previous article, cover in present value the entire initial cost of the project, equivalent to US$650 million in 1984”. Check at: https://www.funcionpublica.gov.co/eva/gestorrmativo/norma.php?i=3426. With the approved law, the Medellín protocol was signed in December 1990, in which the commitments between the parties were established and to comply with the provisions of the law, specifically the collection of the gasoline surcharge and the pledging of tobacco rents. It is also necessary to point out the expiration of the contract in December 1991, that forced agreements between the parties, such as taking the differences to an international court, the payment of an advance of 50 million dollars and the revocation of the expiration in August 1992. The settlement between the parties was only achieved 14 years later, that is, on September 12, 2009, when the metro agreed to pay only 3.5 million dollars, something insignificant given the initial claim of the construction consortium.

20. 20.

    A posteriori, the Comptroller General pointed out that “it was the consequence of poor planning and an administrative structure made up of technical personnel with little experience in managing urban transport planning” (General Comptroller 1994: 66).

21. 21.

    “The importance of his last names and his image as an enterprising and thriving executive had made him the first manager of the most ambitious company started by any city in the country: the Medellín metro. Due to this position, to say the least, Diego Londoño became for several years, before the Spanish government of Felipe González, the official spokesman for Metromed, a consortium that operated with binational funds and was in charge of the construction of the first metro nationwide.

    In defense of the project, Diego Londoño White had represented President César Gaviria and shared, side by side, with the Colombian ambassador, Ernesto Samper Pizano, before industrialists and high-ranking officials from Madrid. Perhaps for this reason, it was difficult to even imagine the magnitude of his unofficial activities. Due to this good will and his permanent contact with the cream of Colombian society and industry, Diego Londoño White ended up pointing out, indirectly for Pablo Escobar and the bandits, some of the potential victims of plagiarism, at the request of La Monja Voladora (The Flying Nun) [alias of engineer Juan Fernando Toro] after he joined and became a partner of Londoño White, a prestigious real estate brokerage firm in Medellín. Millionaire sums thus entered the saddlebags of Pablo Escobar Gaviria himself and the bandits, meanwhile The Flying Nun received juicy commissions for each kidnapping. Diego and Guillermo Londoño White even turned out, on some occasions, to be intermediaries and good offices managers” (Torres Arias 1995: 407–408).

22. 22.

    … “another notable member of Medellín society, club member, businessman, horseman, and golf player, who in the late 1980s turned out to be one of the key links of the drug lord Pablo Escobar Gaviria”. https://www.elespectador.com/judicial/el-emulo-de-londono-white-article-34492/.

23. 23.

    The judicial persecution of Diego Londoño White began in 1990. After some time in freedom, he surrendered on March 1, 1993. He was sentenced in 1999–14 years in prison, of which he paid nine. After being released from prison, he was assassinated in November 2002.

24. 24.

    This sinister character, curiously and probably due to the established closeness, changed his name to Fernando Londoño White, as he was known before he was himself assassinated.

25. 25.

    Later, other neighborhoods would be built such as Barrios Lalinde, Manila, Alejandría, Astorga, Provenza, (this last one consolidated in the 1960s).

26. 26.

    The story of her starting point in Medellín, her vertiginous rise and immense and cruel power in the United States, his imprisonment and decline, her return and her murder in 2012, in a meat shop in the Barrio Belén of Medellín, is narrated by Soto (2013).

27. 27.

    A street language, cryptic, as a way to communicate and evade control. After its emergence and consolidation in the 1980s, the RAE—Real Academia Española since 2001 recognized and incorporated some of its words. A language that has its own dictionary as of 2006.

28. 28.

    It is precisely this cult that gives its name to the novel La Virgen de los sicarios (The Hitmen Virgen) (1993), by the writer Fernando Vallejo, made into a film by the director Barbet Schroeder in 1999. The writer Héctor Abad Faciolince speaks precisely from this novel of the genre of the sicaresca (hitmanesque).

29. 29.

    Recorrido sobre Pablo Escobar en Medellín 2022—Viator. Consulted: 07.30.2022 https://www.viator.com/es-ES/tours/Medellin/Pablo-Escobar-Historical-Tour-of-Medellin/d4563-5549ESCOBAR?m=26374&supag=67067036863&supsc=dsa-694098304004&supai=420430240007&supap=&supdv=c&supnt=nt:g&suplp=1003654&supli=&supti=dsa-694098304004&tsem=true&supci=dsa-694098304004&supap1=&supap2=&gclid=Cj0KCQjw54iXBhCXARIsADWpsG8F_WG9sIuu3q3JDuXDxC_AHqPqxMexIJEGkkFpWA9xipaWYk4mCrgaAuenEALw_wcB.

30. 30.

    https://pabloescobartour.co/landing-2/?gclid=Cj0KCQjw54iXBhCXARIsADWpsG_JzFziNKmNY24rhIDa9oQ9ZlLk-SeS8sOByF-1zhZMME3Y5BuEimMaAu81EALw_wcB.

31. 31.

    On April 30, 1998, a raid was carried out, where “many pieces of evidence were found to prosecute dozens of merchants, businessmen, industrialists, cattle ranchers, soldiers, and policemen who in one way or another were related to the structure of the ACCU”—Autodefensas Campesinas de Córdoba y Urabá (Peasant Self-Defense Groups of Córdoba and Urabá) (Memoria de la impunidad en Antioquia 2010: 55) The macabre thing was that instead of continuing the investigations and prosecuting those responsible, and the investigators in charge of the raid were either dismissed or killed. This fact was conveniently hidden in the byways of justice, and much of the evidence was lost.

32. 32.

    A group of drug traffickers, including those from the Cali Cartel and former members of the Medellín Cartel, victims of Pablo Escobar's abuses, formed Los PEPES—Perseguidos por Pablo Escobar (Persecuted by Pablo Escobar), as an organizations who attacked him, conducted intelligence and passed on information to the authorities to find him until his death.

33. 33.

    It operated in Medellín and in part of the Valle de Aburrá between 1997 and 2004 and also had territorial control in the Northeast and East of Antioquia. It was commanded by the lawyer and ex-military Carlos Mauricio García, known as Rodrigo or Doble Cero. Before commanding this bloc, he was an ideologue for the Autodefensas Campesinas de Córdoba y Urabá-ACCU. He refused the entry of pure drug traffickers to the self-defense groups. After being defeated in Medellín, he settled in the city of Santa Marta, where he was assassinated in May 2004.

34. 34.

    He was a member of the EPL—Ejercito Popular de Liberación. “When Escobar betrayed the Galeanos and murdered them in the La Catedral prison, where he was being held, Murillo almost fell into the trap. That is why he joined the PEPES—Perseguidos Por Pablo Escobar and collaborated with the authorities to finish off the head of the Medellín Cartel. With the Galeanos dead, Murillo took over his illegal emporium in Itagüí. Like many members of the PEPES, once Escobar died in December 1993, Murillo eventually ended up allied with the paramilitary group created by the brothers Fidel and Vicente Castaño. With the capo dead, Murillo emerged as the new head of Medellín's criminal gangs—the most fearsome of them, La Terraza (The Terrace), he prospered in the business of armed robbery (the most remembered, in which they took 13 billion pesos of a valuables truck in Bucaramanga)”, see: https://verdadabierta.com/perfil-diego-fernando-murillo-bejarano-alias-don-berna/. Consultation: 07.31.2022.

35. 35.

    This operation was carried out in the barrios of Comuna 13, in the eastern center of the city of Medellín. “Don Berna explained in a free version rendered from his place of detention in the United States, in March 2009, how paramilitaries from the Cacique Nutibara Bloc participated in the planning of this operation, which was under the command of then-general Mario Montoya, from the Colombian army; and Leonardo Gallego, from the Valle de Aburrá Metropolitan Police”. https://verdadabierta.com/la-tenebrosa-maquina-de-guerra-que-dirigio-don-berna/. Consultation: 07.31.2022.

36. 36.

    La Oficina (The Office) has its origin in the Medellín ¡Basta Ya! (Medellín Stop Now!) campaign, which calls the complex armed structure that Pablo Escobar formed and that allowed him to consolidate himself as head of the Cartel, which was “possible thanks to a division of labor between gangs and the “offices” to which one could go to settle disputes, from the loss of some shipments to revenge, or go to coordinate criminal activities” (Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica 2014; 133). After Escobar’s death, the organization has oscillated between the hierarchical—in the times of Don Berna—to a kind of federation, as they present themselves today, by sending a letter on July 28, 2022 to the current President of the Republic, Gustavo Petro, as a reaction to his proposal for Paz Total (Total Peace), heading the letter as follows: “We, the organization called “La Oficina”, which brings together armed groups with presence in territories of the Medellin metropolitan area and other regions of the country, we are the oldest in the urban armed conflict in Colombia, due to our participation since the 1980s in the different transitional phenomena of the conflict”. Members of that office continue to control the legal and illegal dynamics of many metropolitan territories, surviving the purges, conflicts and even the action of the state, since they lead their actions from prisons.

37. 37.

    It is pointed out that to allow the construction of buildings or urbanizations, they claim for themselves a certain number of apartments and control of the stock of materials, although the construction guilds have denied this.

38. 38.

    Daniel Rivera Marín, Esta eterna canción de reguetón (This eternal reggaeton song), in: Generación, Medellín, El Colombiano newspaper, 07.18.2022, p. 20.

Authors and Affiliations

1. National University of Colombia, Medellín, Colombia

   Luis Fernando González Escobar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Luis Fernando González Escobar .

Editors and Affiliations

1. Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales, FLACSO Ecuador, Quito, Ecuador

   Fernando Carrión Mena

2. Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales, FLACSO Ecuador, Quito, Ecuador

   Paulina Cepeda Pico

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