Gustavo also argued this with him, but Pablo was firm. “I’m going to be the president of Colombia,” he still insisted. “We already have money. I don’t have to worry about my family having a place to sleep or getting food. We’ve been established, Roberto. I want to help people the legal way. And I’m going to stay away from this.”
I believe that was true. He was always talking about one day being president. He felt certain it would happen. And he promised that he would be the president of the poor people, he would work for them. Colombia had been ruled for so long by the same class, “the Men of Always,” as they were called at that time. Maybe the faces of the leaders changed, but their policies were always against the poor.
Now, other people say that his real reason for joining politics was that he was worried about the laws passed by America and Colombia allowing drug dealers to be extradited to the United States. I agree that was also true. Pablo often said he would rather lie dead in Colombian dirt than be alive in an American prison. By Colombian law, as a member of Congress he would be immune from prosecution. Also, he believed that by being an elected representative he could begin his campaign to make it illegal for Colombia to extradite people in the drug business to the United States.
The first race he would make, he decided, would be for representative. The system in Colombia works a little different from that of the United States. Our representatives in Congress are elected with alternates, so if they are sick or absent the alternate will take their place. Pablo ran for office as an alternate for the municipality of Envigado. It’s probably true that Pablo supported much of the primary candidate’s positions. Pablo could have been the main candidate, but this was better. It attracted less attention. To start, he was to be a candidate for alternate for the New Liberal Party, a people’s movement against the traditional ruling class. But the leader of that party, Luis Carlos Galán, insisted he knew where Pablo’s fortune had been made. Galán had heard the rumors. When Pablo refused to reply, he and his running mate were cut out from the party. Instead they became candidates of the Liberal Party. Pablo didn’t lose his temper, but I know inside he was angry at all the politicians who were happy to take his money but then ran away from him.
Pablo’s strongest supporters were always the poor people. During his campaign Pablo held most of his rallies in the poorest towns in the election district. His campaign slogan was “Pablo Escobar: A Man of the People. A Man of Action! A Man of His Word!” Many thousands came to these events, and sometimes after the speeches money was handed out to the people. To begin these appearances our little niece and nephew, María and Luis Lucho, would sing the campaign song that had been written by our mother, Hermilda:
A human person has just been born, a very human person. As very good Pablito citizens we are here to show our support. The new politician. The people run and run and run and jump and jump and jump. They run to go and vote. Everyone is so happy they can go and vote for Pablo Escobar!
Pablo liked to campaign. He would always dress as a man of the people, in his jeans and sneakers, but well groomed of course. Nothing fancy. During those times when he was speaking to the people, I believe in his mind he was able to move himself into another world, a world away from the business. He could see his future. “I’m tired of the powerful people running this country,” he would tell them. “This is a fight between those powerful people and the poor and the weak people, we have to start with that. Being powerful doesn’t mean you can abuse the poor.”
After giving his speech Pablo had his bodyguards around the stage and he opened some cases with money. People came close to the stage and Pablo had his bodyguards handing money person to person. He told the bodyguards to give money to everyone but especially to old people and young people. The people loved him. They would kiss his hands. Pablo didn’t like that touching, but he would put his hands on the person’s back and hug them, saying, “Do well.”
It was funny. Some politicians find secret ways of buying votes. Pablo just handed out money to the poor people, but not demanding anything in return. Sometimes instead of rallies he would have his airplanes fly over small towns dropping flyers, “Vote for Pablo!” And money. Of course the people loved him.
Also like every politician at these rallies he would make promises about what he was going to do. “I’m going to put good lights on the football field . . . I’m going to paint the church . . . Provide books for the schools . . . I’m going to do this and that for you . . .” He said the things he would do—but what was different from other politicians is that within a few days his men would begin doing what Pablo had promised.
At these rallies Pablo often spoke out strongly against extradition. “This is our country,” he would say. “Why do we let the Americans make policy for us? We don’t need American judges to be in charge of Colombian law. Colombians should be free to take care of Colombia’s problems. As a Colombian every person who makes a mistake against the law should be judged in Colombia, nowhere else!” The fact that President Ronald Reagan in 1982 declared trafficking in drugs a threat to American national security was understood in Colombia to mean that people in the business would be considered the same as terrorists. If they were allowed to be extradited they would be treated very harshly, they would spend their life in an American prison.
One of the principals who helped Pablo throughout his campaign was Alberto Santofimio, a Colombian politician with experience. He had been a minister and a senator and he very much wanted to be president. I remember he used to promise Pablo that when he became president he would eliminate all extradition, and he suggested that if Pablo helped him become president, after his term ended Pablo should become the president. That was exactly what Pablo wanted to believe. Now it seems easy to see that it was never possible, but during that time it really did seem like it might happen. Politics in Colombia was always dirty, and many times before the voters had forgiven the past.
In 2007, in Colombia, Santofimio was convicted of being the mastermind behind the killing of New Liberal Party presidential candidate Luis Galán during the campaign of 1988. During the trial it was testified that Santofimio was always telling Pablo that he had to kill people to move ahead. But that would come much later, and was nothing that Pablo ever spoke of to me.
One big issue of the campaign of 1982 was called “hot money.” That meant money given to politicians by drug organizations. All of the different drug groups supported candidates who were sympathetic to them. The New Liberal Party, the group that had broken away from the traditional Liberal Party, particularly accused Pablo and his running mate, Jairo Ortega, of being supported by the “drug mafia,” as these organizations were called in Colombia. The word “cartel” wasn’t heard for a few more years. This was the first time that Pablo was accused publicly of being connected to the cocaine organizations.
The media was pretty fair to Pablo, sometimes calling him “a real Robin Hood.” They wrote about him as a philanthropist, a man who easily gave away his money to people who needed it. They also wondered where his fortune had been made, but most of the media didn’t write about the drug business. The people didn’t care how Pablo got rich. He came from them and had become the equal of the wealthy class, and didn’t forget them, so they loved him for it. On election day I rented buses for my three hundred employees to drive them to the voting station so they could vote for Pablo. But truthfully, I didn’t vote for my brother. He knew that I thought this was a big mistake and I couldn’t personally support it. So I didn’t vote at all.
No matter of importance. Pablo easily was elected as a deputy/alternate representative to the Chamber of Representatives of the Colombian Congress. The Congress is in Bogotá. On the first day he was to take office I was there with him, but I was to leave the country to go do business for my bicycle company, my right business. I don’t remember Pablo being excited; as with his anger he kept his joy inside. I know he was proud and believed this was his new beginning. I dropped Pablo at the Congress and went to the airport, so I didn’t know what was erupting there.
One thing, Pablo never wore a tie. He was wearing an expensive respectable suit, but no tie. The rules said that all members of Colombia’s Congress must wear a tie. So the guard refused to allow him to enter the chamber. Pablo was upset by that. He said, “Here in Colombia the people know that members of the Congress wear nice suits and expensive ties and then they go and steal money. What does appearance have anything to do with the work?”
The radio reporters told their listeners that a congressman was stopped at the door because he didn’t want to wear a tie. It became a big story. Meantime, because of traffic I missed my plane. That was okay, I decided, if I miss this trip it is because it is no good for me. So I returned to the hotel to see this mess going on with Pablo. His very first day and he was attracting attention.
Finally a guard said to him, “Mr. Pablo, Mr. Escobar, here is my tie. Just use it.”
Pablo put on the tie and entered the Congress. Then when he sat down he took off the tie. Basically he was telling everyone that the tie wasn’t essential, I’m here and I don’t want to wear this tie and it has nothing to do with the job that we are supposed to do. That was Pablo’s introduction to government.
One of his first official duties was to travel to Madrid with others from the Congress for the inauguration of Spain’s prime minister, Felipe González. He met the new prime minister at an official meeting. At that time the operation was opening up Europe, so Pablo also met some important businessmen and politicians knowing that they might become sympathetic. It’s accurate to say that some of the most successful people in the legal business world in Spain today made their first fortune with Pablo. From Madrid, Pablo visited other countries in Europe, including the small principality of Monaco. Monaco impressed Pablo, with its freedom and fun. So eventually when he decided to build a lovely modern building for himself in Medellín, he named it Monaco.
Under the law of my country, our president must give several cabinet posts to members of the opposition parties. President Belisario Betancur awarded the Ministry of Justice to the New Liberals, who named Senator Rodrigo Lara Bonilla to the position in 1983. Lara was one of the strongest speakers in the government against the influence of the drug mafias, against the hot money.
During the political debate about hot money in August 1983, Jairo Ortega held up for everyone to see a photocopy of a check for one million pesos, about $12,000, to the campaign for the Senate of Lara Bonilla signed by the chief of a drug group in Leticia, the capital of the Colombian Amazon, who was known for bringing in paste and other chemicals from Peru. He had once served a sentence in Peru for smuggling. Pablo knew this drug chief and some people accused him of getting this copy of the check. It is possible that this money had been donated to Lara’s campaign with this accusation in mind. It was an amazing moment—Lara was being accused of taking hot money!
In response, he denounced the drug chief and Pablo. This was the first time that Pablo had been accused in public of being a drug trafficker. A few days later a newspaper in Bogotá reported, also for the first time, that Pablo Escobar had been arrested for smuggling thirty-nine kilos in 1976. Pablo told me he was not surprised at any of this. “The people running this country don’t want me to succeed. I’m a threat to the same politics. They’re going to be against me because they’re used to robbing and I’m going to transform the system. Everybody in Medellín knows that I have real estate businesses and that’s how I get my money for politics. I love my country, and we want to make this country beautiful. I admire the United States, but I don’t agree with the way they are doing politics here in Colombia.”
Lara, the justice minister, told the newspapers that the United States had made charges against Pablo accusing him of being a drug trafficker. Pablo had a response for everything. “That’s not true,” he replied. “As a matter of fact, here is the visa I got three days ago from the American embassy.”
Within a few days, however, the U.S. canceled that visa. Two months later Lara requested that the Congress take back Pablo’s immunity from extradition. Pablo never returned to the Congress. His political career was over.
At first President Betancur was against extradition. This was a very controversial issue. Many agreed with Pablo and the other leaders of the cartel that our country should not allow the Americans to enforce their law on our territory.
Pablo remained calm throughout and denied all of Lara’s charges, continuing to proclaim that he was a real estate man. But this was what Gustavo and myself had most feared. The attention being paid to Pablo Escobar had shone a bright light on the business. Now people were asking hard questions and the police were looking around.
For many of the Colombian people the facts were simple: Pablo and the other business leaders provided more to them than did the government. Even if they believed the stories, the drugs were not hurting them as much as ending the drug trade would hurt them. Later, when we were trying to make peace with the government, an important drug trafficker of Medellín explained this to a representative: “This is a business like any other business. The cocaine that leaves from Colombia is not being used in Colombia. The cocaine that leaves is giving many peasants a source of work. People who have no other means to survive. Right now there are more than 200,000 people in the plantation.”
So naturally there was very mixed reaction to Lara Bonilla’s call. But the justice minister continued his campaign mainly against the drug traffickers. He named thirty politicians he claimed had accepted hot money. He insisted that Aerocivil, the government’s aviation agency, take back the licenses for three hundred small planes owned by the leaders of the Medellín cartel, and eventually the deputy director of this department went to jail for assisting the traffickers. Lara even proclaimed that the drug mafias were helping control six of Colombia’s nine professional soccer teams. No question he was making an impact. In Colombia, our secret had finally become public knowledge.