01x10 - The Last Don

[bunniefuu]

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(man speaking Spanish)

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(speaking Spanish)

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MAN: Shake this square world

and blast off for Kicksville.

RICHARD NIXON: Public enemy

number one is drug abuse.

NANCY REAGAN: Just say no.

RONALD REAGAN: Halting

the drug problem in America

is like carrying

water in a sieve.

GEORGE H.W. BUSH: Take my word

for it, this scourge will stop!

KAMALA HARRIS:

There's now an understanding

that the w*r on drugs

was an abject failure.

MAN: You have to stop and ask

yourself, how did we get here?

DONALD TRUMP:

We will build a wall.

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(g*nf*re)

(expl*si*n)

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(explosions)

(g*nf*re)

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REPORTER:

The Armed Revolutionary

Forces of Colombia,

known as the FARC,

is the most powerful

guerrilla group in the country.

They control the areas

where large amounts

of the world's cocaine

is produced.

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REPORTER: They are known

as paramilitaries.

They celebrate a legend

of heroic defiance

against the kidnappers.

The mission is to achieve

what the army cannot:

defeat the guerrillas.

(g*nf*re)

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(siren)

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REPORTER: 12 died and more than

200 passersby were injured

in this recent expl*si*n.

Another outrage was to follow,

this time there was no mistaking

the culprit's identity.

They'd left their signature

at the scene.

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REPORTER: Pablo Escobar couldn't

stay out of the public eye,

and that's what k*lled him.

He died in a hail of b*ll*ts

as he tried to get away

across a roof.

CHRIS FEISTL: In December 1993,

after Pablo Escobar is k*lled,

there is a power vacuum.

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(helicopter)

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(shouts orders)

JEREMY McDERMOTT:

The FARC embraced drugs

and used them to fund

the revolutionary struggle

and the growth of the FARC,

and the growth of coca crops

in Colombia is a parallel line.

Wherever the coca is,

you tend to find the FARC.

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(g*nf*re)

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(speaking Spanish)

(speaking Spanish)

McDERMOTT: Carlos is the public

face, extremely charismatic.

(siren)

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McDERMOTT:

He wasn't from Medellín.

He was actually from Tuluá

on the Pacific coast.

It is rumored that

he was, for a short time,

a left-wing guerrilla.

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He is what we call

a "lavaperro,"

which is like the lowest rung

in the criminal structure.

It literally means a dog washer.

And he proves his worth

very quickly.

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The guerrillas try and

muscle in on the cartel.

Berna says,

"Let me take care of this,"

and there is a series

of bloody shootouts

in which Berna takes anything up

to 11 b*ll*ts and loses his leg.

But they win.

Berna's not

the most handsome man.

He was a lot less handsome

after he lost his leg

and took a b*llet through the

cheek and various other things.

This does not hamper

his criminal career at all.

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FRANCISCO SANTOS CALDERÓN:

Pablo Escobar not only

was a drug trafficker,

but he was also

an entrepreneur of violence.

And he created

different groups, gangs.

When he dies, there's a vacuum,

and many of those gangs

are left with who controls it.

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McDERMOTT: Don Berna learnt

a key lesson from Escobar,

which is never become visible;

remain in the shadows.

STEVEN COHEN: He arguably

becomes more powerful

than Pablo Escobar ever was.

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McDERMOTT: And the message

is clear: We're coming.

(boom)

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(rooster crows)

REPORTER: People living

in Mapiripán were suspected

of helping the FARC, providing

them with food and shelter.

REPORTER:

As the paramilitaries entered,

they marked the town

as their territory.

REPORTER: Villagers were

taken from their homes.

The k*lling began

in the main street.

REPORTER: Three villagers

were publicly ex*cuted,

beheaded with chainsaws.

Many more perished.

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None of the dead wore uniforms

or carried g*ns.

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(g*nf*re)

SOLDIERS: ¡Uno, dos, tres!

McDERMOTT: The cocaine trade hid

in Colombia's civil conflict.

And suddenly

we have a right-wing

anti-subversive paramilitarism

which is welcomed in

so many parts of Colombia

against the guerrillas who were

kidnapping and extorting.

But this is just

the new Medellín Cartel.

But it's cleverer.

It's got a political façade,

it's militarized.

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(g*ns c*ck)

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(g*nf*re)

(knocking)

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(siren)

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MAN: Stop?

MAN: Yeah.

MAN: Okay.

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JEREMY SALAMEH:

The Oficina de Envigado

was originally established

to mediate,

to collect money that was owed.

And it was almost like

an internal affairs

operation of sorts.

Don Berna made it clear,

"I'm taking this over,

and if there's any pushback,

you're gonna have

to deal with it."

McDERMOTT: And he turns

this vehicle into his bid

to take control of Medellín.

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And he begins to scoop up a lot

of the criminal infrastructure

and set up these debt-collecting

agencies, or oficinas,

all around Medellín,

and they all answer to him.

COHEN: He understands

that his rise to power

and his own control of power

depends on his good standing

with the security state

and with politicians.

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SALAMEH:

Corruption at all levels

was going through the roof.

He would do things that

would help the authorities,

and sometimes the authorities

would do things to help him.

They did operations

together sometimes.

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(popping and crackling)

(crowd oohs)

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SALAMEH: So nothing really

occurred unless Don Berna

or his higher infrastructure

approved it.

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People often refer

to homeless people

or these homeless children

and so forth,

they call them "desechables,"

like the throw-aways.

And somebody's considered a

desechable, a disposable person,

doesn't mean you can

go out and k*ll them,

but that's what they did,

they cleaned up the streets.

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And there was a scourge

of those kind of folks,

people disappeared, people got

k*lled, people got displaced.

They cleaned up the city,

and I think there was some sense

that at certain levels

In other words, it was accepted

because of the outcome.

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McDERMOTT: Berna sees what

the paramilitaries are doing,

and he goes, "This is

an extraordinary business model,

I want in."

(g*n c*ck)

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McDERMOTT: So, there's

lots of problems

within the paramilitary army.

If someone loses a load

or someone sleeps with

someone else's wife,

normally in the drug trafficking

world, there's violence.

Berna says,

"No, we can sort this out."

He's not always successful,

but what he does is

he begins to put discipline

on the paramilitary movement.

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(speaking Spanish)

McDERMOTT:

Vicente's got a stutter,

not remotely charismatic, but

super able at the business side.

And they turn

the paramilitary army,

and this need to

counteract the advance

of the Marxist guerrillas,

into a nationwide

criminal network,

a VIP club for drug traffickers.

And people begin to realize

this is just the most powerful

drug cartel there is;

dwarfs the power of

the Medellín Cartel.

And at that stage

the paramilitaries

are the most powerful criminal

syndicate on the planet.

VICENTE CASTAÑO: Muchas gracias.

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(g*nf*re)

COHEN: And there really is

a fear in Colombian society

and also at

high levels of government

that the FARC are actually gonna

manage to take over the country.

(g*nf*re)

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CALDERÓN:

The main road to Medellín

sometimes was a week closed

because of attacks

from the FARC to the road.

Bogotá is surrounded

by FARC fronts.

They were getting ready

to take over the capital.

(g*nf*re)

People were abandoning

Colombia massively;

everybody was seeing Colombia

as a sinking ship.

And frankly, when you saw

the growth of the FARC,

the growth of

the paramilitaries,

it was hard not to think

that Colombia could become

a narco state or a failed state.

BILL CLINTON: We got to stand by

these democracies,

including, and especially

tonight, Colombia,

which is fighting

narco traffickers

for its own people's lives

and for our children's lives.

I have proposed

a strong two-year package

to help Colombia win this fight.

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COHEN: Plan Colombia was this

major billion-dollar effort

to bring the Colombian military

up to snuff

to be able to take on

the narco-traffickers.

(g*nf*re)

And that meant training,

that meant weapons, technology.

(g*nf*re)

It's also the point

at which counter-narcotics

and counter-insurgency become

explicitly the same thing.

REPORTER:

Officially the United States

is fighting a w*r on drugs.

In practice,

it is bankrolling conflict

against communist guerrillas.

COHEN: The escalating threat

of communist takeover

becomes the justification for

increasingly overt alliance

with the narco-paramilitaries

as the most effective

fighting force against

the rising communist menace.

(g*nf*re)

(g*nf*re)

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(expl*si*n)

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(speaking Spanish)

(plane approaching)

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(g*nf*re)

REPORTER: America's w*r on drugs

ignores the paramilitaries.

Instead, government helicopters

protect planes

dropping poison

in the coca fields below.

Their aim is to destroy

the plantations

controlled by the FARC.

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MAN: We have no relationship

with the AUC.

COHEN: By 2001, the extent

of paramilitary involvement

in the drug trade was

too blatant to ignore.

MAN: They claim to wish

to protect Colombian citizens

from other t*rror1st groups,

but they then m*ssacre and

displace the same citizens,

and they claim to stand against

kidnapping and extortion,

and then engage in

those very practices.

COHEN: So, in this very weird

twist of history,

the AUC gets designated an

official t*rror1st organization

the day before September 11th.

McDERMOTT: And then everything

changes again on 9/11.

The w*r on terror and the w*r

on drugs have now become one.

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ÁLVARO URIBE:

Prudencia, muchachos.

Prudencia.

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FEISTL: President Uribe came up

with the Justice and Peace Plan,

which would give benefits

to paramilitary fighters

who decided to come in,

demobilize, disband,

surrender their weapons,

and stop drug trafficking

and any crimes that

they were involved in.

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(g*nsh*t)

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(siren)

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FEISTL: He wants to try

to reap the benefits

of the Justice and Peace Law,

which basically says if you're a

paramilitary and you surrender,

you would be eligible

for certain benefits

under the Justice

and Peace Plan,

which are very reduced

sentences, under house arrest

or some kind of

minimal confinement.

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McDERMOTT: The Americans and

the Colombian public are seeing

that this peace process

is bordering on farce

as these guys continue to

move drugs, live the high life.

And so once the agreement

is signed,

the constitutional court

changes all the rules,

and they are suddenly sucked

down into the prison system.

And then in 2008, what they all

feared, they're all extradited.

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CALDERÓN: How do you measure

the success of Plan Colombia?

It's Colombia itself.

From a failed state

to the darling of investment

of what it is now.

Colombia is

a beacon of stability.

COHEN: Today people will tell

you that Plan Colombia's

a success despite

the human rights abuses

let loose on

the Colombian countryside.

WOMAN: Vamos, vamos.

COHEN: If the w*r on drugs is

in fact an effort to stop drugs

from entering the United States,

it is clearly

an abysmal failure.

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In that sense, we've poured

billions of dollars into a hole

and lit it on fire.

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