During the 1980’s El Patron, as Escobar was known, run for deputy representative to the Chamber of Representatives of Colombia’s congress and won, he started his career down the right path. But by the end of the decade Escobar became known internationally as a drug lord. His organization was named El cartel de Medellin. Medellin is a city in Colombia where he resided, and was known as a great man. Pablo Escobar created this “Robin Hood” image by helping the poor people of Medellin. He created churches, parks, and houses for poor people who were homeless. Obviously his kindness came at a price for the people who benefited and that is also the reason why he was able to stay a fugitive. The price was that the beneficiaries would help him and they would be look-out for police and people from El Cartel de Cali, the main competition and enemy of Pablo Escobar.
Escobar was also known for killing people for just not liking them, seeing them as a competition for a girl he liked or just random reasons, pretty much being an obstacle to him. He was the a vicious man that always got his way. The reason why his reign lasted so long it was the fear he implemented to the Colombian people and that he had many paid policemen, judges, congressmen and pretty much anybody who was in the law enforcement field. But it wasn’t that they were corrupt, the reason they did it was because Escobar had a policy called “plata o plomo” which literally means money or lead, but it means in Colombian slang, money or die. He was responsible for the death Luis Galan, a candidate for the presidency of Colombia; also he killed all the people who didn’t accept to work for him and also the death of hundreds of reporters who wanted to show the truth about Escobar’s notorious life.
Escobar’s reign affected also the Colombian civilians that were caught in the crossfire between the two Cartels against each other or against the police. All of those people who died, died because of Escobar’s drug trafficking. Luckily for Colombia and the world Escobar was killed or at least died since nobody knows if he was killed or he committed suicide so he wouldn’t be captured, on December 2, 1993.
All of this is still happening in a lesser scale in Colombia, but its increasing in other countries such as Mexico, but it can be stopped if drugs are legalized. Since they won’t have to run from the law it would be similar as the alcohol or tobacco industry.
Side note: In 1989 Forbes Magazine listed Pablo Escobar as the seventh richest man in the world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_escobar
Drugs make people do bad things...generally speaking. You say this is happening in Colombia quite often, but what if the environment were improved? What if Colombia were filled with happy-go-lucky, carefree and joyful people? Would there be drug trafficking? The environment affects our behavior!
ReplyDeleteThe environment does affect behavior, but the violence that is happening in Colombia, Mexico and other countries is not because people are mad, sad etc.. all the time, or because they do drugs. The problem is that a few people who are greedy and have no morals who see the demand of drugs from industrialized countries like the US, will do anything possible to meet the demand and they get the profit.
ReplyDeleteSo back to the environment, sure if the countries were full of carefree joyful people then there would probably not be any drug trafficking. But the chances of there being a country with 100% happiness is 0.001% or less.
So you're saying that if someone wants something really bad, then they would do ANYTHING for it?
ReplyDeleteYes, I know that countries cannot be full with 100% happiness, but there are certain environments and communities have that amount of happiness even if the country at large isn't all that happy. Like a community within a community kind of thing.
Yea that's what i'm saying if a person wants something really bad and they have the stuff to do it with, some people won't care about society's norms and it will do anything in order to achieve it.
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