TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/070191/0701002.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 16.1 KB | 406 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 34

COVER STORIES

A Day with the Chess Player


In a nine-hour session at a secret location, the alleged patriarch
of Colombia's Cali cartel talks for the first time about his
battle with Washington and why he thinks drug lord Pablo Escobar
wants him killed

By JOHN MOODY/CALI and Pablo Rodriguez Orejuela and Tom Quinn


    The phone call came at 8 a.m. "Don't eat breakfast,"
advised Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela. "I'm planning a big lunch
for you so we can get to know each other."

    Thus began a nine-hour public relations blitz by the man
who allegedly serves as a patriarch of the Cali cartel.
Rodriguez consented to see reporter Tom Quinn and me -- "the
first and only interview I've given in my 52 years" -- in order
to clarify what he insists are lies about his involvement in
cocaine trafficking. Along the way he tried to raise doubts
about the motivations of two enemies -- Medellin cartel boss
Pablo Escobar Gaviria and the U.S. government, which wants him
extradited to face numerous counts of drug peddling.

    We had first asked for an interview with him last year
through a source connected to the Cali drug organization.
Finally came the invitation. Also a warning from Rodriguez: "I
don't want my family's name damaged. My brother Miguel Angel and
I are the only members of our family to be linked to this
business."

    As befits a fugitive from the law, Rodriguez insisted on
stringent security arrangements. After Quinn and I arrived in
Cali, we waited until noon the next day for a Rodriguez
intermediary to pick us up. "I apologize in advance for the
inconvenience I have to cause you," Rodriguez said. "But you
understand. It's for my safety as well as yours."

    Rodriguez's envoy turned out to be a hefty fellow who
spoke passable English in a near whisper. After a meandering
30-minute tour of Cali to ensure that no one was tailing us, we
followed a blue Mazda out of town. Trailed by two of Rodriguez's
bodyguards on motorcycles, our motorcade entered the grounds of
a house set back from the road and guarded by a white
thick-gauge steel sliding door.

    As we stepped out of the car, a beautiful young woman
welcomed us with a broad smile and handshake. Behind her stood
a man about 5 ft. 7 in., wearing a faded pink-striped cotton
shirt and dark pants. Gilberto Rodriguez's appearance has
changed dramatically since the last pictures of him were taken
five years ago. His curly jet-black hair has turned a
distinguished salt-and-pepper and covers the tops of his ears.
He sports a closely cropped mustache and has gained at least 30
lbs. But the glistening brown eyes were unmistakably those of
the "Chess Player," his nickname in the drug world. He wore a
gold-and-stainless-steel Cartier tank-style watch, and a hefty
gold crucifix dangled around his neck. His hands were small,
almost feminine in their softness, and fastidiously manicured.

    From greeting to goodbye, Rodriguez acted like a charming
host. Enthroning himself behind a built-in Formica desk, he
said, "My time is yours. Ask anything you want. I won't be
offended."

    The house was comfortable but hardly posh. A white-coated
butler floated silently into and out of the various rooms where
we talked throughout the afternoon and evening, offering water,
beer, coffee, soda. As a moonfaced secretary transcribed our
formal interview, Rodriguez picked his words carefully,
frequently consulting and reciting verbatim from typewritten
notes.

    For the record, he denied that he was a cocaine trafficker
and insisted that he was being persecuted by the U.S. "You
think one person, one `baron,' as you Americans call him, can
control all the cocaine being sent from Cali?" he said. "There
are kids out there on the streets, 20 or 25 years old, shipping
10 kilos, becoming millionaires. You think one man can control
that?"

    Rodriguez contended that he lived in mortal fear of
Escobar. "Mr. Escobar is sick, a psycho, a lunatic," he said.
"He knows he's lost the war against the state. He lives now only
to destroy." Their enmity, Rodriguez said, began in 1987 when
he refused to help Escobar kidnap Bogota mayoral candidate
Andres Pastrana. When Rodriguez declined, Escobar shouted,
"Whoever is not with me is against me." Rodriguez blamed Escobar
for the August 1989 assassination of presidential candidate Luis
Carlos Galan Sarmiento, which ignited the campaign to push the
cocaine princes from Colombia. Rodriguez claimed he had warned
Galan that his life was in danger. "Galan wouldn't listen to
us," he said. "He was too wrapped up in the historic importance
of his campaign."

    Rodriguez also took credit for tipping off the police last
June, when a truck packed with 800 kg of dynamite was disarmed
before it could be parked outside the offices of the daily El
Tiempo. He knew about it, Rodriguez said, because his people had
intercepted a radio-phone call in which Escobar promised a "big,
big surprise" for the newspaper.

    Rodriguez insisted that Escobar wanted to kill him too. En
route to our meeting, he told us, he had changed cars three
times. His family celebrates birthdays on the wrong days, and
he dares not spend Christmas with his seven grown children lest
the target prove too tempting to Escobar. He divides his time
among six or seven houses in Cali and maintains round-the-clock
security. "God and good intentions aren't enough to shoo away
evil," he said. "You've got to have firepower too."

    Rodriguez remains in hiding from the Colombian police and
army, who until recently would have turned him over to the U.S.
The closest he has come to that fate was in 1984 when he and
Medellin drug lord Jorge Luis Ochoa Vasquez, who has since
turned himself in, were captured in Spain. Both Colombia and the
U.S. asked for their extradition. In 1986 the Spanish court,
known as Audiencia Nacional, sent both men to Colombia to stand
trial, stipulating that they should not be placed in double
jeopardy by having to face the same charges in the U.S.
Rodriguez was acquitted of drug trafficking despite the
testimony of witnesses flown in by the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration. Two days after his trial ended, the U.S. filed
new charges against him.

    Rummaging through a sloppy heap of papers, Rodriguez
showed us a letter from Ochoa dated January 1990 proposing to
mediate his dispute with Escobar, as well as his own reply three
days later politely declining the offer. When we asked why a
self-proclaimed law-abiding businessman maintains contact with
an admitted trafficker like Ochoa, he shrugged and said, "We've
been through a lot together."

    Rodriguez, who has an interest in Cali's powerful America
soccer team, is an avid fan of other sports as well, including
baseball. He dislikes American football, he said, "because it
is too violent for my tastes." His other passion, he said, is
poetry, quoting from memory the Colombian Rafael Maya, " `No one
will know the secret of this soft sadness/ As sad as the valley
that turns even sadder at dark/ Like the twilight of a tardy
season.' "

    Well after nightfall, Rodriguez escorted us to the gate
and waved goodbye. The same driver returned us to our hotel,
talking this time with cheerful animation about his boss:
"Gilberto's really a good guy, not a nut case like Escobar. And
he treats the people who work for him fairly. He's interested
in our welfare. There's only one thing he won't tolerate in his
organization."

    "What's that?" I asked, already sensing the answer.

    "Drugs," said the driver, and bade us good night.



    Q. Tell us about your cocaine empire.

    A. Mr. Moody, given the kind of question you're asking, I
gather you have this image of Gilberto Rodriguez, chief of a
drug cartel. You'll be disappointed. I am not a narco
trafficker, let alone the chief of a drug cartel. Neither am I
a megalomaniac. Therefore I am not pleased when people try to
portray me as an evil, intelligent, powerful man who has an
unlimited fortune.



    Q. You're saying you are not and have never been involved
in trafficking narcotics.

    A. That is exactly what I'm saying. The idea that I am a
narco trafficker stemmed from DEA reports from the time I was
a partner and president of the board of directors of a
Panamanian bank ((First Interamericas Bank)). In 1984 the U.S.
requested my extradition from Spain. Instead I was extradited
to Colombia, where I was tried on the basis of a file submitted
by the American government, with evidence it presented, and with
witnesses brought from the U.S. to testify against me. I was
acquitted first by a judge and then by the superior court of
Cali.



    Q. How did you manage to get yourself extradited from
Spain to Colombia instead of to the U.S.?

    A. I'll be honest about this. It might be true that the
connections I had then with people from the political and
economic sectors were useful. But I think what was most helpful
was the excessive pressure the U.S. exerted on the Spanish
government. Spanish judges are very respectable people who
cannot be easily manipulated, let alone forced to do something.



    Q. So what is the Cali cartel?

    A. The Cali cartel is a poor invention of General Jaime
Ruiz Barrera, or as he was called affectionately, Gato ("the
Cat") Ruiz. He was commander of the Fourth Brigade from 1986 to
1988, if I'm not wrong. He chased Mr. Escobar and his partners
persistently and yet failed in all his attempts. He didn't
succeed in gaining immortality with the Medellin cartel. Thus
the Cali cartel was invented, and with it the war over the New
York market. Of course this tale about the Cali cartel has been
helped along by my differences with Mr. Escobar.



    Q. Are you saying you are innocent of everything of which
you are accused?

    A. Exactly. I think the DEA will never forgive me for the
fact that so much money was laundered legally through the First
Interamericas Bank of Panama in accordance with Panamanian law.



    Q. How much money did your bank launder?

    A. It's been eight or 10 years since the bank was closed.
I haven't got a good enough memory to recall the amount.



    Q. You mentioned your well-known differences with Pablo
Escobar. Tell us about them.

    A. ((Laughs.)) Yes, it is true that I have differences
with Mr. Escobar. All this started when Mr. Escobar called me
and asked me to help him commit violent acts to get the
Colombian government to abrogate the 1979 ((extradition)) treaty
((with the U.S.)). Mr. Escobar thinks that one must take justice
into one's own hands. I don't agree. He thinks that a criminal
can win a war against the state. I think that is absurd. The
crimes he has committed in Colombia on the pretext of narco
trafficking have been very grave mistakes.



    Q. Why is Escobar at war with you, if you're just a
law-abiding businessman with no interest in cocaine?

    A. Because Mr. Escobar thinks that whoever is not with him
is against him.



    Q. Why did he think you would be interested in his plan to
kidnap people?

    A. I have no idea. I only know he was wrong.



    Q. Can you walk freely in the streets of Cali?

    A. No, I can't. First, because ((the Colombian secret
police known as)) DAS, the army and the police have a warrant
to arrest me, and I'm sure they'd comply with it the moment they
saw me; and second, because if I get caught by the authorities,
I'm afraid that Mr. Pablo Escobar would have me killed.



    Q. Not much is known about your origins.

    A. I was born between the towns of Mariquita and Honda
Tolima. My father was a painter and a draftsman, and my mother
was a housewife. We were three brothers and three sisters. When
I was 15, I started working as a clerk in a drugstore in Cali.
By the time I was 20, I was the manager, and at 25, 10 years
after entering the business, I quit in order to start my own
drugstore.



    Q. And what about your own children?

    A. I've got seven children. Six of them are professionals,
and one is still a student. They all got their degrees at U.S.
or European universities; most are now working in our
businesses. Two of them are industrial engineers; another
engineer has a degree from the university in Tulsa; ((one is))
a public accountant; and finally, there's one who's studying
systems engineering. Then I've got a daughter with an M.B.A. and
another one who's also a systems engineer.



    Q. How do they like having their father routinely referred
to as a drug lord?

    A. It bothers them, but they've been brave.



    Q. Some sources say you were part of a gang of young
kidnappers.

    A. This is not logical. I was chairman of the board of
directors of a bank in Colombia and president of the board of
directors of a bank in Panama. I also had the concession for
Chrysler Motors for Colombia. In fact, I got that concession
thanks to my dealings with Mr. ((Lee)) Iacocca. ((Chuckles.))
Maybe people confused coca with my dealings with Iacocca.

    I was the founder and president of the Grupo Radial
Colombiano, which ran more than 30 radio stations around the
country. Can you explain to me how I could get official
blessings for these businesses if I had a criminal past?



    Q. There are two possibilities: one, that you were a smart
criminal who never got caught, and two, it is always possible
to bribe the authorities.

    A. ((Smiling.)) A man brought up in a family like mine
could never be a good criminal. And the Colombian authorities
are not as corrupt as you think. You've never seen a mayor in
Colombia being acquitted after being caught buying and consuming
cocaine like Washington's mayor ((Marion Barry)) was.



    Q. If you respect the Colombian authorities so much, why
haven't you turned yourself in?

    A. I do respect the Colombian authorities, and I believe
in the country's institutions as much as I believe in Colombian
justice. And you can be absolutely sure that if Mr. Escobar
didn't exist, I would turn myself in. I am not worried about
facing justice; I'm worried about my personal security.



    Q. Why do you think Americans consume so many drugs,
especially cocaine?

    A. Because they live in a consumer society where every day
means a struggle, where they have to work very hard in order to
lead a decent life, and where everyone has to take care of
himself without being able to count on anyone else, a friend or
the next-door neighbor.



    Q. What's the future of the cocaine business?

    A. Economics has a natural law: Supply is determined by
the demand. When cocaine stops being consumed, when there's no
demand for it . . . that will be the end of that business.



    Q. Do you think the Medellin cartel is finished?

    A. In my opinion the Medellin cartel is not defeated. On
the contrary, it's becoming stronger because it's giving up
terrorism and going back into business.



    Q. Does that mean that the violence is finished?

    A. I think we are going through the most crucial time of
the cocaine culture. I also think this phenomenon has to be
observed from a global perspective. It is true that the American
people have been damaged by cocaine. It is also true that
producer and refiner countries are experiencing indiscriminate
terrorism, hired killings, kidnappings and government
corruption, including in the U.S. What is the difference between
exporting a pound of coke from a producer country and exporting
an AR-15 and its ammunition from the U.S. to murder innocent
people in developing countries? Why are countries such as
Germany free to export materials used to refine cocaine? Why do
countries like Switzerland, Panama and even the U.S. protect
money whose origin is dubious?



    Q. What do you think personally about cocaine use?

    A. I think it is harmful to youth, as well as damaging to
the U.S. economy to have so much money drained from it.



    Q. Have you ever used cocaine?

    A. No, I have never been curious about it.