It began as a rumor leveled by an embittered loser in Colombia’s 1994 presidential election: The winner, Ernesto Samper Pizano, had financed his campaign with millions of dollars from the Cali cocaine cartel. Over the next year, the accusations would not go away, bolstered by tape recordings of cartel kingpins offering money for the campaign.
Samper always denied them, reminding Colombians that he had been severely wounded by drug assassins in the late 1980s. “I carry four bullets in my body-I set off metal detectors,” he said in an interview with the Tribune in June.
But now the noose is tightening around the president of this key South American nation. Last week Samper’s campaign treasurer, under arrest for allegedly accepting $50,000 from a cartel front company, told prosecutors that the president accepted $6.1 million from Cali traffickers in exchange for the promise of political favors.
If the accusations are proven, Samper may have little choice but to resign or face impeachment.
The prospect would be a crushing blow to Colombia after a long, bloody war against the world’s most powerful drug lords. The fall of Samper also would be a profound setback for the U.S., which has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the Andean nation over the last decade to stem the flow of drugs into the U.S.
Even if Samper weathers the storm, the information that has come to light so far indicates that drug money bought a presidential election in the country the U.S. regards as the most important battleground in its ongoing war against international drug trafficking.
Ironically, the scandal erupted as Samper and his government were basking in the glow of international praise for several important strikes against the Cali cartel, including the arrest or surrender of five leading cartel members over the last two months. The cartel is believed to be the
world’s biggest drug ring, controlling 80 percent of the global cocaine trade.
Samper, who took office a year ago Monday, largely has remained silent and ordered his ministers not to comment on the investigation, which is being run by an independent prosecutor.
In one of his few public statements on the crisis, Samper said Friday he would “contest one by one the calumnies and falsehoods” against him and indicated they were part of a smear campaign by the Cali cartel.
“The rumors are defeating the evidence,” he said. “The delinquents accuse the innocents.”
The crisis already has toppled one of Samper’s closest aides, Fernando Botero Zea. As minister of defense, Botero was supposed to oversee Colombia’s fight against the cartels.
Botero, who was Samper’s campaign manager and had been considered a potential presidential candidate himself in 1998, resigned Wednesday as testimony linking him to the drug payoffs emerged.
The Bogota newspaper El Tiempo devoted three full pages Thursday to the secret testimony of Santiago Medina, Samper’s campaign treasurer. According to the transcripts, confirmed as legitimate by prosecutors, Botero told Medina to accept money offered by the Cali cartel.
In excruciating detail, Medina explained to investigators how Samper himself received chunks of money that never appeared in official campaign records, a violation of Colombian law.
But more importantly, Medina said Samper and other campaign officials had met with emissaries of Gilberto and Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela, the two brothers reputed to be the masterminds of the Cali cartel.
Medina said he followed Botero’s instructions and asked the cartel for about $2.4 million to see the Samper campaign through the first round of national elections in May.
Medina said he told the Rodriguez Orejuela brothers and two other Cali kingpins that “the candidate Samper is grateful for their support and values their help to gain the presidency.” He told them Samper promised to support lenient sentencing guidelines for cartel members who surrendered and to do all he could to facilitate “the process of submission of the Cali cartel.”
In return, Medina testified, the Rodriguez Orejuelas offered “unconditional support.” All told, Medina testified, the cartel gave Samper about $1.2 million for the first round of elections and $4.9 million for the runoff in June.
At one point, Medina said, Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela asked for a receipt from Botero for the $4.9 million. Upon getting it, Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela joked that he had the “smallest but most valuable Botero in the world,” referring to the defense minister’s father, an internationally known sculptor and painter.
The publication of the testimony instantly prompted calls for Samper’s resignation.
“If there is any logic left in the country, the president must resign,” said Enrique Parejo, a former justice minister who ran against Samper for the Liberal Party nomination a year ago. “And if he doesn’t, the country must demand that he resign. I think it is a disgrace to the country that there is a president elected with money from criminal organizations.”
But the administration official said the president has not considered stepping aside.
“Why are you going to resign just because a criminal said something about you?” he asked.
Hundreds of Colombians, including congressmen, police, governors, mayors and journalists long have been believed to be on the cartel’s payroll. But Medina’s testimony is the strongest evidence yet that drug money reached Colombia’s highest levels.
“We knew the whole story six months ago,” said Ricardo Avila, an editor at Semana, a leading news magazine. “But it’s one thing to know it off the record and another to have sworn testimony about it.”
The accusations first came to light after the closely decided 1994 election when former Bogota Mayor Andres Pastrana Jr., the losing Conservative Party presidential candidate, accused Samper’s campaign of receiving money from the Cali cartel.
U.S. officials long have believed the accusations against Samper. But without proof, Washington has chosen to give the president the benefit of the doubt and judge him on his actions in the drug war.
Colombians widely believe that pressure from the U.S. prompted the recent campaign against the Cali kingpins. Yet the story of American involvement in Colombia is largely an unhappy one.
Despite the millions of dollars in direct aid from the U.S. and millions more in covert support, drug production in Colombia actually has increased over the last several years.
To be sure, Colombians have paid a heavy toll in the drug wars. Since 1984, when leaders of the Medellin cartel ordered the assassination of the nation’s justice minister, more than 3,000 police, judges and other officials have been murdered, as well as a handful of presidential candidates.
Those assassinations once prompted American officials to praise Colombia for its courage in fighting the druglords. Colombian forces killed many members of the bloodthirsty Medellin cartel and got others to surrender.
But in reality, the Cali cartel was Colombia’s largest drug ring even before police killed Medellin kingpin Pablo Escobar in December 1993.
Even as police hunted down Escobar, the Cali chieftains were insinuating themselves into Colombian government, frequently financing campaigns and offering outright bribes. While the Medellin cartel also gave money to politicians, the Cali members raised it to an art form.
Prosecutor General Alfonso Valdivieso, who is leading the investigation into the Samper case, said the Cali cartel’s more subtle methods in some ways were more threatening.
“The Cali cartel is worse than the violent people from the Medellin cartel because they made corruption general in Colombia,” he said in an interview with the Tribune in June. “And that does away with a society, with its values.”
