Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

COLOMBIAN COCAINE CARTELS • 115traffickers also assassinated UP presidential candidate BernardoJaramillo Ossa at Bogotá airport and on 26 April 1990 killed M-19presidential candidate Carlos Pizarro León-Gómez. Ironically, bothcandidates had opposed extradition of narcotics traffickers to theUnited States. The MAS was also suspected of perpetrating the January1989 killings of 12 members of a judicial commission investigatingdeath squad activity in Colombia.One of the Medellín drug cartel’s terrorist organizations, the Extraditables,was formed to pressure the Colombian government to desistfrom its campaign to end cocaine production and smuggling in Colombia.The group was formed in reaction to the late 1989 Colombiangovernment crackdown on the Medellín cartel and was intended to preventthe extradition of key drug kingpins to the United States. By theend of 1989, the Extraditables had carried out 200 bombings, killing261 people and injuring more than 1,200. On 27 November 1989 thegroup bombed in midflight Avianca Airlines Flight 203, a Boeing 727airplane, killing all 107 passengers and crew aboard reportedly just tokill five police informants on the plane. On 6 December 1989, a truckbomb loaded with at least one-half ton of dynamite was exploded bythe group outside the Bogotá police headquarters, killing more than 60people and injuring more than 250. On 15 December 1989, however,Colombian police ambushed and killed Jose Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha,the major Medellín cartel leader at the heart of the Extraditables.On 13 June 1990 the mastermind behind the Extraditables’ bombingcampaign, Juan Jairo Arias Tascoon, was killed in a firefight withpolice while another leader, Gustavo de Jesus Gaviria, was likewisekilled fighting the police on 11 August 1990. Pablo Escobar Gaviriasurrendered to Colombian authorities on 19 June 1991 on the conditionthat he be allowed to build his own luxurious prison and tomaintain his own bodyguard. After his escape from captivity in lateJuly 1992, Escobar was responsible for more than 60 car bombings inBogotá during 1993 in an effort to coerce the Colombian governmentto relax its pressures on him. Finally on 2 December 1993 Escobarwas tracked down and killed by Colombian police.Once the rival Cali cartel had filled the place formerly occupied bythe Medellín cartel in the cocaine trade, it generally relied more onbribery to co-opt the Colombian government than using recourse toviolence, but would still use its death squads against informants andundisciplined underlings.