Pablo Escobar

Pablo Escobar was probably the most profound drug lord the world has ever seen, as shown by the fact that “Pablo was recorded as the world's seventh-richest man” at the height of his prosperity (Becker, 2013). He made billions of dollars from the selling of cocaine to its largest market, the United States of America, supplying about 80 metric tons of cocaine to the country per month. Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria was born into a peasant family before moving to Medellin, Columbia's second-largest city. Thanks to his family's financial problems, he dropped out of school and started a life of crime. He started as a petty thief alongside his brother, Roberto. He started from common theft like stealing, fags, doing drugs, stealing graveyard stones and selling them and later graduated to smuggling contrabands to neighboring countries. It is through smuggling that is cocaine trade began. It was during this cocaine trade that a lot of violence was committed in his name. A controversial argument always arises on whether to consider him a criminal or a saint, because he used is estimated fifteen billion dollars net worth to help the poor folk of Medellin extensively. However, during his life, he killed so many. “It is estimated that he directly or indirectly caused the deaths of over 3000 people” (Bowden, 2007). Therefore, Pablo Escobar was one of the greatest monsters to ever lived; the devil incarnate himself.

Monstrous Humans: Pablo Escobar

Thousands of innocent Colombians died at the hands of Pablo Escobar. He used to surround himself with an army of a thousand trained and armed soldiers who did any of his biddings. “Anyone who crossed him or betrayed him met an untimely death by the hand of these notorious killers” (Bowden, 2007). His direct involvement that shocked the world was when he bombed a passenger airliner, Avianca Flight 203, killing 110 people. It was a statement to the government for refusing to change laws on extradition to the U.S. To cap his achievement as a mass murderer he attacked the government. “He bombed Colombia’s capital city Bogota” (Wells, 2016). It resulted in many deaths including the then-presidential candidate, judges, ministers, newspaper editors, police chiefs. He even later kidnapped the children of the wealthy families, holding them hostage as he threatened to kill them if the government would not heed his demands. “The cartel took on Colombia killing Attorney General Carlos Mauro Hoyos Jimenez in a kidnapping attempt near Medellin in January 1988” (Green, 2015).

Many people lived in fear of crossing his path. From the direct confession of a child who lived during Pablo’s era of violence, “ I remember the utter fear I had of Escobar as a child and I remember the glorious sense of relief felt the day he was finally vanquished” (Garcia, 2015). He further explained of how he would “inflict barbaric torture for the most trivial of offenses” (Garcia). He goes ahead to give an account of how a servant was hanged and drowned in a pool in front of guests, just for stealing silverware. From all the above atrocities, he sure was a monster.

Cocaine is one of the most addictive substances ever made. “Cocaine leads to violent crime, tear communities apart and kill thousands annually” (Ruoff, 2014). From the above statement, Pablo must have singlehandedly killed thousands of people through cocaine addiction seeing as that he controlled 80 percent of market share at the peak of his reign. Violent crimes are often arising in the cocaine markets. In markets, drug gangs come to exist because of availability of cocaine. Gangbangers often engage in shootouts because the fight over trade territories and often innocent bystanders all get killed in the whole fiasco. “The body of one’s enemy is spared no humiliation because it serves as a warning for the living. Sometimes the genitals of the victims are cut off and put in their mouths” (Worral, 2015). Such barbaric sense killing all stem from the sale of cocaine. Cocaine tears families apart. It kills dreams and aspirations because once one gets addicted, nothing else matters but ways to get more cocaine. “As cocaine use morphed into an epidemic in the early 1980s, and cheap, toxic crack cocaine ravaged America’s inner cities, the U.S. stepped up its war on drugs.” (Green, 2015). Such was the state in the U.S. during Escobar’s reign of terror.

Post-Escobar era came with new serious challenges. For the two decades that Escobar ran the cocaine trade, large markets were created for cocaine. Upon his demise, many other cartels rose to take over the already existing and lucrative market. “Cali cartel, the second-largest organization, quickly filled the power vacuum” (Phelan, 2013). Cali Cartel later dissipated but upon its place number of organizations came up ready to exploit the new vacuum once again. Therefore, due Escobar’s proliferation of cocaine market, it has up to now been difficult to eradicate cocaine trade. Smaller cartels keep rising and others merging making the fight almost futile, and for all this, Pablo is to blame.

Another problem existing after Pablo’s demise is the poor state of economy Colombia and bad reputation. Drug trade leads to a lot of contraband goods in the economy, and this leads to deindustrialization. “Local industries compete with the goods and are consequently forced out of business.” (Times, 1991). The contraband goods are cheap since they are acquired from excessive drug profits. Drug trade also leads unemployment by the reason that, drug trade erode industrial base. Another effect of the drug trade is the bad reputation it left Colombia. Industrialists and investors avoid the Colombian market because of the drug trade it is known for. Finally, the government spends a lot of funds in the war against the drug trade. “Colombian officials place at one billion the yearly cost of military and police operations against traffickers” (Times, 1991). This money would have been budgeted for better prudent use. All these problems exist because of the Pandora box Pablo opened.

Pablo Escobar is considered a hero by the poor folk of Medellin communes. “He gave money to these people, provided housing for the people by moving them from the slums to the permanent housing.” (Palacio, 2015) Pablo exploited the governments’ shortcomings in the provision of social amenities by building playgrounds and parks, building schools and employing the poor people of Medellin. Some might even nickname him “The robin hood of Medellin” by the fact that he mined the rich U.S. markets through cocaine trade and gave money to the poor. However, these acts of kindness were just smoke screens he created to blind the people from his true intentions. These actions were just a ploy to buy the people’s loyalty to help him fight the government, especially the police.

What is also admirable about Pablo is his rise from a poor peasant background to an enigma that he was. It takes a touch of sheer resolve and a bit of genius to conquer the economic heights he attained. However, his success is shocking and intriguing but in no way is it admirable and hence he cannot be considered a role model. It is because it is blood money, ill-gotten at the expense of people’s life and wellbeing.

Conclusion

My stand remains that Pablo Escobar was a monster who can be considered the ‘Hitler’ of this recent times. Only a twisted sociopathic kind of logic can consider Escobar a hero using his charitable contributions. The contributions in no way out-weigh his atrocities to humanity or are they even worth comparing. What will the society become if it tries to justify crimes against humanity using vague instances of kindness? A Vigilante scenario he attempted to create has no place in our world governed by the rule of law. Pablo Escobar was cancer, and the world is recovering after he was uprooted from the society.

References

Becker, S. (2013). Effects of the Drug Cartels On Medellin and the Colombian State . Massachusetts: Brandeis University.

Bowden, M. (2007). Killing Pablo: The Hunt For World's Greatest Outlaw. New York: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

Garcia, B.A. (2015, October 21). I Grew Up in Pablo Escobar's Colombia. Here is What It was Really Like. Vox Features, p. 12.

Green, P.S. (2015). The Syndicate: How cocaine traffic from medellin transformed the multibillion dollar global drug trade. Wall Street Journal: Cocainenomics, 5-8.

Palacio, J. (2015, May 6). Was Pablo Escobara Hero? Quora, p. 1.

Phelan, A. (2013, December 9). Pablo Escobar and the Legacy of Drug Warfare in Latin America. The Conversation.

Ruoff, M. (2014). Why We Need DruG Reform. Huffpost: The Blog, 2.

Times, N.Y. (1991). Cocaine Seen Harming Economy Of Colombia. New York Times: Business Daily, 2-3.

Wallace, A. (2013, December 2). Drug Boss Pablo Escobar Still Divides Columbia. BBC News, p. 3.

Wells, J. (2016, September 6). Pablo Escobar's Unbelievable Life in Pictures. Gentleman's Journal, 4.

Worral, S. (2015, August 12). How The Cocaine Trade Affects Everyone's Lives. National Geographic: Book Talk, p. 8.