Medellin Cartel's War Against the Colombian State
After Colombian presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galan, a vocal supporter of extraditing drug traffickers to the United States, was assassinated at a campaign rally near Bogota on 18 August 1989, the Medellin Cartel under Pablo Escobar declared open war on the Colombian government and legal establishment, seeking to force the state to abandon extradition. The cartel unleashed a sustained bombing and assassination campaign against judges, politicians, journalists and police: on 27 November 1989 a bomb destroyed Avianca Flight 203 in mid-air, killing all 107 people aboard and 3 on the ground, in a failed attempt to kill presidential candidate Cesar Gaviria; on 6 December 1989 a truck bomb devastated the headquarters of the DAS security agency in Bogota, killing 57 people in an attempt to assassinate its director. The campaign of terror, which also included the assassination of numerous judges and the kidnapping of prominent journalists, provoked an intense Colombian and US-backed manhunt (the Search Bloc), later aided by the vigilante paramilitary group Los Pepes, formed by Escobar's enemies including rival traffickers. Escobar was tracked down and killed in a rooftop shootout in a Medellin neighbourhood on 2 December 1993, after which the Medellin Cartel rapidly fragmented and collapsed, with Colombia's cocaine trade increasingly passing to the rival Cali Cartel and, in later decades, to the FARC and successor paramilitary and guerrilla groups.
- Year: 1989 CE
- Category: Military
