Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 2, 1993 TAG: 9305020132
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A14 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Newsday
DATELINE: BOGOTA, COLOMBIA LENGTH: Medium
The sources say he has left orders for his minions to launch new bomb attacks from what government officials believe to be stockpiles of six tons of dynamite. One such dynamite blast killed 11 people and injured 60 in a well-to-do section of Bogota in April.
Police and military officials "know from their informants that he has built catacombs with supplies and an air-circulation system capable of keeping him going for a long time," said a well-informed source. "He also built a series of tunnels when he was in jail [using a contractor], and this time it's the same thing."
The source said Escobar went into the subterranean fortress within the last two weeks. "Yes, he's down there. He's got an air supply, and he's not communicating with anybody," the source said.
Raids throughout Medellin have brought the arrest and killing of a score of drug dealers, including top Escobar lieutenants. But the sources said Escobar is avoiding radio and telephone communications, impeding surveillance and tracking missions from the air conducted clandestinely by the United States.
Gen. George Joulwan, head of the U.S. Southern Command, acknowledged a U.S. military role in efforts to capture Escobar. During a meeting Friday with journalists in Miami, Joulwan implied that U.S. intelligence and communications support was involved in the capture of at least nine top aides to Escobar in recent months.
Escobar has been on the run since July, when he apparently bribed guards and army officers and walked out of a prison built to his specifications overlooking Medellin, his cocaine-dealing stronghold. The drug boss recently unleashed a new wave of bombings in Bogota and Medellin in an attempt to press the government to accept terms for his surrender.
The government has appealed for help from the public in locating explosives buried in storage caches around the Colombian capital. They said most of the explosives are dynamite brought into the country from ill-patroled borders with Ecuador, Peru and Brazil. The April 15 bombing that killed 11 in the Bogota suburb was carried out on Escobar's orders, using some of that stockpile, sources said.
It was the 11th bomb to explode in a major Colombian city since January, when Escobar declared war on the government. More than 60 people have been killed in the blasts, and about 600 have been wounded.
The threat of new bomb attacks has left Bogota unusually tense. Many sections of the capital are under tight surveillance by the army, police, private security agencies and bomb-sniffing dogs.
The government has been broadly criticized for its dealings with Escobar. First Gaviria issued a sentence-reduction plan that guaranteed shorter terms for convicts like Escobar.
Escobar escaped after worrying that Colombian officials would try to remove him from his lush, self-styled prison, from which he was able to continue his multibillion-dollar cocaine dealing via telephone, fax and computer. Fellow cartel members Jorge, Fabio and Juan David Ochoa are awaiting trial in another jail near Medellin. Journalists have been barred from inspecting that jail, where there have also been questions about corruption and opulent living conditions.
by CNB