'Escobar appears to derive pleasure from the havoc he creates . . . Escobar has only a very limited capacity to tolerate frustration, competition, or challenges to his authority. He does not feel bound by the normal rules of conduct and frequently expresses his aggression in raw, direct forms. . . .
'Escobar nurses a grudge, sometimes for years, until he can get his revenge, which is often of homicidal proportions. And Escobar kills gratuitously, with total disregard for innocent bystanders. Moreover, he lacks the capacity to feel remorse. . . .
'Escobar . . . appears to be motivated primarily by money and power - he is no idealogue.
'Escobar's paranoia is his greatest vulnerability. . . As he begins to feel more pressured he will become more rigid and less able to adjust to changes in his environment. . . .
'Escobar does seem to have genuine paternal feelings for his children, and the young daughter Manuela is described as his favorite. His parents were once kidnapped by a rival group, and Escobar apparently spared no effort or expense rescuing them. Whether his concern for his parents or his children would overcome his stringent security consciousness is not clear.'
Two days after his escape from prison in July of 1992, Pablo Escobar sent a taped statement to selected Colombian TV and radio reporters. It was signed: 'Colombian jungle zone, Thursday, July 24, 1992. Pablo Escobar and comrades.'
This was a bit of theater, because Escobar was actually only a few miles from the prison, ensconced on a private estate in a wealthy suburb of Medellin. Judging from the aggrieved tone of the statement, he was in a petulant mood. He alternated between indignation at the Colombian government and resentment that his comfortable life in prison had been so disrupted. He portrayed himself as a misunderstood victim.
In the statement, Escobar complained that even though he and his men - his fellow inmates - had generously agreed to 'lose control over more than half of the jail, and our rights' to accommodate the government, he was shocked when the army suddenly surrounded the compound on the night of July 22. The army acted after the government decided to move Escobar to an actual prison, in Bogota.
It had become clear to the government, in early 1992, that Escobar had completely taken control of the prison. His armed bodyguards decided who and what came in and out of the prison gates. He and his men lived in suites equipped with big-screen TV sets, king-size beds, sound systems, a Jacuzzi and a bountiful supply of booze, drugs, guns and whores. He ran his vast drug empire from inside his prison suite, even torturing and murdering two former associates behind prison walls.
In the confusion, Escobar also escaped - through an entire brigade of the Colombian army. In his taped statement, he said he was driven out in the truck his men had used to haul contraband into the prison.
Now, once again a fugitive, Escobar began issuing the same menacing demands that he had laid out during his campaign of bombings and assassinations before his surrender in 1991. In his statement from hiding, he made it clear that he would prefer to resume his life of comfort in 'prison,' only this time under protection of the United Nations:
'As for the aggression carried out against us, we won't take violent actions of any nature yet and we are willing to continue with the peace process and our surrender to justice if we can be guaranteed to stay at the [prison], as well as handing control of the prison to special forces of the United Nations.'
The same day he issued the statement, Escobar also spoke with two of his lawyers during a long telephone conference call. Recording the conversation were American electronic-eavesdropping experts from Centra Spike, the U.S. Army unit that was secretly operating out of the U.S. Embassy in Bogota.
What the Americans heard was Escobar's well-founded suspicions that the U.S. government was very interested in tracking him down.
'We had information that the Americans were participating in the operation' at the prison, Escobar told his lawyers. 'I have some information . . . that there were some gringos.'
In fact, there is no evidence that Americans had any direct role in the raid on the prison by the Fourth Brigade of the Colombian army. But Escobar was absolutely correct when he described for his lawyers a coordinated effort by the American and Colombian governments to eliminate for good their mutual problems with Pablo Escobar. (Over the next six months, the secret CIA operation in Colombia would swell to nearly 100 people, making it the largest CIA station in the world.)
'There's a combined force. The army and the gringos looking for Bush's reelection,' Escobar said.
Escobar instructed one of his lawyers, who had been in touch with President Cesar Gaviria's administration, to stress to Gaviria personally just how troubled he was by these Americans.
'When you have a chance of making a statement, say that what caused the biggest concern was the presence of the gringos,' Escobar said. 'The fact that the army would be going along with the gringos. What explanation can be given for that?'
Escobar knew that any covert intelligence or military association with the Americans would cause severe domestic political pain for Gaviria, so raising the issue with the president was a way of reminding him that he was playing a dangerous game. Escobar proposed that he and Gaviria sign 'a contract' allowing him to return to his luxury prison outside Medellin and guaranteeing in writing that he was never to be moved without his consent.
There would be no agreement. Gaviria flatly refused to make any concessions, and a Colombian court rejected a formal appeal by Escobar's lawyers to have his escape ruled a legitimate action taken in fear of his life.
His prison lifeline gone, his enemies in government allied with the hated Americans, Escobar was now a full-fledged fugitive. But he was still richer than his friends and more ruthless than his enemies. In this second round of his war against the government, he would rely once again on violence and terror, but also on his countrymen's resentment of the United States.
To many of Colombia's poor, America was the enemy, an oppressive world power propping up the wealthy elite in Bogota. Escobar was expert at playing on this populist theme. He was a hero to many in Medellin's ghettos. If America was allied with the Colombian government against him, that was tantamount to a betrayal of the mother country. Surely the public, his public, would not stand for it. If some Colombians did tolerate such a blasphemy, his bombs would bring them back to reality soon enough. It would take time, but he was sure this alliance against him would buckle.
It had to buckle, because Escobar knew well the consequences of remaining a fugitive, how easy it was in
