Neissa, Peter A. 1992 210 pgs. (pbk)
ISBN: 091574516x $19.95
Based on the true life story of Gonzalo
Rodriguez Gacha, the drug lord of the Bogota branch of the
Colombian Drug Cartel, this historical novel offers a factual and
knowledgeable Colombian perspective that well connected
Colombians have known for years: the real Drug Cartel, a group
consisting of over two-hundred drug traffickers, met for the
first time in 1976, not to discuss drugs, but to devise a
solution to the kidnapping and murders inflicted upon them by the
Marxist guerrillas. This led to cooperation on other matters
--like cocaine. The Drug Lord, born an outcast in 1952, during
Colombia's bloody civil war, rose from poverty to
multi-billionaire status in the violent world of cocaine traffic.
It is the gripping story of the Drug Lord's history when at age
six, he witnesses the massacre of his family by the Colombian
Army. It shows his involvement with the adolescent city gang, El
Centro, which controlled Colombia's lucrative emerald black
market, to the Cartel's development from a national to
international status. The Drug Lord is also the story of a
Colombia torn apart by violence --the oligarchy against the poor,
government against popular uprisings, drug massacres, social and
class conflicts, kidnappings-- of business, love and myopic U.S.
policy in Latin America devoted to stamp communism at any price.
Mr. Neissa posits that the Colombian Drug Cartel is, like the
Mafia, deeply entrenched in their native cultures. Most highly
recommended.