Threatened Colombians Deal With Anxiety, Isolation

For Colombians battling the drug establishment, life is lived in a sealed, guarded box. Breaking out can mean death at the hands of terrorists waiting patiently outside.

Jaime Pardo Leal, the leftist Union Patriotic Party leader, ventured out in 1987, only to be assassinated as he drove near his farm west of Bogota.

So stifling had his box become that Pardo “said that life was ending for him,” said a friend, Bogota criminal court Judge Consuelo Herrera.

“He couldn’t go to public places. He felt his intimacy with his family was being destroyed by the presence of bodyguards and security measures. Finally he couldn’t take it anymore and broke out.”

A normal reaction, psychologists say, for the politicians, journalists, judges and others living under death threats from the cocaine cartels.

Often, a deadly one.

Herrera said Pardo had begun to drive with his family to their farm without first telling the national intelligence police, who had been providing bodyguards for him.

“He was killed because he did not have the necessary protection. He always said that he was not important enough for anyone to try to kill him,” Herrera said in an interview.

So alarmed is the nation over death threats--and the threat of threats--that executives have become accustomed to traveling with bodyguards carrying submachine guns. Private guards wearing bulletproof vests and dark glasses can often be seen standing outside chic restaurants while their charges dine.

Although Herrera said she has not been threatened, other judges have. Thirty-six have been assassinated over the last 12 years.

“The first response by many people who have received a threat is to try to put it out of their mind,” Bogota psychologist Leonidas Castro said in a recent interview.

“It is most important that people at risk take an active role in protecting themselves, that they avoid the image of themselves as helpless targets,” said Castro, who specializes in treating the stress and anxiety of high-risk officials. “That feeling of helplessness is the source for anxiety that can be as bad or worse than the threat itself.”

Many threatened Colombians, Herrera said, “feel alone and won’t talk about the problem, but I’ve seen their worry and fear affect their families like a poison.”

One journalist who received several threats said that, at first, he felt the problem was not “radical enough” to cause him to change his life style.

Later, though, he relayed the threats to the intelligence police, who said they had evidence that a contract had been put out on his life. He left the country.

Judges do not usually have that option.

“For judges, leaving the country or installing a home security system is rarely an option,” said Herrera, “We will often have to fight a major battle just to get an extra government bodyguard for a threatened judge.”

Indeed, even affording psychological help can be difficult for judges, who earn an average of $380 a month but who would have to pay $25 to $100 an hour, by Castro’s estimate, to see a psychologist.

Although judges handling drug cases should take threats seriously, Colombians not directly involved with the cartels need not live in fear, Castro said.

“A Colombian bank president who has not received any specific threat can lead a perfectly normal life,” the psychologist said.