Columbia’s Slums Are Breeding Ground for <i> Sicarios--</i> Drug Lords’ Paid Assassins

On the hillsides surrounding the cocaine capital of Medellin lie the slums that supply Colombia’s drug lords with a labor force for their dirty work.

The cramped settlements are breeding grounds for the dreaded sicarios or hired assassins, who for a small price will kill anybody--policeman, judge, journalist or politician.

Frequently contracted by the drug traffickers to kill anyone who stands in their way, the sicarios are on the front line of Colombia’s drug war, which has claimed more than 300 lives since last August.

“A generation lives here which doesn’t know what it is to die of old age,” said an army major in charge of a nighttime crime sweep in Aranjuez, one of the most notorious neighborhoods for sicarios.

Usually between the ages of 15 and 20, the sicarios will do anything to escape grinding poverty, often killing for as little as $40.

Their trademark is to shoot at their victims from a motorbike and then speed off. Few of their crimes are solved.

The murderer of leftist presidential candidate Bernardo Jaramillo, gunned down at Bogota’s main airport in March, was a 15-year-old youth who grew up in a lower class suburb of Medellin.

Police blamed sicarios hired by drug barons for the murder of 18 policemen during a single week last month in Medellin, home of the famous cartel that supplies much of the cocaine used in the United States.

Aranjuez, to the northeast of Medellin, is no-man’s-land for strangers after 5 p.m., except for the soldiers who periodically sweep the neighborhood in search of assassins.

The most feared of the hundreds of gangs of assassins, Los Priscos, came from Aranjuez.

Until recently, Pablo Escobar, accused head of the Medellin cocaine cartel, was often seen in Aranjuez. Now hunted by the authorities, Escobar is referred to here by the title, Don Pablo.

The violence in Aranjuez can be felt in the harsh stares of the 14- and 15-year-old youths lounging in the streets. They carry guns and are ready to use them.

Army trucks roll into the neighborhood and cordon off a street. Soldiers storm the bars, separate the men from the women and ask for documents. A few are arrested.

The soldiers systematically search houses for drugs or weapons. They are watched impassively by their owners who have grown used to these operations since the Colombian government cracked down on the illegal drug trade last August.