Skip to footer

'El Loco' Barrera: What does the capture of Colombia's last big drug lord mean?

One of Colombia's top drug traffickers – Daniel 'El Loco' Barrera – was captured by Venezuelan, Colombian, US, and UK officials. It's a great sign of regional cooperation, but other traffickers will likely fill the void.

|
Ministry of Popular Power for Interior Relations and Justice/AP
In this photo provided by the Ministry of Popular Power for Interior Relations and Justice, Venezuela's judicial police officers escort alleged Colombian drug trafficker Daniel Barrera (c.) at the Regional Command No. 1 National Guard base in San Cristobal, Tachira state, Venezuela, Wednesday, Sept. 19.

• A version of this post ran on the author's blog, bloggingsbyboz.com. The views expressed are the author's own.

A joint operation involving Venezuelan, Colombian, US, and UK authorities captured Daniel 'el Loco' Barrera, one of the top Colombian drug traffickers.

1. The cooperation between Venezuela and Colombia is a triumph for President Santos's policy towards his neighbor. In the same week that Santos met with Venezuela's opposition presidential candidate, he also scored a major arrest with the cooperation of Chavez government authorities. That's diplomacy at its best.

2. Loco Barrera was not living a millionaire's life in Venezuela that would make for a good narco-ballad. This was not the life of Pablo Escobar in his giant mansion. Barrera was on the run, afraid of capture at any moment. He had plastic surgery and dipped his fingers in acid to avoid identification. When captured, he looked really sad and defeated. That may seem like a silly point of analysis, but contrasted against all the happy Mexican capos who stupidly grin at the press conferences announcing their capture, it matters.

RELATED: Think you know Latin America? Take our geography quiz!

3. Good Venezuela; Bad Venezuela. Barrera's arrest highlights that the Chavez government does arrest criminals as part of international efforts. It also highlights the growing role of Venezuela as a hub for drug trafficking and organized crime in the region. Both analyses are true.

4. New criminal groups and leaders are always emerging. Barrera may be the last Colombian drug lord from the previous generation, but nobody expects that his arrest will prevent a new generation of organized crime from emerging.

– James Bosworth is a freelance writer and consultant who runs Bloggings by Boz.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to 'El Loco' Barrera: What does the capture of Colombia's last big drug lord mean?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/Latin-America-Monitor/2012/0924/El-Loco-Barrera-What-does-the-capture-of-Colombia-s-last-big-drug-lord-mean
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe