A Narco History Archives

By Jimena Perry

In 2013, a memory museum opened in Medellín, Department of Antioquia Colombia. Its founding was part of the Victim Assistance Program created by the city’s mayoralty in 2004. Known as one of Colombia’s most violent cities, due mainly to the drug cartel of Medellín led by Pablo Escobar, this urban area suffered severe violence (bombings, targeted killings, kidnappings, bribes, threats, and massacres) from the 1980s to the mid-1990s. The communes of Medellín ‒16 divided into neighborhoods and institutional areas‒ acquired a very bad reputation during this period because most forms of violence happened there. According to official sources, such as the National Registry of Victims, 1,383.988 of 8,421,627 registered victims nationwide, are from the Department of Antioquia.

The house-museum (casa museo) is conceived as part of the symbolic reparation of victims the state must pursue, as a space in which they can grieve, come together to tell their stories, and heal. The museum has 378 testimonies that can be heard, viewed, and read. The building in which it is housed has three stories. The first one is a temporary exhibition space, the second is where the permanent display is, and the third is a documentation center. Located downtown, the museum is at the Bicentenario Park and behind a traditional theatre.

Museo Casa de la Memoria, Medellín (Jimena Perry, 2017).

The permanent exhibition of the museum is divided into 16 topics. The first one, named Absences, opens the hall with a mirror wall in which people can read fragments of testimonies related to the sadness of losing loved ones, homes, lands, and domestic animals. The second one, Nostalgic Landscapes, is an audiovisual projected on a wall in which one can observe Antioquia’s rural sceneries affected by the armed conflict. It is meant to convey the pain of forced displacement. The third one, called simply Medellín, is a narrative of the city’s history since 1541. It includes indigenous peoples, afrodescendants, and peasants, trying to be as inclusive as possible. The fourth, Sensitive Territories, is composed by three interactive cartographies which show the numbers of the department´s municipalities, facts of victimization that are remembered collectively, and memory sites in Medellín. These cartographies are intended to highlight how the people from Antioquia resisted the conflict, to denounce atrocities, and to call the viewers’ attention to social mobility.

Interactive Cartographies. People can touch the screens and navigate through information related to violence, victims, and memory (Jimena Perry, 2017).

The fifth space is called Medellín in Movement. It is also a video in which spectators can see the city in action. It shows streets, people, activities, traffic, day, night, and the different ways of inhabiting the urban center. The sixth one, Children’s Words, is a touching panel in which kids define words such as love, violence, fear, dead, displacement, and murder. This is one example: “Murder: To take away the best of a person.” This sentence was written by a nine-year-old boy. The seventh, is an interactive chronology, from 1946 to 2013, in which the history of Colombian violence is told. This piece sticks out due to its grand size and the information it contains. A person can click on its links to find out specific data about certain events, such as the creation of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, FARC-EP (Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia-People’s Army), peace processes, and institutional efforts to end the country’s armed conflict.

Interactive Chronology (Jimena Perry, 2017).

Space number eight is perhaps one of the most impressive of the displays. It is called Multiple Faces of Violence. This is a sample of approximately 50 pictures taken by four known photographers. The images are displayed in triptychs which the observer can turn and alternate. They are shocking and capture many violent moments that deserve reflection. Besides the pictures there is an interactive screen where the photographers tell their experiences taking the images. The following pictures are the work of Natalia Botero, Jesús Abad Colorado, Albeiro Lopera and Steven Ferry. I chose only a few of them. The images reproduced here were taken by Jimena Perry.

The ninth topic of the permanent exhibition is named Words. Like with the children’s definitions, here children and adults play with the meanings of fear, solidarity, resiliency, memory and difference. The tenth space, Whispers, as shocking or more as the former, is composed by 13 wooden boxes attached to a wall. If someone places his or her ear to a box, a testimony of violence can be heard. The narrative of each box is different and some of them are very hard to listen to.

Wooden Boxes (Jimena Perry, 2017).

The eleventh space is a composition of 16 cases with artistic pieces in which the armed conflict is represented. They are in the middle of the permanent hall and include topics such as violence against the earth and indigenous communities. The twelfth one, Present Histories, is made of three person-size panels in which recent victims — survivors of violence, politicians, activists of human rights, and priests — give their views and experiences of war. Twenty-four different voices can be heard here. Space thirteen is a recompilation of recent songs with social meaning. Here people can stop to listen to the music, which is mainly hip-hop and rap. The fourteenth one, Art’s Point of View, is also an interactive panel that presents artistic works in which violence is depicted. The fifteenth one, Memory Enclosure, is a wall in which the viewer observes images that come and go over a black screen. The pictures allude to birthdays, baptisms, and everyday life activities and chores to remind the viewer how life was interrupted violently. The last part of the permanent exhibition is a long hall in which there are fragments of speeches of human rights activists, writers, and other people who had fought for peace in Colombia.

“To close old wounds. And that from death new life arises.” (Jimena Perry, 2017)

Medellín’s House-Memory Museum is a place intended to give voice to Medellín’s victims of violence and provide them a site to grieve, reunite, remember, and develop strategies to avoid future violence. The institution’s first director defined this mission clearly enough, however the second and current one is implementing some changes. She said publicly that the museum should not only be for victims and perpetrators but for every citizen. This statement caused uneasiness in the city’s inhabitants because the space is supposed to represent symbolically the people directly affected by violence. So, here big questions come up: How much inclusion is desirable? Which is the audience of the institution?

Another issue worth mentioning is the absence of drug trafficking victims at the museum. Even though Pablo Escobar was born in Rionegro, his business was all run in the capital of Antioquia. Escobar and his organization, the Medellín Cartel, committed 623 attacks that left hundreds of dead civilians and thousands wounded. The Cartel also was responsible for the murder of 550 policemen, 100 bombs in Bogotá and Medellín in malls, official institutions, airplanes, and newspapers. Approximately 15,000 people died due to the actions of the Medellín Cartel between 1989 and 1993. Among the deceased were presidential candidates, journalists and politicians. Kidnappings of politicians and journalists were very common as well. It is surprising that the museum does not mention these victims. This is a part of Colombian history that remains absent from most institutions, drug lords are not part of museum narratives leaving big silences that need to be filled. Perhaps telling this part of history should also be part of the healing process.

Also by Jimena Perry on Not Even Past:

Time to Remember: Violence in Museums and Memory in Colombia, 2000-2014
My Cocaine Museum, by Michael Taussig (2004)

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Magical Realism on Drugs: Colombian History in Netflix’s Narcos

By Christina Villareal

The “war on drugs” originated in the late nineteenth century when the United States and Mexico began to combat the narcotics industry. By 1914, the Harrison Act criminalized non-medicinal use of opiates and cocaine in the United States. Likewise, with the ratification of the 1917 Constitution, Mexico tried to terminate the distribution of drugs with strict bans on the production and importation of opiates, cocaine, and marijuana. Before 1920, both countries had declared war on drugs. In A Narco History, Boullosa and Wallace explain how the battle against drugs has enriched narcos, escalated violence, and increased the demand for illegal substances.

Boullosa and Wallace begin by recounting the events of 2014 that led to the horrific murder of 43 students from Ayotzinapa in the state of Guerrero. Although the truth about this case remains obscure today, the authors suggest foul play rooted in collaboration between the federal government, local politicians, and drug-related gangs. The remainder of the book details the convergence of federal and local politicians with drug dealers since the late nineteenth century. Spanning from Mexico’s Porfiriato to Obama’s administration, the twelve chapters explore how the actions of one government, typically those of the United States, resulted in the expansion of the drug trade. For instance, Boullosa and Wallace argue that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which favored U.S. agribusiness, forced thousands of Mexican farmers to turn to marijuana and cocaine production. This deepened the local dependence on the drug market and provided a greater supply for the insatiable demand in the US. Similar instances of cause and effect, which typically benefited the United States to the detriment of Mexicans, occurred throughout the century.

Cempasuchil petals form human-shaped outlines on the ground beside lit candles and a placard during an event held in remembrances of the 43 missing student teachers from the Ayotzinapa. Via REUTERS/Henry Romero

A Nacro History will get any interested reader up-to-speed on the history of this oft discussed “war on drugs.” Beyond a simple timeline, Wallace and Boullosa spell out the implications of political corruption, neoliberalism, the arms trade, and American exceptionalism. U.S. drug policies and pressures on Mexico to squelch the trade ensured the proliferation of “cartels” and the movement of narcotics. The elimination of one “drug lord” inevitably led to the fissuring of cartels and the increase in “collateral criminality,” like kidnapping, rape, extortion, and murder. The authors end the history with a few suggestions for both countries on how to ameliorate the situations for the victims of the drug war violence. Considering the attention given to US-Mexico border issues in the upcoming presidential elections, readers will find their propositions useful.

Courtesy of The Denver Post

The clear writing style and the absence of intimidating footnotes makes A Narco History extremely accessible (even if it might raise questions for academic readers seeking its sources). The lively vignettes on individuals ranging from corrupt politicians and extravagant narcotraficantea to opportunistic agriculturalists and heroic victims, will prove especially interesting to undergraduates and nonacademic audiences. A Narco History will leave many readers eager to embark on research of their own, which they can begin with the book’s excellent bibliography.

Too Much Inclusion? Museo Casa de la Memoria, Medellín, Colombia

A Narco History: How the United States and Mexico jointly created the Mexican Drug War, by Carmen Boullosa and Mike Wallace (2015)

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