News of a Kidnapping
...of their first weeks in captivity. One night, when the temperature in Bogotá, Colombia had been between 55 and 59 degrees and raining downtown, this is what occurred: “Maruja was overcome by exhaustion. She began to snore as soon as she feel asleep, but her persistent, uncontrollable smoker’s cough, aggravated by the damp walls that released an icy moisture at dawn, kept waking her. Each time she coughed or snored, the guards would kick her in the head with their heels. Marina’s fear was uncontrollable, and she backed them up, warning Maruja they were going to tie her to the mattress so she wouldn’t move around so much, or gag her to stop her from snoring”(Marquez, 47). Based on this kind of harsh and violent treatment, one could say the guards could not have possibly been born with good morals, or a good heart. Maruja’s problem, not a fault of her own, still caused the guards to act in unnecessary ways towards her. Shortly afterwards, when the guard warns her, “Let me tell you: If you snore again or cough at night, we can blow your head off.” This would give another reason to believe that these kidnappers were inherently bad, and were born to cause trouble. However, as Maruja declared, “Do what you want, there’s nothing I can do to stop snoring. Kill me if you want to,”(48) along with Beatriz breaking down over the man’s threat to go after her family, the guards had a sudden change of heart, and an act of decency. They brought the ladies newspapers with information on Alberto Villamizar’s progress on making an agreement with the kidnappers, and had the ladies give a list of things that they needed. This began the period where the guards and the women began to maintain a kind of mostly peaceful relationship, besides the murder of Marina Montoya, which was ordered probably because of Escobar's lingering grudge against the deal over her nephew. “He had earlier been kidnapped and released, as part of an agreement between the Government and Escobar that the cocaine lord, on considered reflection, came to believe he had got the short end of. Marina Montoya's abduction may have been revenge.”(Stone 6/15/97). These young men, the guards, were probably not born good or bad, but were just led astray by Pablo Escobar into a life of crime, in exchange for a hefty salary. Now to move over to Pablo Escobar: this man, the multibillionaire leader of the Medillin Drug Cartel during the 80s and early 90s, did anything necessary in order to get his wants satisfied, whether they involved doing the right thing or not. “Pablo Escobar is thought to be responsible for the murder of hundreds of government officials, police, prosecutors, judges, journalists and innocent bystanders.” (PBS). As this quote indicated, Pablo Escobar used any means necessary in order to keep himself out of trouble, or for his demands to be met. One can take a look at the things Pablo Escobar did, such as the murders, the ordered kidnappings, along with the murder of Marina Montoya who was a hostage, the supplying of cocaine to the U.S. for much of the 80s shipped on planes, and other crimes, and probably can say that man didn’t possess much of a moral character. How can a person like him, who never hesitated to do something that could hurt others, have been born with a natural goodness in his heart, or even a hint of conscience? It is quite apparent that evil existed in his soul, and that there isn’t a possible way that he could have brought out the good side in himself if such a side existed. As for Alberto Villamizar, the man ultimately responsible for the release of the hostages in captivity due to negotiations he personally conducted with Pablo Escobar, all that he accomplished during this chaotic period was purely for the good of the people. He personally conducted negotiations with Escobar and his lawyer, and he didn’t back down from him either. That is exemplified when he says: “Don’t f*ck with me. Lets get to the point. You’ve stalled everything because your demands are moronic, and there’s only one damn thing at issue here: Your boys have to turn themselves in and confess to some sort of crime that they can serve a twelve-year sentence for. That’s what the law says, period. And in exchange for that, t...