Writer Talks of Drugs, Sports

Colombian journalist Francisco Santos told a group of 18 students last night about his eight months as a hostage of the Medellin drug cartel.

Santos, a fellow at the Nieman Foundation, talked about the entrenched corruption of Colombia's drug cartels at a Leverett House forum that was part of a weekly series on sports journalism.

Three years ago, Santos exposed the drug cartels' control of 11 of Colombia's 15 regional soccer teams in Bogota's El Tiempo, a newspaper owned by his family.

"Nobody writes about the really tough things," Santos said, explaining that other journalists were intimidated by their fear of retribution from the drug cartels.

Colombian soccer fans were ignorant of the deception behind their favorite game, according to Santos.

The Medellin and Cali Cartels, the two most powerful drug organizations in Colombia, bought players, teams and referees, Santos said.

The drug cartels "had a lot of extra money, but were social outcasts," Santos said. Buying into the popular but unprofitable teams and transforming them into well-paid, power-packed World Cup Contenders was a way of obtaining "respectability and immediate popularity."

When Santos wrote a column condemning the corruption, "all hell broke loose."

Two soccer referees were kidnapped the day after Santos' revelatory column appeared. Later, two others were killed.

Santos became a target for retaliation when he continued to write about the Cali and Medellin cartels. In September 1990, he was apprehended by men who cornered his car on a Bogota Street.

"I thought, this is a kidnapping. I opened my door--big mistake," Santos recalled. "They shot my driver, killed him. And they took me hostage."

Of the 10 journalists that were kidnapped with him, Santos is one of only three survivors.

"I started developing this inner strength to be ready [for death], and it worked," he said. "It was fascinating to develop a relationship with the hitmen."

His release, in May of last year, was one of the last parts of a compromise between the government and the cartel leaders, who surrendered in return for relaxed sentences.

Pablo Escobar, head of the Medellin cartel, admitted in a note written during the kidnapping that Santos had "balls."

"You have a gusty son," Escobar wrote to Santos' father. Escobar, whom Santos called "the most dangerous in the world," credited the repoter with courage facing death.

When given the opportunity to send one message to his family and one to the president, Santos encouraged the Colombian government not to agree to any kind of illegal compromise in exchange for hostage release.

Santos joins 24 other Nieman Fellows at Harvard this year for one year of study, research and writing. This prestigious journalism fellowship was given this year to 12 American and 12 non-American reporters.