DISPATCHES
and deep discontent,” ex-
plains Julio Acosta Arango,
vice rector of the Escuela
de Administración y Finan-
zas e Instituto Tecnológico
(EAFIT), a business-focused
private university. “Illegal
activities took over the lo-
cal economy, dishearten-
ing hard-working people.
Students treated degrees
as tickets to jobs outside
the country.”
The classic symbol of the
lawlessness of the era be-
came the palatial barracks
from which convicted drug
lord Pablo Escobar ran his
empire.
As part of a national
movement to reverse Co-
lombia’s deterioration,
which included the draft-
ing and approval of the re-
formed 1991 Constitution,
Medellín’s private-sector
leaders and emerging net-
works of civil society orga-
nizations, united by their
rejection of violence, be-
gan early in the 1990s to
reweave the city’s badly
damaged economic and
social fabric. “Things got
bad enough that a consen-
sus finally developed on
the need to end illegality,
strengthen the state and
rebuild institutions,” re-
counts Juan David Esco-
bar Valencia, Director of
EAFIT’s Center for Strate-
gic Thought.
The Medellín aerial tramway ferries residents across the city’s neighborhoods.
leaders and civil society
organizations called
Compromiso Ciudadano, Fajardo
mobilized many sectors of
society around the emerging consensus that social
integration was essential
to lasting peace and sustainable progress in Medellín.
