Medellín: In a mansion with golden taps and an oyster-shaped bathtub, Colombian paramilitaries and drug lords once planned the most horrific crimes. Now the opulent property will be put at the service of their victims.
In Medellín, the luxury estate of Montecasino was the site of planning assassinations of presidential candidates and massacres of rural people accused of supporting left-wing guerrillas, according to the testimony of former hitmen.
It was owned by brothers Carlos, Vicente and Fidel Castano – the heads of the United Self-Defense of Colombia (AUC), an American “terrorist” organization founded to fight the FARC guerrilla group and known for human rights abuses.
With marble floors and huge gardens, the house was seized by the state in 2010 after the brothers’ demise.
First leased to private entities, Montecasino is now managed by the local judicial police at the behest of Colombia’s first ever left-wing president, Gustavo Petro.
A laboratory to identify mortal remains will be built in a country where more than 111,000 people have disappeared in a decades-long conflict over ideology, territory, trade routes and revenge.
“Many people were tortured there,” she added.
Luz Galeano (60) hopes that the initiative will finally shed light on the fate of her husband Luis Laverde, who disappeared without a trace in 2008.
Laverde was abducted from a bus in Medellín at a time when the city’s residents were under siege by AUC fighters targeting sectors under guerrilla control.
The Treasury Department’s Special Assets Unit (SAE) has been tasked with selling or leasing thousands of seized properties.
UAE President Daniel Rojas recently announced that an audit from two years ago showed that only about a fifth of the 33,000-odd properties under the unit’s control were producing income – a figure to be updated.
Colombia’s Comptroller General’s office recently reported the theft of luxury watches and other items from properties managed by the UAE, with losses running into millions.
In Chia, a town near the capital Bogota, stands another testament to the once-untouchable status and wealth of Colombia’s drug lords: a towering castle built in 1898 to later serve as the presidential palace and bought by Escobar associate Juan Camilo Zapata.
According to Peter’s decree, the castle will be handed over to the National University of Pedagogy with about 9,000 students.
The building itself will be turned into a museum, with a large part of the site set aside for academic, cultural and sporting activities.
For the rector of the university Helbert Choachi, the re-use of assets obtained by criminal activities for the public good should not be a decision of individual governments, but a fixed policy of the state. “All assets … from the drug trade, which is responsible for so many human rights violations in this country, (should) go as part of reparations to the public entities and communities that have been most affected,” he told AFP.
