Jorge Lesmes & Édgar Téllez—Telling Untold Stories

By Bruce Jensen -- Críticas, 2/15/2007

Édgar Téllez and Jorge Lesmes

The Inter-American Press Association’s website exists to document and chronicle violence against journalists throughout Latin America. Its running tally of reporters murdered in the last 20 years, by nation, shows Colombia far atop that shameful list, with more than 120 reporters killed in the line of duty. The upheavals that have made Colombia such deadly ground for media professionals have at the same time made it tantalizingly newsworthy. There, some of the world’s wealthiest criminals have forged complex, shocking ties with paramilitary groups, guerrillas, and even governments. Former President Ernesto Samper’s multimillion-dollar support from drug lords was eventually exposed thanks to the often death-defying work of gutsy journalists.

Jorge Lesmes and Édgar Téllez were among the key investigators in the Samper case, and it wasn’t the first nor the last time they would be in the thick of such a story. Their newest book, Pacto en la sombra (“Pact in the Shadows”), details the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) little-known “rehabilitation program” for members of Colombia’s drug mafia, a strategy that has helped more than 300 criminals bargain their way out of painful prosecution in exchange for information and vast sums of money. Winner of the prestigious Premio Planeta de Periodismo (Planeta Colombia’s journalism prize) in 2006, this book has found a place on that country’s best seller lists. Críticas caught up with Lesmes and Téllez to ask what draws journalists to risk their lives, the rewards of the trade, and what daring reporters read for the inspiration that keeps them going.

When did you start covering the world of drug traffickers?

It didn’t happen just by chance. From our very first days on the job more than 20 years ago now, we’ve been up to our necks in this. It’s an odd coincidence that even though at the time we were working in two different media entirely [Téllez in television, Lesmes at a magazine] we both covered the incident that kicked into high gear Colombia’s war against the drug trade: the slaying of Justice Minister Rodrigo Lara Bonilla on April 30, 1984. Since then, we’ve been at the front lines in the coverage of the most important events having to do with this war that has brought so much harm to our country. The drug business has taken the lives of eminent Colombians who dared to sound the alarm about what could happen to the country should the mafia come to power. They’ve paid for that with their lives.

Some of the interviews you describe in your book take place in settings that are a bit disturbing, even terrifying. Exposing the workings of a culture as violent and vengeful as that of the drug kingpins has got to be risky. How does a reporter protect himself?

We’ve always been conscious of the risks that are part of the job description. As a matter of fact, most of the journalists murdered in Colombia in these 20 long years have been killed for investigating or for speaking out about the drug trade and its power that begets so much corruption and violence. But even with all that, we haven’t held back for a moment, because we’re convinced that these stories need to be told.

Pacto en la sombra is the third book you have collaborated on. In what ways do the two of you complement each other in your work?

In our particular case there’s a confluence of two fundamental traits. First, knowing that each one of us has excellent sources of information—those have been crucial to our reporting. Second, the interest we share in telling these stories that, despite being bloody and gruesome, never stop being exciting.

This is work that appeals to us deeply, and that’s what pulls us into the kinds of projects that put a priority on telling untold stories. We complement one another because we worked together for several years and had the good fortune to cover the country’s biggest “narcopolitical” scandal, the illicit funding of Samper’s successful presidential campaign [in 1994]. For four years we were at the forefront of the investigation that exposed the secret conversations and the millions of dollars that the Cali cartel gave to Samper’s campaign.

What do you find most rewarding about this kind of reporting—that is, the kind that brings to light the ties between organized crime and government officials, and reveals things that normally stay hidden from public view?

If you look at it carefully, in the key moments of the battle against the drug trade in Colombia a lot of factors have all come together: the political class, powerful government figures, elements of the armed forces, and crime. This has happened because of the corrupting power of big money. Experience has taught us that behind every big story are facts that don’t come out at the time. We’re passionate about digging into what hasn’t been revealed, and we’ve always discovered that the percentage of hidden information is enormous.

Of all the sketches and anecdotes in your richly detailed book, which do you find particularly emblematic?

We were very struck by the account of the moment when the Colombian mafiosos decide to go to Panama to risk direct negotiations [with the DEA] because they know the authorities at home are right behind them. Their encounters with the DEA agents and the struggle for the money that they had to turn over to the United States are truly compelling.

Throughout the book there are dozens of moments where we felt we were in the right place at the right time. Such as the story of the so-called “Rasguño” [Luis Hernando Gómez Bustamante] who was arrested in Cuba and recently deported to Colombia. When he gets together with the DEA agents, he tells them that he didn’t send cocaine to the United States by the pound, but rather by the ton! Journalistically, those anecdotes are very important. They supply a context for the scale of that business worldwide.

Do you feel that Pacto en la sombra—a big seller in Colombia that has made quite an impression—has relevance for Hispanics in the United States?

We feel it should. This is a story that has importance for both countries, and for others where we’re quite certain the same things are happening. We’d be pleased if all U.S. readers could get a sense of the immensity of this business and the influence of the mafia’s wealth.

Finally, what are some of the books on your nightstands? Do you prefer to stick to reportage like your own, or do you read other genres as well?

Being journalists, we read everything that falls into our hands. Magazines, documents, newspapers, reports—in short, everything that might be material for an investigation is very important to have on the nightstand. When it comes to unwinding and looking for other points of view, what could be better than reading Gabriel García Márquez? That’s a way of renewing your bonds with life itself.

Bruce Jensen is the founder of Spanish in Our Libraries and a Systems Librarian at South Texas College in the Rio Grande Valley. Jensen is also a Críticas advisory board member. .