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December 9, 2007
Encouraging the Medellin Makeover
Now that Congress has confirmed a free trade agreement with Panama, it's time to get a similar agreement in place with Colombia. The country has undergone a startling makeover over the last decade or so, and Amity Shlaes sees the change particularly embodied in Medellin:
Medellin came into prominence in the 1980s, when Escobar made it the continent's cocaine capital. In his time and after, gang members ruled. Six Medellin policemen a day turned up dead. The overall death rate was 350 per 100,000, or 10 times that of the most dangerous U.S. cities, such as Baltimore. Kidnapping and gang wars devastated all other activity, such as the textile industry, or the construction of roads and sewers.
Locals who lived in the hillside shacks of the Santo Domingo section might want to walk to a job in the valley. But to do that they had to spend two hours picking their way down a rubble-strewn incline.
President Bill Clinton and lawmakers from both parties began to alter this picture when they passed a law to fund Colombia's demilitarization. Colombians did their part by electing Uribe president in 2002. Uribe demobilized tens of thousands of gangsters, persuading them to hand in their guns, confess to crimes and gave them stipends to begin civilian lives.
Medellin contributed by choosing a reforming mayor, a mathematician with a doctorate from the University of Wisconsin named Sergio Fajardo. Fajardo worked hour by hour with police to recapture the city. He built libraries to show that gangs weren't the only ones who could help communities. Fajardo also found an ingenious way to transport the stranded hillside citizens -- by ski lift. Today gondolas carrying eight passengers each sway up and down the hill on a wire -- a commuter hypotenuse that changes the urban profile.
Fajardo says funding the concrete-and-wire Metrocable wasn't so hard: ``It's remarkable how much money there is to spend when you don't keep it for yourself and your friends.''
The result of it all is that murders in Medellin dropped. At 29 per 100,000, the city's homicide rate is lower than Baltimore's. New peace allowed legitimate businesses, such as fresh flowers and textiles, to expand in Medellin. . . .
We need to affirm this change by getting a trade agreement in place with Colombia. As Shlaes rightly observes, this makeover is a work in progress and a permanent state of affairs.
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