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Lovepreet Singh Grade 11 Pablo Escobar

Pablo Escobar was a notorious Colombian drug lord who earned a reputation for ruthlessness through his "plata o plomo" ("silver or lead") approach to problems, meaning he would accept bribes or use violence. He was blamed for killing around 4,000 people, including police officers and government officials. However, to many poorer residents in Medellin where he was from, Escobar was seen more as a folk hero for the housing and aid he provided, and at his funeral thousands mourned him, calling out "Viva Pablo!" and believing his tomb would become a place of prayer like a saint's.

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44 views1 page

Lovepreet Singh Grade 11 Pablo Escobar

Pablo Escobar was a notorious Colombian drug lord who earned a reputation for ruthlessness through his "plata o plomo" ("silver or lead") approach to problems, meaning he would accept bribes or use violence. He was blamed for killing around 4,000 people, including police officers and government officials. However, to many poorer residents in Medellin where he was from, Escobar was seen more as a folk hero for the housing and aid he provided, and at his funeral thousands mourned him, calling out "Viva Pablo!" and believing his tomb would become a place of prayer like a saint's.

Uploaded by

alchemist2000
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Lovepreet Singh

Grade 11

Pablo Escobar

Escobar’s way of handling problems was “plata o plomo,” meaning “silver”

(bribes) or “lead” (bullets). While he preferred the former, he had no qualms about the

latter option, earning a reputation for ruthlessness. He reportedly killed some 4,000

people, including numerous police officers and government officials. In 1989 the cartel

was blamed for detonating a bomb on a plane that was carrying an alleged informant.

Some 100 people died.

However, Far from the usual image of a drug lord, Pablo Escobar was buried a

folk hero. According to New York Times that was published in 1996, to chants of "Viva

Pablo!" thousands of mourners crowded a muddy hilltop cemetery today to bury Pablo

Escobar Gaviria. A ruthless cocaine baron to the outside world, Colombia's most

wanted criminal was a folk hero to many poorer residents of Medellin's tough hillside

shantytowns. The article says that "He built houses and cared about the poor,"

lamented a 29-year-old engineering student as mourners scrambled over broken glass

in a cemetery chapel window and swarmed around the open casket of the trafficker,

who died Thursday in a hail of police bullets. "In the future, people will go to his tomb to

pray, the way they would to a saint."

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