Villamizar, Alberto

▪ 2008

      Colombian politician and diplomat

born 1944, Cúcuta, Colom.

died July 26, 2007, Bogotá, Colom.

crusaded alongside the Liberal Party presidential candidate Luís Carlos Galán to limit the power, political influence, and wealth of the Medellín cocaine cartel headed by Pablo Escobar. Villamizar was instrumental in the passage of the National Narcotics Statute of 1985, the first general legislation against drug trafficking. When the U.S. began acting on its newly ratified extradition treaty with Colombia, Villamizar attempted to block attempts by politicians associated with the cartel to pass a constitutional amendment against extradition. After Villamizar narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in 1986, he was named ambassador to Indonesia. When he returned to Colombia, he supported Galán's candidacy, but in 1989 the latter was assassinated. When Villamizar's wife and sister were kidnapped in 1990, he spent five months negotiating their release. The incident and eight subsequent kidnappings were the subject of Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel García Márquez's Noticia de un secuestro (1997; News of a Kidnapping). Escobar, impressed with Villamizar's negotiating skills, recruited him to help arrange his own surrender in 1991. Villamizar served (1991–94) as ambassador to The Netherlands and was named (1996) the country's first kidnapping czar. Before he left that post in 1997 to become ambassador to Cuba, he established a special police force to cope with abductions.

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