Tell Us 5 Things About Your Book: Fighting Terror and Corruption in Colombia

When drug kingpin Pablo Escobar was killed in 1993, Colombia’s bloody troubles did not die with him. In “There Are No Dead Here,” Maria McFarland Sánchez-Moreno, who spent years as a Colombia researcher for Human Rights Watch, writes about the harrowing violence carried out by paramilitary groups that bloomed in the country in the late 1990s.

She focuses on the stories of three men who have tried to help solve the problem against enormous odds: human rights activist Jesús María Valle, who was murdered for what he exposed; prosecutor Iván Velásquez; and journalist Ricardo Calderón. The book covers their dangerous efforts, the links between the paramilitaries and Colombia’s political establishment, and the influence of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and its war on drugs.

McFarland, now executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, discusses here the bravery of her subjects, the inspiration she takes from photojournalists who work in conflict areas and more.

A: It started when I had finished up being a Colombia researcher for Human Rights Watch. I had spent six years documenting atrocities and trying to get the government to address them. But I was frustrated, because all those documents I had been producing didn’t really capture the reality I had gotten to know so well, the stories of these extraordinary people, who despite horrendous conditions often insisted on fighting for truth, for justice; insisted on being incredibly honest even though they could have easily gone in another direction and all the pressures were in that direction. In the United States, anyone who knew anything about Colombia knew about Pablo Escobar and the FARC (a rebel group), but very few people knew about the paramilitaries, and stories usually depicted the heroes as DEA agents or law enforcement. They were missing this whole piece, these ordinary people who make tremendous sacrifices, take huge risks and often get killed because they’re standing on principle.

I started out with the idea of just doing an article in 2012. I was very focused on the story of Iván Velásquez, who had followed the links between congress and these paramilitary death squads. He had worked very much alone with not much support, and faced an elaborate campaign by high-level government officials and those in the intelligence service to discredit him. As I talked to him, I realized it was part of a much larger story. He was personally connected to the other two characters in the book. I started drafting a book proposal, which took four years to write. The book took two.

A: I knew that people were brave. But once I started asking them for their stories in details, I was surprised by just how many risks they took. And when I spoke to their family members, they received threats and had themselves been wrapped up in this and terribly impacted. Yet they had never tried to get them to stop doing their work. In fact, María Victoria, Iván’s wife, kept some very serious threats made against her secret because she didn’t want him to give up what he was doing. She knew it would break him because it was such an important part of who he was, to follow through on his commitment.

With Calderón, I didn’t realize the sort of risks he had taken. I knew him as a journalist, and I knew he had exposed these scandals and efforts to smear Velásquez. I didn’t realize just how intrepid he was because he was just so humble. Years later, I found out he had actually been abducted by his sources in the intelligence service at one point. They thought he was going to betray them and they needed to know if he was being straight with them. They gave him this drug to tell the truth and he lost consciousness overnight. He just kept going with his work; met with them the next day and they apologized.

A: I started out with a very important story about one man who led these investigations and was attacked and then prevailed. It turned into a much richer story when I brought in these other characters and dug into the history. Once I had a broader scope and more characters, I could trace the arc of how the paramilitaries grew and what they were, and how they were able to gain so much power and influence and develop all these connections, in a way I wouldn’t have been able to do if the book had been about one set of investigations.

A: Photojournalists, in general, who have worked in some of these conflicts. One of them is Stephen Ferry, with whom I worked very closely in Colombia. He captured the humanity and all sorts of nuances of the reality of Colombia in ways that aren’t usually presented in journalism and in the policy world. Seeing someone who’s able to capture those deeper aspects of reality made me also want to do that.

Another piece that made an impression on me while I was writing the book was Joshua Oppenheimer’s movie “The Look of Silence,” a sequel to “The Act of Killing.” He’s able to show what it means for people to live with a legacy of mass atrocity while the perpetrators are still in power, and in a way that’s what was happening in Colombia while I was there.

A: It’s a fast-paced true story, something of a thriller. It introduces you to brutality and corruption in a country at the center of the United States’ war on drugs. It also offers hope that brave, committed people who care about what’s right can make a difference.

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‘There Are No Dead Here:

A Story of Murder and Denial in Colombia’

By Maria McFarland Sánchez-Moreno

Illustrated. 327 pages. Nation Books. $28.