For decades after the rise of Pablo Escobar and the Medellin cartel, the violence-riven Latin American country of Colombia was long associated with being a narco-state. The Andean country emerged as a partial democracy where organized crime had deeply penetrated state institutions and embedded itself in political parties with politicians funded by cocaine cartels controlling the levers of power. After decades of endemic lawlessness and violence, which nearly caused the state to fail, Colombia’s government, with substantial support from Washington,…
