October 23, 2007
By ANDREA ZARATE, The Associated Press
In this photo taken before last year's presidential elections, soldiers keep watch over Medellin. (AP Photo/Luis Benavides) |
For anyone who followed the coverage of the Colombian drug trade in the 1980s, it's hard to hear the word "Medellin" without immediately thinking "cartel."
Nearly a decade and a half has passed since drug kingpin Pablo Escobar was killed by police, dealing a devastating blow to his Medellin cartel. And yet the city continues to struggle with its troubled past -- and with a serious criminal element that lingers to this day.
During a recent visit to Colombia's second-largest city, asap examined Medellin's struggle to reinvent itself -- and turned up some signs of progress.
Take a look at this video report to get a glimpse of Medellin in 2007.
http://asap.ap.org/data/interactives/_news/medellin/
___
asap contributor Andrea Zarate is a freelance writer based in Miami.
___
Want to comment? Sound off at soundoffasap@ap.org.
