Marked for Death. Terry Gould

      The funeral was held April 30, at Neiva’s Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, attended by hundreds of union members, journalists and small-businessmen from Neiva Centro. “They murdered the man, but not his ideas,” Juan Carlos said in his eulogy beside his father’s flower-bedecked coffin. “We demand that there be no impunity. We will find and prosecute these rats who are infesting Neiva!”

      As the mourners filed by the coffin and paid their condolences to the family, three men pulled Eduard Ortiz and Juan Carlos Bravo aside. “They informed us they were Teófila Forero,” Ortiz told me. “One said, ‘We have come to pay our respects to a brave man and to tell you we did not kill him. We inform you that we will take vengeance for the murder of Guillermo Bravo Vega.’”

      “Aside from using them as sources,” I asked them, “did Guillermo ever have anything to do with the Teófila Forero?”

      “No, he didn’t,” Juan Carlos said. “During the time of FARCLANDIA, they invited him to come to their main camp and lecture on economic theory, but he refused. After his violent act as a young man, he was opposed to all violence. The only act of violence he was connected to was the violence done to him.”

      Bravo was buried in the nearby Gardens of Paradise Cemetery, after which Ana Cristina gave an emotional interview to Germán Hernández of Diario del Huila. “Guillermo Bravo was killed by people who saw they were at risk of losing the goose who laid the golden egg,” she said. “And when I say ‘goose’ and ‘golden egg,’ a lot of people in Huila know which goose and which egg.”

      In its subsequent coverage of the murder, the respected Bogotá news magazine Semana gave considerable space to Bravo’s dogged investigation of Governor Lozada’s transfer of Licorera del Huila to Orlando Rojas. “All of this made Bravo believe—and tell his family after the visit of the Regretful Shooter—that the threats against him could be related to his exposure of the liquor industry case,” Semana stated. “Addressing this issue, Rojas said, ‘No one can say, or even imply, that I’ve ever been involved in any public quarrel, or that I’ve committed a violent act. The differences I had with Guillermo Bravo were solved through legal means.’ Lozada agrees with Rojas, saying that Bravo’s murder was not related to the articles that he published, but to the fact that ‘he had gained a lot of enemies and that he had a leftist ideology.’”

      Germán Hernández co-authored the Semana article, even though he had been warned off the case by an anonymous murder threat. “At every turn, Yesid Guzmán frustrated the police investigation,” Hernández told me. “He had the power to do it. They found the motorcycle, but were there fingerprints? We don’t know: that is the CTI’s responsibility. The suspects who were identified as being on the motorcycle that night were shortly found, and shortly released.” After the release of the suspects, the Regretful Shooter, who had betrayed his mission to kill Bravo, was hunted down, shot in the face and left for dead. He survived, however, and showed up wounded at DAS to offer his testimony against both the shooters and Guzmán.

      “Yet Guzmán only became ‘a preliminary suspect,’” Hernández went on. “He was fired from his post—officially for other reasons, his connections to paramilitaries and possible drug dealing—but he was never arrested. With so much evidence, how can an investigation stay in its preliminary stages? But it did. Then they moved the investigation to Bogotá, and it has been there ever since, with no progress. It is still in its ‘preliminary stages’”—where it remains at this writing.

      “What happened to Guzmán after he was fired?” I asked Hernández.

      “About eight months later, January 14, 2004, two farmers found his body near Algeciras, about fifty kilometers south of here, Teófila Forero territory. He was tortured before he was shot in the head and chest. They found another corpse with him, also tortured, Jesús Alexander Rojas. It is possible Jesús Alexander was the shooter of Bravo. A third person was also later found murdered, possibly the driver of the motorcycle. The Regretful Shooter was ultimately hunted down too.”

      “So the Teófila Forero took revenge for a journalist they thought was on their side?” I asked.

      “I suspect the Regretful Shooter was shot by his own side,” Hernández said. “As for the others, they were probably tortured to find out who was the mastermind of the crime.”

      “I have two dreams in my life,” Jaime Lozada told me. “One dream is to get the championship for my soccer team, Atlético Huila. And the other dream, to get the freedom of my wife. Two dreams.”

      I wrote the dreams down, in the order he listed them.

      “Where exactly did they take your wife and boys?” I asked.

      “Somewhere to the FARC territory, fifty miles from here, no more. It was easy for them. They knew where to come. It was like a movie. They were dressed as soldiers, they blew open the door, took everybody and ran to their territory. They asked for money for my children, but not for my wife. The only possibility that she could return to us, they said, was a prisoner exchange.”

      He called one of his freed sons into the room and introduced him. Then he led me across the living room into his home office, paneled in dark teak and illuminated by antique electric lamps with green glass shades. “These are my military decorations,” he said, opening his palm in the green glow to indicate a large display case filled with ribbons, citations and sunburst medals. “The army gives me honors. And you can see here, my friends in Colombia.” He pointed to two trophy walls of photos, Lozada arm in arm with the presidents of Colombia for the last fifty years, from a teenage Lozada with Mariano Ospina Perez to a mature and hefty Lozada with Álvaro Uribe. “When I was the governor of Huila State, Uribe was the governor of Antioquia; and when I was in London as the general consul for Colombia, Uribe was in Oxford studying. So we are acquainted, you could say. The governor of Huila is a very good friend of mine, too. He’s a Liberal. But he got the job thanks to me, because of my work for him. I met Bill Clinton, too. I love America.”

      Above these photos was an old, ornate diploma—his economics degree, from the same university Bravo had attended.

      “You got along with Bravo once,” I said.

      “I did, a long time ago,” he agreed. “Because we were both economists. Then we became neutral to one another, and then we became opponents, because Bravo was with the unions. When I became governor, he declared himself my enemy. But you see, politicians, we don’t hold rancor at each other.” He hunched his big shoulders, squinched his face and gave me an old-boy look of mutual understanding. “It’s a game, you know that.”

      “But for journalists it’s not a game,” I said.

      “No, but for us—” This time he physically nudged me. “It’s a game.”

      “Yes, politicians pretend,” I said, then asked if I could take a picture of him on the balcony.

      As we strolled out to the view, I asked Lozada if he was worried for his safety.

      “I don’t need to protect myself,” he replied. “The people protect me. And God. Many people—excuse me for saying it myself—but many people love me in this state. Of course, I have competitors, because I am a public man. Right? But many people, they love me.”

      Six weeks later, on December 3, 2005, the Teófila Forero finally caught up with Jaime Lozada. He was en route from Gigante to Neiva after a well-publicized celebration for his eldest son, who had just been elected an executive of the Huila Conservative Party. The guerrillas ambushed Lozada, his son and their bodyguards with hand grenades and machine-gun fire. Lozada was shot four times and killed. The son was wounded by the two grenades but survived. The car was destroyed, but when it rolled to a halt, the guerrillas