I watched Ross Kemp on the trail of the supposedly demobilised grupos de autodefensa in Medellín last night. These programmes continue to surprise me because I start off thinking that a non-journalist like Kemp will only come to a superficial understanding of the situation on the ground in these countries, but as with his encounter with the Mara Salvatrucha in El Salvador, he appears to properly understand the Spanish that is spoken to him and ends up making a number of very insightful observations.
In Colombia he certainly picked up on the curious relationship the sicarios have with their religion, which was one of the main themes of Rosario Tijeras. His main contact in Medellín was a man called Andreas who goes around in an Aston Villa shirt with the name Angel on the back and speaks in a troubled murmur of the vertigo of taking so much life. I liked the way the Colombian government have insisted that all motorcyclists have to have their vehicle registration number printed on the back of their helmets!
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