What I criticize is the message that the United States is sending to the youth of the world - to those of us who invite people to leave the ways of violence and the drug trade, we are not given a visa but those that sell drugs and weapons, yes.
My whole life I had seen my father solve every problem he had through the use of violence.
I argued constantly with my father [Pablo Escobar] because I never liked all the violence that he created.
My whole life I saw how the violence my father created had come back to my family and I thought that I would only make things worse for my mother and my sister if I sought to avenge my father. I had to dare to take a path of peace.
I was perhaps one of the few people that were not part of [Pablo Escobar] group of yes-men because I was not a direct beneficiary of the violence that his actions generated.
[My father] would be proud, he would hug me and he would be sitting front-row at all the events where I talk to the youth about not repeating [Pablo Escobar's] story because I am a consequence of what he did and I have not changed my stance on violence since we talked about it.
It was very difficult to go farther than that in the arguments with my father because he would always have a story or a justification to tell you, which I never considered valid because there is not an excuse for violence.
I did not begin to talk about peace when my father died nor did I begin to criticize him at that point - I did this when I had him in front of me, I was one of his harshest criticizers and I never applauded his violence.
For every stone that [Pablo Escobar] threw, he would get many thrown back at him and us, his family, because we were the most vulnerable. In these types of extreme situations, we learned about the consequences of violence and that is why we did not go down the same path.
I think one has to be aware that a change needs to be made to improve one's life and then there will always be alternatives and choices that can lead you away from a life of violence.
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Pablo Escobar Drug lord
