The New York Times Magazine The 14-Year-Old Hit Man
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"The businessman stepped out of the bank carrying a briefcase in his right hand. At first, Tiny said, they followed half a block behind and then grabbed him. ''He started making a scene and going, like, 'No, no, no,''' El Raton said, opening his eyes wide. ''Me and my little cousin caught him and shot him in the back of the head.'' Then, Tiny said, they grabbed the briefcase and got into the taxi. They had been promised $300 each to kill the man and steal his briefcase. They didn't even count the cash in the case nor what they were paid. Only later did they realize that they had made only $25 each."

The Village Voice The Bomb My Nation Has Become

"These kids are confined, for the most part, to urban areas, because the risk of kidnapping renders much of the countryside impassable. And for many of the poorer ones, trapped within ghettos, living on the edge of society means dealing with the daily specter of death in the form of murder, bombings, and random gang violence, or the threat of being drafted as paid assassins, sicarios , by the outlawed paramilitary groups. For them, salvation can be found through sharing music—the kind brought back by artists like Ospina, and the kind they create using bare-bones equipment, often with no more than their bodies and a mic.

"I've been down what they call the 'bad steps of life,' and I now realize that's not what I want," says Javier Beltrán, a/k/a Javi Herc, a Bogotá-based hip-hop producer. "I use hip-hop not as a mechanism of escape, but as a mechanism of living.""

Adam Jones The Green Fields of Antioquia

"There is the Clockwork Orange-style ultra-violence , mixed with heavy doses of nihilism and fatalism. "I reckon I've killed thirteen people," one twenty-year-old sicario tells Alazar. "That's thirteen I've killed personally, I don't count those we've shot when we're out as a gang. If I die now, I'll die happy. Killing is our business, really ... We don't care who we have to give it to, we know it has to be done, that's all there is to it. Whoever it may be: I have no allegiances."

The gang lifestyle allows an underprivileged youth to lead a briefly opulent existence, in imitation of the films and T.V. programs gang members watch devotedly - studying Rambo movies and old episodes of The A-Team for everything from fashion tips to military strategy. "There's lots of eighteen-year-old kids round here who've got luxury flats in El Poblado, farms, cars, motor bikes," says one Medellín priest. "The only problem is that very few of them live beyond twenty or twenty-three to enjoy it."

Columbia Report Fifty Years of Violence

"Another tragic aspect of the conflict has been the dramatic increase in "social cleansing killings" committed by the paramilitaries. The mission of many paramilitary organizations now includes a "moral" purification of Colombian society through "the physical elimination of drug addicts, exconvicts, petty thieves and criminals, prostitutes, homosexuals, beggars and street children."

Between 1989 and 1993 there were 1,926 documented cases of social cleansing performed by death squads or assassins known as "sicarios." Many of these assassins come from the ranks of the young urban unemployed who are becoming increasingly marginalized as a result of Colombia's deteriorating economy. Ironically, once their employers decide they know too much, these young assassins often become the targets of newly recruited sicarios."

The Miami Herald Scars of city, writer's soul mark must-see `Assassin'

"La virgen de los sicarios (Our Lady of the Assassins) already has sparked great controversy in Colombia, where some critics have demanded the film be banned outright. Their reaction, though misguided, is understandable: Director Barbet Schroeder's unsparing portrait of Medellin as a veritable hell on Earth is so devastating, so focused and unrelenting in its sorrow and fury, it's natural for the people who see themselves reflected in the film to reject it."

USA Today Monotonous violence dampens dull 'Assassins'

"With its mopey protagonist and unforgiving setting, Barbet Schroeder's Our Lady of the Assassins would be grim even if it weren't dramatically numb.

The movie itself is dull, however. The characters never engage our interest, and the relentless violence grows monotonous."