This has been one of the worst periods for press freedom in Colombia.
Four journalists have been killed for doing their jobs. The motives for the killing of two other journalists are not yet clear.
Forty-eight journalists have been threatened. Eleven have been the victims of kidnapping or so-called detentions from 24 hours to eight days, and 10 have left the country.
In many regions journalists work in a climate of intimidation. During the past six months, the magazine De Interés of the town of Andes in Antioquia, the weeklies Horizonte Sabanero and Región of Magdalena Medio and the radio station La Voz de la Selva of Caquetá stopped operating. The offices of RCN Televisión and Radio Súper were attacked.
During this period there was an inclination to regulate press freedom in Congress and the Ombudsman’s office. A bill before the Senate would require a certificate of suitability for journalists, create a council to regulate journalists’ work and establish higher than usual economic sanctions for corrections.
A new bill was also introduced to extend sanctions for libel to cover any unfounded statement or challenged proof.
The following important events occurred.
On March 21, columnist Fernando Garavito went into exile in the United States because, he said, of threats against his life. In his columns in the newspaper El Espectador, Garavito had attacked paramilitary groups and called presidential candidate Alvaro Uribe “an ultra right-winger whose election could be dangerous for the country.”
On March 22, Carlos Lajud of the Bogota channel Citi TV, who is the son of the journalist Carlos Lajud Catalán, who was killed, said his life had been threatened and left the country. He had reported that the FARC had placed a bomb in Bogota on May 25, 2001. The IAPA took his case to the Canadian embassy and Lajud was accepted into its refugee program.
On March 27, the United Self-Defense of Colombia said the magazine De Interés of Andes, Antioquia, and its editor, Carlos Enrique López, were military targets. López left the country.
On April 8, the office of Cadena Radial Super in Villavicencio, Meta province, was bombed. Ten people were killed and 70 were injured in the blast area. Its executives said their lives had been threatened for broadcasting information supplied by candidate Alvaro Uribe.
On the same day, a caller who identified himself as a retired military man telephoned the University of la Sabana in Bogotá and threatened the dean of the department of communications, César Mauricio Velásquez for hiring “enemies of the country” such as journalist Carlos Pulgarín. He also said the 11th Brigade based in Monteria and some paramilitary forces might attack journalists Alejandro Santos, editor of the magazine Semana, and Fernando Tulande, assistant news director of RCN Radio. Velásquez and Santos were given bodyguards; Pulgarín left the country.
On April 12, RCN anchorman Walter López and cameraman Héctor Sandoval were killed by shots from a military helicopter that was pursuing a FARC column that had kidnapped 12 legislators from the Valle state assembly. Journalist Luz Estela Arroyabe of RCN TV and a photographer from the magazine Semana had to hide in a ravine to avoid the bullets. A few days later, Arroyabe was threatened and left the country.
On April 13, two unknown persons shot a rocket at the offices of RCN TV. The authorities blamed the FARC guerrillas. The week before, journalist Adriana Aristizabal of that channel had been detained by the FARC in the town of Pulí, Cundinamarca province. Her equipment was stolen.
Pedro Juan Moreno, a campaign adviser of presidential candidate Alvaro Uribe Vélez, filed a civil suit for $300,000 in damages against El Tiempo’s columnist Roberto García Peña and the editor of the magazine Cambio, Mauricio Vargas, who had suggested that Moreno had ties to drug traffickers and the paramilitary forces.
Threats against Flavio Restrepo, a columnist for the newspaper La Patria, have resumed, and he has requested asylum in Canada. On February 5, Restrepo had blamed two local politicians for the murder of his colleague Orlando Sierra Hernández, assistant editor of La Patria. On April 20, Francisco Santos, then one of Uribe’s vice presidential nominees, reported that 33 radio stations had refused to broadcast campaign ads because of threats from the FARC.
On Monday, April 22, Daniel Coronel, director of Noticias UNO, said he had received death threats after reporting that a helicopter belonging to Uribe’s father had been found in a cocaine traffic site called Tranquilandía in 1984. Uribe’s father was killed by the FARC after a kidnapping attempt in 1986.
On May 2, Julio César Ospina Chavarro was sentenced to 40 years in prison for the murder of journalist Bernabé Cortés in Cali, May 19, 1998. Cortés was the member of a religious group and worked for the news program “CVN.”
On May 4, Astrid Legarda, a police reporter for RCN Televisión, reported receiving death threats and left the country for a few months. She said the FARC had issued an order to kill her for her reporting “that supported the paramilitary forces.”
On May 6, Mauricio Amaya and Diego Burgos of Canal Caracol, were kidnapped by a dissident group of the ELN guerrilla force in Chocó province. They were released 48 hours later.
On May 9, Luis Fernando Soto Zapata was sentenced to 19 years and six months in jail for the murder of Orlando Sierra Hernández, managing editor of La Patria, on January 30, 2002, in Manizales. Soto accepted a plea bargain, and his sentence was reduced by 10 years. The mastermind of the crime has not yet been found.
Journalist Víctor Omar Acosta, 44, was murdered May 14 in the town of Yumbo, Valle del Cauca province. Acosta worked for the newspapers El Occidente and El País, and the radio chain Todelar. But he had not worked for the media in recent years. The authorities are still investigating whether the murder was because of his profession.
On May 16, an intern, a journalist and a driver of the newspaper Hoy Diario of Magdalena, were detained by the FARC as they covered a guerrilla blockade in Troncal de Oriente. The intern and the driver were released the next day. The legal editor, Ramón Vásquez, was freed 10 days later.
On May 27, the Interior Ministry’s Committee for the Protection of Journalists, gave protection to Fabio Ortiz because of threats against his life.
The legal editor of El Tiempo, Juan Roberto Vargas, received e-mail and telephone threats. A member of the National Police warned him that there was a plan to kill him. The threats followed reports in the newspaper about corruption in the police anti-drug unit. Yineth Bedoya, a reporter in the same section, was also threatened.
In the second week of June, Alvaro Augusto Baez of the radio station Tame Stereo in Arauca, Fidel Franco, managing editor of Cadena Super in Bogota, Miller Aranzales of the station Ecos de Caguán in Caquetá, and Luis Altamar and Manuel Taborda, correspondents of CMI in Caquetá, received death threats.
On June 20, the High Court of Valledupar, overturned the acquittal of the mastermind of the murder of Amparo Leonor Jiménez on August 11, 1998 in Valledupar, Cesar province, and sentenced Libardo Prada Bayona to 37 years and eight months in jail.
On June 28, journalist and lawyer Efraín Alberto Varela Noriega, 52, owner and news director of radio station Meridiano 70 in Arauca province, was murdered. He had reported about a paramilitary organization called El Corral, and the report had resulted in the jailing of its members. He was murdered because of his work.
The next day, paramilitary forces threatened Arauca journalists, Josédil Gutiérrez and Luis Eduardo Alfonso, colleagues of Varela in Meridiano 70. They left the region for a few months and returned with police protection. Rodrigo Avila, a correspondent of Canal Caracol, also left Arauca, but returned with official police protection two months later.
Carmen Rosa Pabón, news director of radio station La Voz del Cinaruco of Arauca, was threatened by FARC guerrillas because of a program she sponsored calling for civic resistance. Luis Guedes, a newsreader, also was threatened.
Members of the paramilitary forces threatened Alvaro Lora, correspondent of the newspaper El Pilón in Aguachica, and David Sierra and his cameraman Jorge Real, who were covering news about singer-songwriter Diomedes Díaz, a fugitive, in Cesar province for RCN TV. They confiscated a cassette tape.
On July 8, paramilitary forces issued a communiqué accusing Wilson Barco, correspondent of RCN in Cali, and Hernán Venegas, a reporter for the newspaper El País, of not sympathizing with their organization. They had both reported abuses by the Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC).
Also on July 8, Jeanneth Ojeda Byter and Angela Muñoz of El Vocero and El Número of Barrancabermeja, received death threats from the AUC.
Guerrillas detained four technicians of RCN and Caracol TV as they covered the Vuelta de Colombia bicycle race. They were held for three days. Their equipment was stolen when they were released.
Paramilitary forces threatened Manuel Benavides, correspondent for Diario del Sur in San Pablo, Nariño province.
On July 12, Mario Prada Díaz, editor of the newspaper Horizonte Sabanero, was killed in the town of Sabana de Torres in Santander province. In his last editorial, Prada Díaz wrote that in his 30 years in journalism, his work was marked by ethics and opposition to corruption, cheap politics and those he called “the bosses who run the town.” He was killed because of his work.
Elizabeth Obando, who handled distribution of the regional newspaper El Nuevo Día in the town of Roncesvalles, Tolima province, was killed on July 13. The crime had to do with news published in Nuevo Día that the FARC was conducting unofficial agrarian reform.
On July 13, the prosecutor’s office blocked the investigation of journalist Iván Dario Cardozo for influence peddling. A month earlier, the case was transferred from Barranquilla to the prosecutor’s office in Bogota, at the IAPA’s request, since Cardozo said due process was not being observed in the provincial capital.
On July 15, television anchor woman, Rebecca Jaramillo, who was pregnant, and cameraman Brainer Braulio Bravo of cable news show “Notimar,” were shot at but not injured in Puerto de Buenaventura. Paramilitary forces had threatened Bravo a few months earlier.
On July 17, journalist Denis Sánchez Lora of Carmen de Bolívar in Bolívar province, was murdered. Sánchez worked for a government health program on radio station 95.5 Stereo. Local stations suspended broadcasting as an expression of mourning. It has not yet been determined if he was murdered because of his work.
On July 19, journalists Albeiro Echavarría of news show “Noti5,” Alvaro Mina, a reporter for Caracol Radio, Luis E. Reyes, of RCN Radio, Diego Martínez Lloredo, managing editor of the newspaper El País, Humberto Briñez and Wilson Barco, correspondents of RCN Televisión, Hugo Palomari of Caracol Televisión, and columnist Mario Fernando Pradon, were threatened. The possibility that the threats came from within the police is being investigated.
Two journalists were injured on July 23, when an explosive device went off in San Joaquín cafeteria in Medellín, which is frequented by political personalities. A former legislator and a former official of the Energy Company were killed. It is assumed that the FARC is responsible.
On July 26, Gregorio Castillo and Orlando Calderón were sentenced to 19 years in prison for the murder of cameraman Luis Alberto Rincón and photographer Alberto Sánchez Tovar on November 28, 1999 in Playón, Santander province.
On August 2, Luis Eduardo Silva Arce, director of the radio program “Tribuna Abierta” and César Augusto Cataño, a journalist on the program which is broadcast by Montenegro Estéreo, were sent a condolence card as a threat and had to leave the region.
Miguel Angel Rojas, director of a program on Radio Ipiales on which listeners comment on government corruption in the town, was threatened. The program was taken off the air.
Front 44 of the FARC prevented Jineth Bedoya, the legal reporter of El Tiempo, from covering the forced eviction of residents of Puerto Alvira in the municipality of Meta. They told her she could not continue without the FARC’s “permission.”
Journalist Alvaro Marín reported to the Ombudsman’s Office that the FARC prevented him from doing his work in Planadas in the southern part of Tolima province. Marín wanted to publish a community newspaper called El Sureño, but the FARC required him to get permission. He refused to talk to them.
On August 6 a group of journalists from El Tiempo Café in Mistrató were kidnapped and released the next day. The guerrillas complained that the media call them terrorists.
Edgar Buitrago, owner and editor of the magazine Valle 2000 had to leave Cali on August 14 because threats against him had intensified. An anonymous leaflet called him “the mayor’s court jester” and a military target.
In the first week of September, the government issued Decree 2002, in support of the state of emergency, creating zones of rehabilitation and consolidation where the movement of citizens is restricted, and access for foreigners is limited. The decree has an exception that would allow special permission for entry of people working as journalists. But foreign correspondents say that it can take a week to get the permission, which affects the coverage of news.
On Monday, September 16, three years after the murder of Guzmán Quintero Torres, managing editor of the newspaper El Pilón of Valledupar, the IAPA asked the Valledupar court to respond to the prosecutor’s appeal in January, 2002, of the murderer’s acquittal.
Julia Navarrete, a journalist of Canal Caracol, was threatened as a result of the U.S. request for the extradition of paramilitary leader Carlos Castaño. The Department of Security (DAS) reported that there was a plot against her life. A year ago, Navarrete interviewed Castaño’s pilot, Carlos Nicolás Niño. In the interview, which was only broadcast September 8, the pilot, who was murdered, made serious charges of drug trafficking and terrorism against Castaño. The journalists was given police protection.
On October 2, a court acquitted for lack of evidence Alfredo de Jesús Liévano Alcocer, who had been accused of killing journalist Carlos Lajud Catalán March 19, 1993. At the request of the IAPA, prosecutor Nancy Manjares, appealed the judge’s decision and the High Court of Barranquilla will have to rule on the appeal. In June, the prosecutor’s office stopped the investigation of the priest and two-time mayor of Barranquilla, Bernardo Hoyos, in the case because it determined that it was based on “hearsay and suppositions,” which would not suffice to determine that Hoyos was the mastermind behind the murder of Lajud Catalán.
On October 3, the president of Asomedios called on the government to analyze the impact on the media of the tax reform, which establishes new taxes on advertising and newsprint.
On October 7, a criminal court judge in Bogotá said he was disqualified from hearing the trial for the August 13, 1999 murder of journalist Jaime Garzón in Bogotá, since the crime was intended as a terrorist act. He left it up to the Supreme Court to determine in which of the two judicial forums (ordinary or special jurisdiction) the trial should properly be held. On September 17 a judge of a Bogotá circuit court of special jurisdiction had moved the trial to ordinary jurisdiction, arguing that the murder had been for reasons other than the practice of journalism and not intended as a terrorist act, and so did not fall under ordinary jurisdiction. The IAPA asked the court of ordinary jurisdiction to disqualify itself, and asked the Supreme Court for a ruling on how the trial is to be handled. The high court ruled last week that the trial would be heard in a court of special jurisdiction.
On October 9, the national prosecutor’s office broadened the composition of the unit that investigates crimes and other attacks on journalists, giving it nationwide responsibility. The decision came after several months of efforts by IAPA in view of the increase in attacks on journalists and the lack of progress in the investigations conducted by the unit.
On October 10, José Reinel Barón, news director of the community radio station Nueva Era reported that his life was in danger because of the situation of law enforcement in the town of Algeciras, Huila province. The journalist left Algeciras and sought refuge in Ibagué. On August 8, a contributor to the station, Carlos Augusto Hernández, was killed with 10 shots. Hernández had told the station that FARC had placed a bomb in the town.
On October 14, a group of journalists and cameramen from several media outlets were fired on while they covered a conflict between the police and urban militias of the guerrilla forces in Comuna 13, a populous neighborhood of Medellín. The bullets struck a few meters from the journalists who fortunately were not injured.
On October 16, several legislators requested that a bill to require a certificate for journalists and create a council to regulate and oversee journalists’ work.
At about the same time, Senator Juan Gómez Martínez, former editor and shareholder of the newspaper El Colombiano, presented a bill that would extend the sanctions for libel to cover any unfounded statement. The bill also says that when the author of a report is not identified, the editor will have criminal responsibility.
On October 23, the Supreme Court ruled that the crime against journalist Jaime Garzón in Bogotá on August 13, 1999, had a terrorist goal and therefore special courts should handle the trial.
On September 17, the judge of the 7th Special Circuit of Bogotá transferred the trial to the ordinary courts arguing that the murder was not committed because of Garzón’s profession and was not a terrorist act, and therefore should not be handled by the special courts. The IAPA had asked to ordinary courts to declare themselves incompetent and had asked the Supreme Court to return the trial to the special courts.

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