Four journalists were murdered in Colombia during the year in reprisal
for their work -- more than in any other country -- earning it the dubious
distinction of being the world's most lethal place for the press. The four
assassinated journalists were: Oscar García Calderón, a reporter
for the Bogotá daily El Espectador; Nelson Carvajal Carvajal,
a producer for Radio Sur; Bernabé Cortés Valderrama, a reporter
for the nightly news- program "Noticias CVN"; and Amparo Leonor Jiménez
Pallares, a former television news reporter. CPJ continues to investigate
the deaths of five other journalists killed during 1998 to determine the
motive.
Escalating civil war and pervasive criminal violence create a deadly climate
for the press. All parties in Colombia's brutal conflict, from paramilitary
death squads to guerrillas and local politicians, target journalists. But
the leading threat continues to be violence associated with the drug trade.
While the two powerful cartels that dominated drug trafficking in the 1980s
have been largely dismantled, the smaller and more decentralized drug trafficking
organizations that have emerged recently have also been linked to many attacks
against the press. Profits from the drug trade also subsidize the political
violence. Right-wing paramilitary groups with ties to the military and the
large land owners now control and are financed by coca production and processing
throughout the country. In August, members of a paramilitary unit murdered
Amparo Leonor Jiménez Pallares in retaliation for a report she produced
in 1996 on an enormous estate in Cesar Department owned by a former government
official.
While the two country's leftist guerrilla groups say that their involvement
in the drug trade is limited to protecting small coca farmers, the circumstances
surrounding the murder of Bernabé Cortés Valderrama suggest
a more direct role. In May, local drug traffickers in Cali, angered over
a television report in which Cortés showed that guerrillas were protecting
a large cocaine laboratory, ordered his murder, according to the preliminary
findings of the attorney general's office.
Guerrillas often kidnap journalists and release them only after they agree
to disseminate the rebels' propaganda. In April, a group of reporters was
detained and held for three days by left-wing guerrillas from the National
Liberation Army (ELN). Three journalists who went out to look for their
colleagues were detained two days later by members of a paramilitary group.
The history of violence against the Colombian press -- second only to Algeria
in the number of journalists killed in the last decade -- is a sad testament
to the integrity of journalism in a country where other institutions have
been badly compromised by corruption. Against daunting odds, Colombia's press
remains vital and aggressive, but recent developments have raised concerns
about what one journalist described as a "crack" in the press's reputation.
Several sports reporters have been accused of accepting money from the Cali
drug cartel, and two journalists were charged with "illicit enrichment" in
October (one was later acquitted).
Local journalists also allege that then-President Ernesto Samper, angered
over aggressive reporting on contributions made by members of the Cali cartel
to his presidential campaign in 1994, continued to use the power of his office
to undermine the independent press. Under Samper -- who was replaced by newly
elected President Andrés Pastrana in August -- the government denied
broadcast licenses to critical television news programs while distributing
concessions for radio frequencies to the president's friends and supporters.
The concentration of media ownership also accelerated under Samper. Some
journalists fear that the press's independence will be compromised by the
commercial and political interests of the new owners. Several editorial staffers,
including columnist and investigative reporter Fabio Castillo, were forced
to leave the Bogotá daily El Espectador in March after
it was purchased by a financial group with close ties to Samper's Liberal
Party in December 1997.
Pastrana, a former television reporter, has promised to "recover the press
freedom" lost under Samper. Prior to the peace talks which Pastrana initiated
with members of Colombia's largest guerrilla force in January 1999, journalists
played an active role in the peace process by reporting extensively on the
different factions, including the paramilitary units, and by offering analysis
and context. Journalists can also find some solace in the fact that what
could have been the year's most deadly attack was aborted when policed
deactivated a powerful bomb placed in front of the Medellín offices
of the Bogotá daily El Tiempo. |
|
|
| Back to the Top |
Attacks on the Press in 1998
|
| Search the Press Freedom Database
| |
|
|
