Daniel
Coronell's name didn't come up in a hearing this week on Capitol Hill, even
though CPJ had just learned that a Colombian court had ordered the arrest of the
respected
Canal Uno TV reporter and
Semana magazine columnist over his work.
Coronell is one of many journalists and human rights monitors
who've lately been forced to defend themselves against irregular, if not bogus, criminal charges brought in Colombian courts. The hearing held by
the
Tom
Lantos Human Rights Commission of the
House Foreign Affairs Committee did,
however, hear important testimony from one of Coronell's colleagues.
Hollman
Morris, another respected TV journalist (his program
CONTRAVÍA roughly translates as "The Other
Way"), told Commission Co-Chairman
Rep.
Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) as well as
Rep.
Joseph R. Pitts (R-Penn.) that he recently learned that Colombian prosecutors
were preparing criminal charges against him. By then
Andrew
Hudson of
Human Rights
First had already told the bipartisan commission that Colombian prosecutors
had recently brought no less than
32
unfounded and "specious" criminal investigations against Colombians, including journalists as well as human rights investigators.
Morris, right, told members that he had been
publicly,
repeatedly
and
falsely
accused of purported offenses by Colombian officials as high-ranking as the
nation's head of state. Last month
CPJ
and Human Rights Watch wrote a joint letter to President Álvaro Uribe over the
president's latest accusation that Morris was an alleged "accomplice of
terrorism." (Three weeks later, CPJ reported that
Colombia's
national
intelligence service was spying on journalists, Supreme Court judges,
opposition politicians, and officials in Uribe's administration.) Uribe was
hardly alone.
Vice
President Francisco Santos (himself a former journalist who was once
kidnapped by
FARC Marxist
guerrillas, and whose family runs Bogotá's largest daily,
El Tiempo) and his cousin,
Defense Minister Juan
Manuel Santos, have also accused Morris of having guerrilla ties.
These
latest accusations against the CONTRAVÍA journalist came after Morris
briefly interviewed four hostages--three police officers and one soldier--shortly
before they were released by the FARC. But Morris told CPJ that he cut short
the interviews once he realized that the hostages had been coerced by the FARC
into giving scripted answers. Morris also neither aired the footage nor
published the hostage's testimonies. Nonetheless, Attorney General Mario
Iguarán announced the opening of a criminal investigation of Morris for alleged
terrorist ties.
"The recent barrage of accusations that you and senior
members of your administration have launched against Morris undermines your
commitment to freedom of expression," HRW
and CPJ jointly wrote to President Uribe on February 5. "Official comments
linking journalists to any actor in Colombia's internal armed conflict
have resulted in serious threats and have led reporters to flee the country or
to engage in self-censorship." Morris this week told members of Congress that
he has received some 50 death threats, many of which have come in the wake of
public accusations by Uribe and other senior Colombian officials. Morris and
his family have fled the country several times. A short
documentary about the Colombian journalist, which was recently shown at the
Sundance Film Festival, documented the stress this has caused not only Morris, but
his wife and children as well.
The stories that may have really upset Uribe and other
senior Colombian officials are Morris' investigative reports into politically motivated
violence, including assassinations by both rightist paramilitary groups and
leftist guerrillas in communities such as San José de Apartado. Morris' reports have included
evidence--also reported
by HRW and others--that rightist paramilitaries responsible for much of the
violence have been secretly backed by the Colombian military. In 2007, HRW gave
Morris is its prestigious Human
Rights Defender Award for his ground-breaking reporting.
Morris's situation is not unique. Journalist Ignacio "Nacho" Gómez went into
exile twice, years before Uribe took office, each time after uncovering
evidence of ties between illegal rightist paramilitaries and the U.S.-backed
Colombian military. Gómez spent a year in exile as a Nieman Fellow at
Harvard University before returning to Colombia to work at Canal Uno. He found
himself in trouble again after reporting on links between then-presidential
candidate Uribe and the Medellín drug cartel. After the report aired, Gómez
and Coronell, the show's news director at the time, receive death threats. CPJ
gave Gómez its International
Press Freedom Award in 2002.
Coronell went in exile with his family in 2005 after
receiving a series of threats, including two funeral wreaths predicting
his death. (That same year, CPJ documented widespread
self-censorship in Colombia
inspired by intimidation and threats.) An inquiry by local authorities later showed
that intimidating
e-mails targeting Coronell and, shockingly, his toddler daughter had been
sent from the computer of former Congressman Carlos Náder Simmonds, a close
friend of Uribe. Náder later admitted sending one of the e-mails, but said it
was misinterpreted. He was never charged.
Coronell returned to Colombia to continue reporting for
print and television. Last year, Coronell, and Canal Uno aired a
previously taped interview with former Congresswoman Yidis Medina that
ignited nationwide controversy. In the interview, Medina alleged that high-ranking officials
had offered her bribes in exchange for her vote in favor of a constitutional
amendment that allowed Uribe to seek re-election in 2006 for a second four-year
term. Summoned to testify, Uribe called for a criminal investigation--into
Coronell. He claimed the journalist broke the law by airing instead of
immediately disclosing the videotaped interview.
Another witness before the Tom Lantos Human Rights
Commission was Liliana Andrea Avila of the Jesuit-run Inter-Church
Commission for Justice and Peace. She noted that human rights defenders have
found themselves targeted for investigation after reporting evidence of
paramilitary violence, including ties to the U.S.-backed Colombian military. Human
Rights First and the Tom Lantos Commission found the same in their report and
hearing, both titled, "In the
Dock and Under the Gun."
It's not unlike the situations facing the journalists Gómez,
Morris and Coronell.
The arrest
warrant issued this month against Coronell stemmed from a 2008 report that
alleged links between a local businessman and drug traffickers. The businessman
denied the allegation and filed an injunction seeking a correction. A criminal
judge in the eastern province
of Meta agreed, and
ordered Canal Uno as well as El Tiempo, which had repeated the allegation, to
both issue corrections. Both news outlets did so, but they also appealed the
decision. An appeals court ruled against them, and ordered a second correction.
Coronell and Cano Uno refused, saying the ruling was improper. CPJ agreed.
"With all due respect to the court, we question the legality
of ordering a second correction," noted
CPJ's Carlos Lauría on Wednesday. "Holding Coronell in contempt without
adequate due process smacks of judicial harassment and sets a precedent that will
weaken judicial guarantees in Colombia
and chill reporting."
As Morris told Congress, the combination of threats, accusations
and trumped-up criminal charges have "serious repercussions."
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