Alfonso, a 33-year-old radio news host, was shot to death at 4:55 a.m. by two gunmen in the town of Arauca, near the Venezuelan border, while he tried to enter his office at Radio Meridiano-70. Two men were waiting for him there and fled on a motorcycle after the attack, said an Arauca Department police spokesperson.
The journalist, who had been threatened previously by members of a right-wing paramilitary army, was also a freelance reporter for Colombia's most widely read daily,
El Tiempo.
In June 2002, presumed paramilitary gunmen shot and killed the owner of Radio Meridiano-70, Efraín Varela Noriega. Varela had alerted listeners to the presence of paramilitary fighters in the region days before he was assassinated.
Alfonso co-hosted several news shows broadcast during the day. Since October, he had been covering armed conflict in Arauca Department as a freelance reporter for
El Tiempo, said Álvaro Sierra, an editor at the daily. The conflict, which pits leftist rebels against rival paramilitary combatants and the government, is almost 40 years old.
Alfonso lambasted all sides of the conflict but was particularly critical of the paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), said Miguel Ángel Rojas, who worked with Alfonso at Radio Meridiano-70. Rojas said Alfonso frequently reported in great detail on paramilitary activity in the region. "He didn't hold back at all," said Rojas. "I think that's what compromised him."
Fearing for his life, Alfonso fled for the capital, Bogotá, soon after Varela was killed, said Jorge Enrique Meléndez, an
El Tiempo reporter and a friend of Alfonso's who spoke to him hours before he was killed.
In Bogotá, Alfonso received about US$320 from a government protection program for journalists to help support him while he sought refuge. Alfonso returned to Arauca six weeks later.
In November 2002, Alfonso's name was one of about 100 that appeared on a list distributed in the town of Arauca by paramilitary fighters, who threatened to kill the people on the list unless they "reformed," said Meléndez. In the weeks before his death, however, Alfonso had told friends and colleagues that he no longer feared for his life.
José Emeterio
Rivas, Radio Calor Estéreo, April 6,
2003, Barrancabermeja
Police found the bullet-riddled body of radio commentator
Rivas, host of the morning program "Fuerzas Vivas" (Live Forces), on a road
outside Barrancabermeja, according to news reports and CPJ interviews.
In the weeks prior to his death, Rivas accused then-Mayor Julio
César Ardila Torres and other local officials of corruption and collaboration
with members of the right-wing paramilitary group United Self-Defense Forces of
Colombia (AUC), according to CPJ research. Diego Waldrón, a colleague, told CPJ
that Rivas had received repeated death threats.
Nearly six years later, a court in the northern
province of Santander convicted
Ardilla and two former public works officials of plotting the murder. On
January 15, 2009, the court sentenced Ardila to 28 years and eight months in
prison on charges of aggravated murder and conspiracy, according to a statement
issued by the attorney general's office. Former public works officials Fabio
Pajón Lizcano and Abelardo Rueda Tobón were sentenced to 26 years and eight
months in prison apiece on aggravated murder charges. Ardila was also fined
1,192 million pesos (US$531,000).
The three were the first masterminds to be convicted and
imprisoned in a journalist killing in Colombia
since 1992, CPJ research shows.
In a statement, the attorney general's office said Rivas was
murdered in retaliation for his reports on official corruption and links
between Ardila's administration and right-wing paramilitary groups. A fourth
defendant, Juan Pablo Ariza Castañeda, was acquitted.
Ardila, Pajón, and Lizcano had faced allegations in the case
as early as September 2003, according to CPJ research. In 2007, the human
rights unit of the attorney general's office restarted the investigation after
a demobilized paramilitary fighter Pablo Emilio Quintero Dodino confessed to
shooting Rivas at the behest of the local officials.
Quintero, a one-time member of the AUC, made the statement
during Law of Justice and Peace proceedings. The law grants leniency to members
of illegal armed groups in exchange for demobilization and full confessions to
their crimes. Quintero was convicted of engaging in paramilitary activities but
not in the killing itself.
Rivas' body was found alongside another male victim, according
to CPJ interviews. The relationship between Rivas and the other victim was not
clear, local police commander Col. Jorge Gil told CPJ.
