OAS » IACHR » Special Rapporteurship for Freedom of Expression » Colombia

Freedom of Expression

Colombia

 

1.                  On December 7 to 13, 2001, at the invitation of President Andrés Pastrana Arango and in response to requests voiced by different sectors of Colombian society, the Rapporteur accompanied the Commission on a visit to Colombia, during which he worked to evaluate the conditions currently faced by journalists in that country.  Following the visit, the Rapporteur issued a press release with his preliminary analysis of the information gleaned from that trip.[1]

 

2.                  During the visit, the Rapporteur’s staff undertook a series of activities in the cities of Bogotá and Medellín, including meetings with state agencies responsible for protecting journalists, managers and editors of media outlets, independent organizations, and journalists from across the country, with the aim of analyzing the conditions under which journalism is practiced in Colombia.  The information gathered will subsequently be processed, and the Rapporteur’s office will issue a special report for inclusion in the IACHR’s forthcoming country report on Colombia.

 

3.                  Without prejudice to the information to be published in this report on freedom of expression in Colombia, the Rapporteur expresses his grave concern about the assassinations, threats, attacks, kidnappings, intimidation, and other acts of violence that are a fact of life for a large number of journalists in the country.

 

4.                  During the visit, the Rapporteur’s staff received information about approximately ten journalists who had been murdered.  As of the date of this report, it has been impossible to determine how many of them were killed because of their professional activities.  According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), three journalists were killed in Colombia because of their reporting work.  These journalists were Flavio Bedoya, José Duviel Vásquez Arias, and Jorge Enrique Urbano Sánchez.[2] According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and the Press and Society Institute (IPYS) and the report they drew up after their November 2001 mission to Colombia, twelve journalists were killed in that country.  However, in four cases it has been established that the slayings had no connection to the journalists’ work and, in another four cases, the motives for the crimes are still unclear.[3] Finally, the report confirms the same figure and the same names as CPJ.

 

5.                  Based on the reports cited and the information received from different sources before, during, and after the visit, the Rapporteur’s office arrives at the same total number of cases, believing that there are reasonable grounds for concluding that the journalists were killed because of their professional endeavors.  However, the Rapporteur believes that mention should also be made, without prejudgment, of other murders that took place during 2001 and that are still being investigated to determine the motives behind them and any connection to the journalistic profession.  The inclusion of all the assassinations perpetrated in 2001 illustrates that in Colombia, journalism is a high-risk occupation.

 

6.                  The Rapporteur expresses his grave concern at a fact that he was able to corroborate during his visit: more than 90 percent of the murders committed in Colombia over recent years remain unpunished and, in some cases, investigations to identify the intellectual and material authors have not even commenced.  The high level of impunity existing in Colombia helps perpetuate the violence against the profession of journalism.

 

7.                  The Rapporteur underscores that it is the duty of the Colombian State to begin serious and impartial investigations, punish those guilty of the assassinations, and provide the victims’ families with appropriate compensation.  In this regard, the Rapporteur repeats the comments made in earlier reports:

 

The duty of States to investigate is an “obligation pertaining to a means or conduct,” which cannot be considered as unfulfilled only because the investigation may have failed to produce a satisfactory result, but “it must be undertaken seriously and not as a simple formality doomed in advance to be futile.” As regards the investigation, it “must have an objective and be assumed by the State as its own legal duty, not as a step taken by private interests that depends upon the initiative of the victim or his family or upon their offer of proof, without an effective search for the truth by the government.”[4]

 

8.                  The Rapporteur’s office also interviewed more than 30 journalists employed in the regions most seriously affected by the armed conflict.  These areas of the country are fought over by combatants who see the press either as an obstacle or as a tool for achieving their goals.  The most alarming reports came from the regions of Antioquia, Nariño, and Caquetá.  Journalists reported that they constantly suffer from physical and psychological attacks, threats, and other forms of intimidation at the hands of armed rebels, paramilitary groups, and members of the armed forces.  In this regard, they said that those involved in the armed conflict should refrain from identifying journalists as allies of their opponents.

 

9.                  The remoteness and isolation of some communities make the problem worse, since violence perpetrated against journalists and media outlets there does not receive the same coverage in the national press as when it happens in the main cities.  This means that reporters in the provinces enjoy less protection because of the scant attention paid to attacks on them; on occasions, this situation has led to self-censorship, the closure of media outlets, and even the abandonment of the profession by journalists.

 

10.              The Rapporteur recognizes the efforts made by the Colombian authorities to guarantee the right of free expression by creating mechanisms to protect journalists, such as the Sub-Unit for Investigating Assassinations of Journalists of the National Human Rights Unit under the Office of the National Attorney General, and the Interior Ministry’s Program for the Protection of Journalists and Members of the Media.  These mechanisms have made it possible to protect the personal integrity of a large number of Colombian journalists.  Irrespective of this, the Rapporteur recommends that the Colombian State grant increased funding to its government programs for defending and protecting free expression and that it also conduct awareness campaigns.

 

Assassinations

 

11.              On April 27, 2001, journalist Flavio Bedoya from the newspaper Voz was shot four times and killed in Tumaco, Nariño.  According to reports, Bedoya had been receiving threats as a result of investigations he had published into clashes between different armed groups and, in particular, into the actions of paramilitary forces.[5] The journalist had reported these threats to the local authorities and to the Interior Ministry.

 

12.              On July 6, 2001, journalist José Dubiel Vásquez, the manager of the radio station La Voz de la Selva, was shot twice and killed by two individuals in the city of Florencia, Caquetá.  He had been working at the radio station since February 2001, when he was hired to replace reporter Alfredo Abad, who was killed on December 13, 2000.[6] This assassination has been tied in with his investigative reporting into acts of corruption involving local government officials and members of armed rebel groups.[7] The journalist had published a report into corruption involving Lucrecia Murcia, the former mayor of Florencia, and other local officials.  In turn, the radio station La Voz de la Selva conducted an investigation into possible irregularities in how public funds were handled by the governor of Caquetá, Pablo Adriano Muñoz.  The governor sued the journalist for defamation and libel and accused him of endangering his life by publishing those allegations.  Some days before his death, Dubiel Vásquez said that he felt threatened.  The attorney representing the journalist in the libel suit, Carlos Alberto Beltrán, was forced to leave the city after an attempt was made on his life.[8]

 

13.              When José Dubiel Vásquez was killed, his colleague Omar García was with him and was also injured.  After beginning a probe into Vásquez’s assassination, García received several threats by telephone and on the street.  He was finally taken in by the Interior Ministry’s Program for the Protection of Journalists and transferred to Bogotá. However, because his safety could not be assured there either, in August 2001, with help from international organizations, he left the country.[9]

 

14.              Previously, in January 2001, journalist Alvaro Dussán of La Voz de la Selva had also reported threats made by the FARC and had been forced to take refuge abroad.[10] According to reports, La Voz de la Selva, a Radio Caracol network affiliate, had been declared a “military target” by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).  In addition, during 2001, journalist Ricardo Calderón of Semana magazine, sent to the city as a special correspondent, was forced to flee immediately after learning that his life was in danger.

 

15.              On July 8, 2001, journalist Jorge Enrique Urbano Sánchez, the presenter of the local TV program Amanecer Porteño and manager of the Emisora Mar Estéreo radio station, received four fatal gunshot wounds in the seaport of Buenaventura, Valle department.  According to reports, in his last radio broadcast Urbano Sánchez had denounced a local criminal gang.  The journalist also served as the manager of Corporación Recrear, a company responsible for maintaining green spaces, relocating street vendors, and evicting drug dealers.  He had previously received death threats, which he attributed to these undertakings.[11]

 

Intimidation

 

16.              In October 2000, journalist Andrés Gil Gómez, cameraman Gustavo González from RCN Televisión, and their driver, Pedro Manuel Pinto, were abducted for several hours by armed rebel groups on the road from Medellín to Bogotá.  More than a year after the incident, they report that the armed group that kidnapped them is still upholding a ban on their entry to that area.  They also continue to receive intimidating telephone calls at their homes and places of business, and communiqués containing threats against them are transmitted over the Internet or passed on to them by colleagues.  Their TV channel has been forced to assign them to other areas and only when absolutely necessary does it send other journalists into the area.

 

17.              Investigative journalists in Bogotá claimed that dissident groups were pursuing a strategy intended to silence their work through assassinations, repeated intimidation, and forced displacement.  They said this was a new strategy on the part of the fighters, aimed at destabilizing the country and hindering the peace process.

 

18.              In addition, other investigative journalists and editors of the Human Rights and Peace sections of the Colombian capital’s main dailies expressed their concern about the deteriorating quality of information published in the media and about the disappearance of major national newspapers and newscasts.

 

19.              These journalists said they were alarmed at the reduction in the number of pages given to—and, in some cases, the complete elimination of—the Human Rights and Peace sections in the country’s main newspapers, in which specialized reporters report on the armed conflict and investigate developments within it.  They claim that the media company owners are not sufficiently interested in preserving or expanding these sections, and that all the information printed there is because of pressure from the journalists themselves and reporters’ own commitments to the subject.

 

20.              The Rapporteur promptly asked the media management community to support those sections, because the work of journalists in that area plays an essential role in shaping public opinion and also offers an example for other media outlets in the hemisphere to follow.[12] The Rapporteur now repeats that request, believing that it is vitally important for those journalists to continue to keep Colombian society apprised of developments in the armed conflict and informed about the country’s human rights situation.

 

21.              Jineth Bedoya Lima, a reporter on the daily El Espectador, was kidnapped at the gate of La Modelo prison in Bogotá in May 2000, an abduction witnessed by five police officers who failed to come to her assistance.  She was brutally tortured and then released some hours later.  That year the Commission asked the Colombian State to grant precautionary measures to protect this journalist’s person.  During the visit, she expressed her dissatisfaction with the progress made in the investigation of her case, which was still pending at the Sub-Unit for Investigating Assassinations of Journalists of the National Attorney General’s National Human Rights Unit.  According to the journalist’s testimony and as subsequently corroborated by the Rapporteur, the investigation of her case is at a standstill and no progress whatsoever has been made.  As of the date of this report, no arrest warrants had been issued.  The Rapporteur’s office received a list of the investigations into attacks on journalists being processed by the Sub-Unit for Investigating Assassinations of Journalists of the National Attorney General’s Human Rights Unit.  The official report notes that the investigation of this case is still at the preliminary inquiry stage and, to date, the Unit has only taken a statement from the victim.[13]

 

22.              The journalist also reported that following this incident she was given a police escort and continued to work on the paper.  However, two months later, one of the bodyguards assigned to her was arrested and charged with theft.  Jineth Bedoya Lima has received several offers to leave the country but she refuses to leave her job and continues to demand that the state conduct a serious and impartial judicial investigation.  She maintains that she cannot trust the security mechanisms offered by the state, since she believes the state itself was responsible for her abduction.  She did not accept a new assignment of bodyguards and, as of the date of this report, she continues to work without security.

 

23.              In January 2001, journalist Claudia Gurisatti, a presenter with RCN Televisión, left the country after being informed of the existence of a plan to murder her. Gurisatti returned to Colombia in June 2001 and six months later, the threats were made anew and she decided to leave the country again.

 

24.              On May 21, 2001, the police defused a car bomb loaded with explosives in front of the Bogotá offices of the weekly Voz Proletaria.  Alvaro Angarita, a journalist on the magazine, said that the authorities arrived five hours after being notified.  He also told the Caracol network that the bomb was aimed at Carlos Lozano, the magazine’s editor and a member of the Commission of the Notables, a group that during 2000 offered recommendations for resolving Colombia’s armed conflict.[14]

 

25.              The newspaper Voz is the official organ of the Colombian Communist Party. Journalists in the region stated that since the arrival of the armed groups, followers of that party have been facing increased persecution and threats.

 

26.              On April 19, 2001, the weekly El Otro in the city of Pasto was targeted in a bomb attack and suffered serious damage.  Its editor, Ricardo Romero, attributed this attack to the serious allegations the magazine has published.

 

27.              In April 2001, 20 copies of the newspaper Voz were burned, and threats were made to the effect that journalists working on the paper would suffer the same fate. Voz journalist Alfonso Pardo reported that in August 2001, General Pedraza publicly told the Office of the Attorney General that there were “guerrilla infiltrators” among the members of the newspaper profession.  In September, reporters from the paper informed the authorities that they were being followed by individuals on motorcycles, only to be told that there were “no available resources” to provide them with protection.

 

28.              On November 9, 2001, four journalists received serious threats from the group that calls itself the Southern Liberators Bloc of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC).  The group threatened the lives of three reporters and a cameraman in a communiqué sent to their respective places of work.  In that document, the armed group accused the journalists of doing their jobs “dishonestly” and urged them to leave the profession within the following 48 hours or they would “be executed.” The journalists who received these threats were Germán Arcos, a cameraman with Caracol Televisión, Oscar Torres, chief editor of the Diario del Sur and a correspondent for the Noticiero de las Siete newscast, Cristina Castro, a correspondent for the Noticiero RCN program, and Alfonso Pardo, a correspondent for Semanario Voz and a Peace Commissioner in the Nariño department.  The Commission, at the Rapporteur’s request, asked the Colombian State to adopt precautionary measures to protect the lives and persons of these four journalists. The Colombian State acceded to the IACHR’s request and immediately extended the measures sought.

 

29.              During his visit, the Rapporteur met with three of the threatened journalists, who had remained in Bogotá for security reasons.  Alfonso Pardo reported that the threats against him had not stopped and that he had received suspicious telephone calls at his brother’s home in Bogotá.  Cristina Castro and Germán Arcos were completing the formalities necessary to leave the country; however, they said that they were doing so only because of security concerns, and that what they wanted was to return to their hometowns.  Oscar Torres left the country after the threats and settled in Paraguay.  The journalists claimed that the city of Pasto failed to provide the minimum guarantees of security necessary to pursue journalism and that the media no longer report incidents of this kind because of fear of reprisals.

 

30.              In November 2001, media workers in Nariño organized a day of protest to mark their repudiation of the threats received by several journalists in the space of just one week.[15] That same month, Oscar Torres, assistant editor of the daily Diario del Sur, fled the country.  Torres’s trip was carried out with support of the Interior Ministry’s Program for the Protection of Journalists and the Foundation for Press Freedom (FLIP).

 

Other assassinations in Colombia

 

31.              According to the information received, uncertainties still exist regarding the motivation behind the following murders.  As of the date of this report, investigations to establish whether or not they were related to the victims’ journalistic activities were still ongoing.  The Rapporteur has decided to list them; nevertheless, their inclusion neither prejudges the attacks nor confirms that they were direct attacks on freedom of expression. They do, however, illustrate the backdrop of violence against which journalists in Colombia must work and the problems encountered in determining and investigating the circumstances surrounding such assassinations and the reasons behind them.

 

32.              On April 30, 2001, Carlos Alberto Trespalacios, the communications director of Medellín’s municipal Sports and Recreation Institute (INDER), was shot three times and killed.  Trespalacios had served as press agent for the mayor, Luis Pérez Gutiérrez, during the previous election.[16] Trespalacios did not work for a media outlet, but he did have a degree in journalism.

 

33.              On May 3, 2001, Yesid Marulanda, a sports reporter with Cali’s Noticiero Notipacífico, was killed by unknown persons while leaving the Santiago University in Cali, where he gave classes.  The journalist’s family says they are unaware of any prior threats. According to reports, Marulanda had led a media campaign against a low-cost housing program that had swindled some of its buyers.[17]

 

34.              On May 18, 2001, the body of radio reporter Edgar Tavera Gaona was found in San Lorenzoin Güepsa municipality, Santander.  According to the national police, the journalist was killed by the armed dissident group known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) because of his recent reporting about violent incidents in the area.[18]

 

35.              On June 28, 2001, Pablo Emilio Parra Castañeda, a community leader and media worker, was shot twice and killed.  He was the manager of the Emisora Planadas Stereo radio station and president of the Red Cross’s municipal operations unit in the municipality of Planadas, Tolima.  His killers, who had identified themselves as FARC fighters, left a sign on his body saying, “Informer.”[19] Parra Castañeda enjoyed great standing in the region because of both his journalism and his community work.

 

36.              On July 4, 2001, the journalist Arquímedes Arias Henao was killed on the premises of the radio station Fresno FM Estéreo when an unidentified individual came in to the station and shot him three times.  He was the manager of that station and the owner of another, Armonía FM Estéreo, in the municipality of Palocabildo, Tolima.[20]

 

37.              On July 16, 2001, the journalist Eduardo Estrada Gutiérrez was killed in San Pablo Sur de Bolívar.  He was working to set up a community radio station and was the president of the town’s Association for the Development of Communication and Culture.[21] However, another source claims that he was killed because he was about to participate on a negotiating panel between representatives of civil society and the National Liberation Army (ELN).  For its part, the Central Magdalena Association of Community Radio Stations underscored his work in democratizing access to the media and, after its own investigation, the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) decided that the simple fact of working in community radio had cost this journalist his life.[22]

 

38.              On December 23, 2001, the journalist Alvaro Alonso Escobar, owner of the weekly La Región, was killed in the town of Fundación, Magdalena department.  Escobar also worked for the daily El Informador.  Investigations revealed that the motive behind the murder could have been personal in nature, since the victim was murdered inside his home by an unidentified individual who had been allowed to come in.  However, other versions suggest that the murder could have been a consequence of allegations the journalist had recently made about local government corruption.  Rubén Peña, chief editor of El Informador, said that Escobar had told his wife that if anything happened to him, she was to report the incident to the relevant international organizations.  The journalist’s wife left town after the murder.  Escobar was covering the region’s municipal administrations and his work required that he travel extensively through areas largely controlled by armed rebel groups.[23]

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