COLOMBIA
Report to the Midyear Meeting
Quito, Ecuador


Press freedom during this period has been affected by an increase in lawsuits against the media, as well as an escalating wave of threats and attacks.

The publishers of Hoy Diario del Magdalena, El Universal, La Tarde de Barrancabermeja, and Vanguardia Liberal newspapers reported that they received threats and intimidations by members of government agencies, public officials and private citizens.

Thirty journalists from different parts of the country reported receiving death threats, especially in the departments of Cundinarmarca (6), Santander (4), Huila (3), César (3), and Valle del Cauca (2).

In just the first two months this year, five journalists were forced to flee their provinces resulting in an adverse affect on reporting, and there has been an increase in self-censorship in local media. The majority of the threats came from paramilitary groups and corrupt individuals in the electoral process.

However, continuing the trend of the last two quarters, there have been no murders of journalists for reasons relating to their profession.

Lawsuits against the media and journalists are on the rise. The publisher of Hoy Diario del Magdalena newspaper was sued by a false witness in complicity with court and government officials; and El Nuevo Día de Ibagué newspaper reported five new lawsuits, bringing the total to 32 in five years. Among the various columnists sued for libel and slander, Salud Hernández confirmed being sued six times in recent months.

On the legislative front, review is by the First Senate Committee of a request to shelve a bill that could make it a “crime if an editor, journalist, columnist, or writer publicly libels, slanders, or makes any other assertion, without undisputed evidence or grounds.” The obligation of newspapers to publish bid announcements as established in Law 80 was kept intact. However, there remain some prohibitions and requirements in reforms to the Code on Minors.

On November 30, a strong debate developed on Article 25 of the Law of Guarantees that regulates the constitutional reform on presidential re-elections in Colombia, and that demands that concessionaires and private radio and television stations submit a weekly report to the National Committee on Elections on the times and spaces given to the presidential campaign of each candidate in order to determine if they were balanced. Upon studying the law, the Constitutional Court declared that this balance did not only refer to times and spaces, but also to content quality. The media and public opinion, in general, is concerned that the Article and the Court’s interpretation would lead to a form of censorship since the government could become overseers of content.

In the fight against impunity, some advances have been made in terms of a friendly solution to solve the murder of journalist Nelson Carvajal Carvajal; the reopening of the Subunit dealing with cases of crimes against journalists in the Attorney General’s Office; and the commitment to push forward in 15 cases, as well as review those that have been suspended or closed. The Colombian Attorney General promised to take steps to find the mastermind behind the murder of assistant editor of La Patria, Orlando Sierra.

The Vice President of Colombia, Francisco Santos, announced on February 9 the creation of a committee comprised of representatives from the Colombian Attorney General’s Office and the Police Department to speed up investigations into threats and attacks against journalists, due to an increase in such incidents.

In October, the following incidents were reported:

The editor of Hoy Diario del Magdalena newspaper, Ulilo Acevedo, filed a complaint that he was being sued by a false witness with the complicity of court and government officials and politicians affected by stories printed in the newspaper.

The Mayor of Cúcuta, Ramiro Suárez Corzo, ordered that his office’s press division not give any more information to reporter Gala Marcela Peña Álvarez, from La Opinión newspaper in that city, after it published an investigation that discussed the presence of funds in a private account of a government employee.

In November:

El Universal newspaper in Cartagena reported in an editorial threats against its editor, Pedro Luis Mogollón, and the editor of the Political Section, Jacqueline Rhenals, for covering the local elections process. The editorial explained that one of the threatening messages sent by cell phone to several reporters made reference to the story and columns printed in the paper on ballots left blank.

The editor of investigations at El Espectador newspaper, Norvey Quevedo, reported that the Minister of Public Safety, Diego Palacios, manipulated and revealed to some groups the names of sources from a notepad that a journalist mistakenly left in his office.

A reporter for RCN Television, Diva Jeserum, complained about receiving threats by unidentified individuals trying to find her residence. The journalist was investigating an alleged diversion of $2 million given to the Colombian government to develop Plan Colombia.

Two hooded men with pepper spray tried to enter the headquarters of the International Federation of Journalists on November 14. Their motives are unknown.

A radio reporter from Sucre, Anibal De Luiz Polo, reported receiving death threats. De Luiz Polo, who runs an opinion program on the local radio station Radio Caracolí, has been involved with the station for 30 years. During the program “A Machetazo Limpio” (A Clean Machete Cut), he criticizes government employees for acts of local corruption. The reporter claimed that they killed a horse on his property with a “clean machete cut. ”

In December:

Marta Elvira Soto, editor of the Investigative Unit, and Orlando Restrepo, assistant editor of the Justice division of El Tiempo received threatening phone calls after publishing a series on activities by the paramilitaries. On December 5, a person called the paper’s newsroom, threatened Soto and Restrepo, and at the same time threatened a journalist from Córdoba, Antonio Sánchez Sánchez, who had to flee the area.

The news editor of Radio Guatapurí, Enrique Camargo, received threats after reporting on a ruling by the State Council that nullified the elections for mayor of Aguachica, to the south of César. Since last October, several journalists from César have reported receiving death threats. They are: managing editor of El Pilón newspaper, Galo Bravo Picossa, and Miguel Macea, correspondent for Telecaribe and UN News.

In January:

Antonio Colmenares, radio reporter for La Poderosa radio station in Pitalito, Huila, was threatened by an individual after reading on the air a press release from the Army that reported a raid and capture of a suspect.

Diro César González, editor and owner of La Tarde in Barrancabermeja, fled the town and suspended publication of the weekly. On January 17, two men, one of them armed, went to look for him at his house. His wife, Tatiana Sánchez, identified one of the men as the same person accused of being involved in the murder of a woman last December in a nightclub in the city. That week, La Tarde published details of the incident and photos of the suspect. The journalist had been receiving threats since last year when a “black list” was circulating around Santander department with the names of several reporters from the area that would be executed by paramilitary groups.

Also in Santander, the editor and manager of Telepetroleo television station, Álvaro Pérez Vides, was threatened and forced to leave Barrancabermeja one week after his brother was killed. Pérez was pursued on several occasions en route to the station.

In February:

Olga Cecilia Vega left Florencia, capital of Caquetá department in the south of the country, after receiving threats. According to Vega, the threats occurred after an interview was published in El Nuevo Herald in Miami with the FARC guerrilla leader, Raul Reyes. Two unidentified individuals went looking for her at a hotel where she was staying and asked the manager to give her 48 hours to leave the city or they would blow up the hotel.

On February 4, announcer Gustavo Rojas Gabalo fell victim to an attack in Montería, in Córdoba department. A man came up to him, fired two gunshots, and fled on a motorcycle. The motives of the attack are unclear.

Vanguardia Liberal newspaper reported in its editorial on February 25 that the newspaper’s management and their families were victims of persecutions by government security agencies.

One month before, a journalist from the same newspaper, Jenny Manrique, was forced to flee the area because of threats she received after publishing reports on activities of the paramilitaries in Santander.

In March:
The manager of El periódico de Chía, Carlos Arango, and its editor, Juanita Ardila, reported having received threats by telephone in which they were told, “if you continue to talk to the mayor, we are going to fill your mouths with flies." Two months before, Ardila told the IAPA’s RRU that the mayor of Chía, to the north of Bogotá, Fernando Sánchez, launched a smear campaign against the paper after it published an editorial and report about his work as mayor. The mayor distributed a series of letters to advertisers in the paper in which he questioned the objectivity of the paper and another 300 flyers to residential complexes asking them to stop distributing the newspaper to residents in the area, as well as to the community Action Boards.

On March 8, armed men threatened the editor of Primera Plana tourism newspaper, Antonio Vargas Valvuena, and stole more than 15,000 copies that raised questions about the Congressional candidate and former governor of Risaralda, Elsa Gladys Cifuentes.

Columnist and cultural investigator from Córdoba, Miguel Ángel Castilla Camargo, reported receiving threats after two men told him they were going to kill him because “he was sticking his nose into the Liberal Party.” On March 4, Castilla wrote an opinion column in El Meridiano de Córdoba newspaper titled ´´El fin de trapo rojo´´ (The end of the red cloth”), in which he strongly questioned some of the traditional leaders of the Liberal Party. "If 'La Gata' speaks and those extradited ones too, liberalism will collapse in time,” the journalist wrote.

A photographer from La Opinión newspaper in Cúcuta, Carlos Humberto Patiño, reported that the Secretary of Transportation in Cúcuta attacked him and prevented him from taking pictures at a political meeting at a local club. Apparently, the public official wanted to avoid having his illegal participation in political acts from being published before elections on March 12.

Three reporters from Puerto Petrolero in Barrancabermeja filed a complaint with the Press Freedom Foundation that they received death threats from paramilitaries last week. They are: Edison Núñez, journalist for a local station; Marcos Perales, editor of the weekly La Portada, and Gladys Villamizar Rodríguez, designer for the weekly La Tarde, whose editor also had to flee the area because of threats.

During elections this year, Colombian newspapers are being affected by various restrictions, such as a prohibition on publishing or reporting poll results and publishing election propaganda. Despite the fact that since 1994, ANDIARIOS, representing the Colombian newspapers, has been using all legal and political means the law permits to eliminate the prohibition of the publication of political advertising on election day, newspapers were forced once again to comply during the last elections on March 12, since the National Council on Elections ordered them to do so or they would face fines.

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58th IAPA General Assembly
JW Marriott Hotel & Stellaris Casino
Lima, Peru
October 26-29, 2002