MIAMI, Florida (Apr. 17)-The Inter American Press Association expressed its "deep concern" today at the murder of Paraguayan reporter Benito Ramón Jara Guzmán, which raised the death toll of journalists killed in the Western Hemisphere in the past 12 months to 17.
The body of
Jara 37, a reporter for the Yby Yarú radio station, was found
on April 13 on a street in the township of Bernardino Caballero,
Concepción province, some 220 miles north of the Paraguayan
capital of Asunción. He had been shot six times.
The chairman of the IAPAs Committee on Freedom of the Press and
Information, Rafael Molina, called on the Paraguayan government
to conduct an immediate in-depth investigation into the slaying
to bring those responsible to justice.
Molina, of the Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, daily El Nacional, said the IAPA is deploying members of its newly-formed Rapid Response Unit to Paraguay to carry out its own investigation into the incident. The Unit was set up under the hemisphere free-press groups Unpunished Crimes Against Journalists project, which seeks to stop the guilty in such cases from literally getting away with murder.
"We are especially concerned that resort to the murder of journalists has now spread to Paraguay and Uruguay," Molina said, referring to the death of Uruguayan radio station owner Julio Da Rosa on February 24.
The IAPA today also protested an incident in Colombia in which members of a television crew were injured when they stepped on a land mine. Carlos Andrés Gómez, a reporter for the news programs "90 Minutos" and "Informativo PM," and Genaro Muñoz, a cameraman and reporter for "Noticero de las 7," sustained injuries to their legs when the mine - believed to have been placed by members of the ELN guerrilla movement, exploded as they traveled along the Pan-American Highway in the Colombian province of Cauca.
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