(CPJ/IFEX) – On 20 June 2000, guerrillas from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the armed movement known by its Colombian acronym FARC, confiscated and burned copies of the Bogotá-based daily “El Tiempo”. According to an “El Tiempo” report confirmed by CPJ’s sources in Colombia, at around 4 a.m. (local time) more than fifty guerrillas […]
(CPJ/IFEX) – On 20 June 2000, guerrillas from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the armed movement known by its Colombian acronym FARC, confiscated and burned copies of the Bogotá-based daily “El Tiempo”.
According to an “El Tiempo” report confirmed by CPJ’s sources in Colombia, at around 4 a.m. (local time) more than fifty guerrillas from FARC’s Front 19 stopped an “El Tiempo” delivery truck between the towns of Caracolicito and Alto del Bálsamo, near the border dividing the northern provinces of Magdalena and Cesar. The truck, the property of the delivery company Colmensajería, was traveling from the northern city of Barranquilla when the FARC guerrillas temporarily detained its occupants, then searched the vehicle and unloaded its contents. Approximately 3,000 copies of “El Tiempo” were burned on the roadside.
Both the FARC and the National Liberation Army (ELN), the other major guerrilla movement, have shown disregard for the Colombian press in the past and have targeted “El Tiempo”‘s delivery networks. On 4 April, FARC guerrillas stole around 3,000 “El Tiempo” copies in the town of Aracataca in the province of Magdalena. That same day, at around 4 p.m., the ELN stole several
thousand replacement copies of “El Tiempo” near the town of Camperucho in the province of Cesar.
