(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter addressed to Colombian Minister of the Interior Nestor Humberto Martínez Neira, Robert Ménard, RSF’s secretary-general, expressed his “serious concern” over the bombing of the offices of the daily “El Tiempo”, in Cali. In his letter, RSF’s secretary-general, who “believes that this criminal action represents a severe attack on press freedom,” […]
(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter addressed to Colombian Minister of the Interior
Nestor Humberto Martínez Neira, Robert Ménard, RSF’s secretary-general,
expressed his “serious concern” over the bombing of the offices of the daily
“El Tiempo”, in Cali. In his letter, RSF’s secretary-general, who “believes
that this criminal action represents a severe attack on press freedom,”
asked that he “be kept informed of the progress in the investigation of this
matter.” RSF also asked that he does not “neglect to take measures to
protect the journalists.”
On 14 November 1999, at 10:35 p.m. (local time), a bomb containing six
kilograms of dynamite exploded near the offices of “El Tiempo”. The
explosion of the bomb, which was placed at a bus stop, injured three
employees of the daily and caused considerable material damage. Apparently,
a member of “El Tiempo”‘s security staff caught a glimpse of some suspects
in a white van, right before the explosion occurred.
Confusion reigns with regard to the presumed instigators of the attack,
since it has been claimed by several organisations at once. The same night
as the explosion, an anonymous individual called the Todelar radio station
and the daily “El Espectador”, saying that the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia (FARC), an armed Marxist group, was retaliating against the
newspaper’s revelatory coverage of their military objectives. Then the
National Liberation Army (ELN), which has Guevaraist tendencies, claimed
responsibility for the attack, which was perpetrated on the day after the
detention of Gustavo Villamil, one of the guerilla’s leaders. And finally,
in a communication sent to Cali’s radio station, an unknown “commando of
Colombian Patriotic Resistance” explained that he had perpetrated the crime
in order to protest the extradition of drug traffickers to the United States
of America, and to denounce the situation of travelling sellers.
RSF recalls that in 1996 there were two bombings perpetrated against offices
of “El Tiempo”: the first took place in Cali on 30 August; and the second in
Medellín on 28 December. Those terrorist actions were attributed to FARC and
drug traffickers. It is considered that since 1995, the principal
perpetrators of recent attacks and attempts against the press and other
communication media are armed guerilla groups, paramilitary groups, and drug
traffickers.
