(FLIP/IFEX) – A few hours before the debut screening of a documentary film on the massacre of Mapiripán, a colonel of the army demanded the film’s content be altered. When the filmmakers refused, the military official prohibited its screening. It was to be show as part of the event “Week for Peace”, organised by various […]
(FLIP/IFEX) – A few hours before the debut screening of a documentary film on the massacre of Mapiripán, a colonel of the army demanded the film’s content be altered. When the filmmakers refused, the military official prohibited its screening. It was to be show as part of the event “Week for Peace”, organised by various Colombian civil society groups.
The documentary, entitled “Why Did The General Cry?” (“¿Por qué lloró el general?”), examines the legal investigation into the massacre of Mapiripán, which took place in 1997. In that year, a group of paramilitaries – in collaboration with members of the military – occupied this community in the department of Meta, torturing and killing 49 civilians. The filmmakers defend the innocence of the only high official implicated in the crime, General Jaime Humberto Uscátegui, and question the extent to which the legal process promoted impunity.
The director of the film, José Jaime Uscátegui – the son of the accused general – and two other young filmmakers, Hernán Ruiz and Gonzalo Rodríguez, had secured the Teatro Patria (National Theatre) as the venue for the film’s debut, scheduled for 5 September 2006. Although the theatre is the property of the military, it had been rented out for a private function.
The day before the event, after paying the requested fee, the filmmakers received a call from the administrator of the theatre, Manuel Díaz Rivera. Díaz told them that his advisor had to review the documentary before the public screening: “I’m not going to take a risk for an event. My advisor will view the film and tell me whether or not we can show it,” said Díaz. The “advisor” was actually a colonel of the army; according to Uscátegui, he was Julio Cesar Becerra Avellaneda, commander of the Support and Aid Battalion for Military Education (Batallón de Apoyo y de Servicios para la Educación Militar). In audio recordings that FLIP has obtained, Becerra states that “so long as we have not seen the film, we cannot authorise the screening.”
Although they originally refused, Uscátegui and the other filmmakers finally allowed the colonel to preview the film. However, once in the theatre, the colonel simply stated the space had been rented out for another event. At the hour of the scheduled debut, the Military Police surrounded the theatre, while 200 people peacefully protested what they considered to be an act of censorship. Filmmaker Ruiz stated that he did not understand “the reasons for which the military would prohibit the documentary at the last minute, contravening their contract and the rights of citizens to express themselves freely.”
FLIP telephoned Colonel Becerra, who stated: “It’s absurd. I don’t know what you are talking about; I don’t manage any theatre.”
FLIP was unable to contact the theatre administrator. An assistant of the administrator, however, stated that the screening had been cancelled due to “far more important” developments, which he neglected to describe.
(Listen to Beccera’s and the assistant’s statements, and see photographs of the soldiers outside the theatre, at: http://www.flip.org.co )
FLIP condemns this act of censorship, imposed by Colonel Becerra, and demands that the National Army lift, as soon as possible, it prohibition against the screening of the film.
The high military command has contravened the prohibition of censorship enshrined in article 20 of the Constitution, Colombian national jurisprudence and various international agreements. The Constitutional Court has stated: “Censorship is the most aberrant form of control over press freedom and other communications media, because it represents the most severe form of invasion into the very core of this freedom.”
