(RSF/IFEX) – The following is a 7 September 2001 RSF press release: GUATEMALA Journalist assassinated In a letter to President of the Republic Alfonso Portillo Cabrera, Reporters sans frontières (RSF) stated that it was deeply angered by the assassination of Jorge Mynor Alegría Armendáriz, journalist for Radio Amatique. “A journalist who spoke out against corruption […]
(RSF/IFEX) – The following is a 7 September 2001 RSF press release:
GUATEMALA
Journalist assassinated
In a letter to President of the Republic Alfonso Portillo Cabrera, Reporters sans frontières (RSF) stated that it was deeply angered by the assassination of Jorge Mynor Alegría Armendáriz, journalist for Radio Amatique. “A journalist who spoke out against corruption has been killed,” stated Robert Ménard, RSF’s secretary-general. “We ask that the investigators are provided with all the necessary means so that the assassins are identified and punished,” added Ménard. RSF also asked that measures be taken so that the safety of journalists can be guaranteed. Since 1 January 2001, some twenty media personnel have been threatened or attacked in Guatemala.
According to information collected by RSF, on 5 September 2001, Jorge Mynor Alegría Armendáriz, host of the programme Línea Directa, broadcast on Radio Amatique, based in Puerto Barrios, Department of Izabal (eastern Guatemala), was shot six times by unknown individuals and killed in front of his home. His programme was known for its independent editorial stance and the journalist provided a forum for his listeners and frequently criticised the authorities. On the day he died, he reported on the lifting of David Pineda’s parliamentary immunity. Pineda, local member of parliament for the ruling Guatemalan Republican Front party (Frente republicano Guatemalteco, FRG) and former Izabal mayor, was tried for alleged embezzlement. The journalist announced that he was thinking of investigating the alleged embezzlement and that he would continue reporting on this topic. The previous week, he had announced that the city’s mayor, Jorge Mario Chigua, had dismissed sixty municipal employees. On a number of other occasions, he had also condemned the pressure exerted by port authorities on several employees who had criticised the institution of corruption, in order to force them to resign.
The police has discarded the hypothesis that this was a robbery, as nothing was stolen from the journalist. According to Radio Amatique director Javier Padilla, Jorge Mynor Alegría Armendáriz had received death threats on various occasions. On the day he was killed he told his colleague José Antonio Godinez that they should “be careful.” Nevertheless, according to his family, he had recently asserted: “I will never sell myself.” Some hours after the assassination, the police detained two suspects who were found carrying a weapon that may have been used to carry out the crime. A ballistics experts’ report is expected. On 6 September, another Radio Amatique journalist, Enrique Aceituno, submitted his resignation after revealing that he had also received death threats. He stated that unknown individuals offered him money in exchange for his keeping silent about the corruption in the Puerto Barrios authorities.
Since 1 January 2001, twenty Guatemalan journalists have been threatened or attacked, particularly after having condemned government corruption or irregularities. At the end of March, Sylvia Gereda, Luis Escobar, Enrique Castañeda and Martín Juarez of the daily El Periodico were threatened and assaulted after the daily published an investigation into the alleged misappropriation of funds by the president of the National Mortgage Credit Bank (Banco Crédito Hipotecario nacional), in which members of the government were implicated.
RSF recalls that Jorge Luis Marroquín, director of the weekly El Sol Chortí, was assassinated in June 1997 after having condemned irregularities in the Jocotán (eastern Guatemala ) Mayor’s Office. On 30 September 1999, his two assassins were sentenced to thirty years in prison, while the individual presumed to have been behind the murder, a former mayor, is still at large. On 27 April 2000, photographer Roberto Martínez, of the daily Prensa Libre, was killed during a demonstration in Guatemala City. The man who shot him, a shopping centre security guard who shot at demonstrators, was sentenced to eighteen years in prison on 19 February 2001.
