(RSF/IFEX) – Diego Waldrón, editor of the Barrancabermeja-based weekly “Siete Días” and host of the daily news programme “Noticias en Caliente”, broadcast on Calor Estéreo radio station, was threatened at his home by the bodyguard of an individual linked to the municipal authorities. The incident occurred on 14 February 2004, one day after Waldrón questioned […]
(RSF/IFEX) – Diego Waldrón, editor of the Barrancabermeja-based weekly “Siete Días” and host of the daily news programme “Noticias en Caliente”, broadcast on Calor Estéreo radio station, was threatened at his home by the bodyguard of an individual linked to the municipal authorities. The incident occurred on 14 February 2004, one day after Waldrón questioned on his programme the qualifications of an individual assigned by the mayor to run a municipal company.
Just three weeks before, on 26 January, Waldrón received a death threat from the Chamber of Commerce president’s brother, who tried to assault him with an iron bar after the journalist made allegations about embezzlement at the organisation. The assailant returned two days later and waited outside Waldrón’s home. He was captured by police and subsequently released.
On 9 February, Garibaldi López, the producer and host of the “Actualidad en Estéreo” and “Controversia” news programmes, broadcast on Calor Estéreo, received a threatening telephone call at his home from the paramilitary United Self-Defence Groups of Colombia (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, AUC). The caller told López, “The first was José Emeterio Rivas [a journalist killed in April 2003], the second will be Garibaldi López and the third will be Diego Waldrón.” López covers current events, including matters related to the AUC, on his radio programmes. The paramilitaries have accused him of “talking too much.”
Reports of threats against journalists in the Barrancabermeja region have been increasing for several months. Inés Peña, the host of the “Cultura por la vida” segment of the news programme “La Mohana” on the Barrancabermeja-based regional channel Enlace 10, was kidnapped and tortured on 28 January by AUC members. She had criticised the paramilitaries’ arrival in the region as well as human rights violations committed by all the armed groups (see IFEX alert of 3 February 2004).
Pedro Javier Galvis Murillo, of the weekly “La Noticia”, and Yaneth Montoya, a correspondent for the regional daily “Vanguardia Liberal”, were forced to leave the city in October 2003 after receiving death threats. A list of persons for execution, believed to have been compiled by the AUC, had been handed in to the Ombudsman’s Office. Montoya’s name was on the list (see alert of 30 October 2003).
According to the latest report by the Press Freedom Foundation (Fundación para la Libertad de Prensa, FLIP), issued in February, reporting about corruption is one of the chief reasons for physical attacks and threats against journalists. The FLIP said that in many cases officials who had been criticised got together with armed groups to silence journalists.
RSF has learned that officials in Barrancabermeja who have been criticised by the press have in recent months often mentioned their links with the AUC in an attempt to intimidate journalists.
