(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to Minister of the Interior Armando Estrada, RSF expressed grave concern after four journalists from Nariño department (southwestern Colombia) were identified as military targets in a press release by the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, AUC – paramilitaries). The journalists declared as targets are Germán Arcos, […]
(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to Minister of the Interior Armando Estrada, RSF expressed grave concern after four journalists from Nariño department (southwestern Colombia) were identified as military targets in a press release by the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, AUC – paramilitaries). The journalists declared as targets are Germán Arcos, cameraman for Caracol Television, Oscar Torres, editor-in-chief of “Diario del Sur”, Cristina Castro, correspondent for Noticiero RCN, and Alfonso Pardo, peace commissioner for the Nariño department and former correspondent for the weekly “Voz”. “It is time that armed groups cease viewing journalists as targets and information control as a stake in the battle,” stated RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard. The organisation asked the minister to do everything in his power to guarantee the four journalists’ safety.
According to information collected by RSF, in a 9 November 2001 press release by the AUC Nariño division, Torres, Castro and Pardo were ordered to abandon their profession in less than forty-eight hours or they “would be executed.” The paramilitary group accused them of covering the news in a “dishonest fashion.” The following day, the journalists left the province of Nariño under police escort and headed to the national capital, where at least three of them were able to meet with the minister of the interior to discuss leaving the country.
RSF recalled that on 27 April, Flavio Bedoya, a correspondent in Nariño for the weekly “Voz”, was shot four times and killed (see IFEX alerts of 7 and 2 May and 30 April 2001). Bedoya received death threats after the 4 April publication of an article about fighting between guerrillas and paramilitaries near Tumaco and an interview he conducted with a commander of the Marxist guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, FARC). In the article, the journalist criticised “the police’s and military’s inability to apprehend criminals.”
In Colombia, journalists have become favoured targets in the war being waged between AUC, FARC and the National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberacion Nacional, ELN), supporters of Che Guevara’s philosophy. RSF considers Carlos Castaño (AUC), Manual Marulanda (FARC) and Nicolás Rodríguez Bautista (ELN) to be among the world’s most treacherous press freedom predators. Colombia is the most dangerous country on the continent for information professionals. Forty journalists have been killed in the country since 1991.
