(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to Nicolas Rodríguez Bautista, commander of the Ejército Nacional de Liberacion (National Liberation Army, ELN), RSF protested against the armed group’s issuing of a press release declaring journalists Guillermo Aguilar Moreno and Carlos Enrique Aristizabal to be “military targets.” The organisation urged the ELN leader to reconsider his decision and […]
(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to Nicolas Rodríguez Bautista, commander of the Ejército Nacional de Liberacion (National Liberation Army, ELN), RSF protested against the armed group’s issuing of a press release declaring journalists Guillermo Aguilar Moreno and Carlos Enrique Aristizabal to be “military targets.” The organisation urged the ELN leader to reconsider his decision and commit himself to respecting Article 3 of the Geneva Convention, which protects “persons taking no active part in the hostilities.” In March 1999, the ELN had declared all journalists suspected of serving as “circulation channels” for the paramilitaries to be “military targets.” Seven journalists were abducted by this guerrilla group last year. “It is time that armed groups cease viewing journalists as targets and the control of information as a stake in the battle,” said RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard.
Journalists have become favoured targets in the war being waged between the Colombian United Self Defence Groups (Autodéfenses unies de Colombie, AUC, paramilitaries) and FARC (Marxist) and ELN (Guevarist) guerrillas. RSF considers Carlos Castaño (AUC), Manuel Marulanda (FARC) and Nicolas Rodriguez Bautista (ELN) to be among the world’s twenty-two most dangerous press freedom predators. Colombia is the most dangerous country on the continent for information professionals. Thirty-three have been killed there since 1991.
According to information collected by RSF, in a press release issued on 11 April 2001, the ELN declared that Aguilar Moreno and Aristizabal would henceforth be considered “military targets.” The two journalists formerly worked for Radio Armony Records, based in Cali. The armed group, which describes the two men as “government informers and collaborators,” also bars them from practicing their profession. In July 1999, during the ELN’s abduction of 180 parishioners from a Cali church, Aguilar Moreno and Aristizabal launched a programme aimed at allowing the hostages’ relatives to send them messages. Since then, the two journalists have often been the target of threats, which finally forced them to leave the radio station and change places of residence four times (see IFEX alerts of 16 February and 24 January 2001). A police investigation, launched by request of the government’s journalists’ protection programme, concluded that the journalist’s lives were threatened. Nonetheless, the authorities did not offer them any protection.
Seven journalists were abducted by the ELN in 2000, usually in order to force the media to broadcast information about paramilitary actions. On 30 March 1999, the armed group declared journalists and media “which serve as channels for the circulation of the policies” of far-right paramilitary groups to be “permanent military targets.” The ELN also claimed responsibility for the 16 August 1995 assassination of Ivan Pelayo, director of Llanoramica Estéreo, the station in Puerto Rondon (250 km north-west of Bogotá). A press release left at the scene of the crime described the journalist as an “enemy of the people and the revolution.”
