Abstract
Journalists throughout the country are forced to choose between silence or death threats, assassination attempts and exile. Ahead of next year’s election, can freedom of the Colombian press survive, asks
“I was urinating when it happened,” said Ricardo Calderón, one of Colombia’s leading investigative journalists, reliving his narrow escape from a mafia-style assassination attempt on 1 May 2013.
On his way home from conducting an interview, Calderón, an editor at Colombia’s weekly news magazine Semana, got out of his car and was standing behind it at the side of the road when he heard the screech of tyres. A man shouted his name and fired a gun at him five times. He escaped by diving into a ditch.
It’s clear that the bullets were meant to kill Calderón, who had in recent years played a key role in exposing major human rights scandals – his most recent investigation had been into military officers convicted of committing atrocities; despite being held at a detention centre, they had been allowed to leave as they pleased and carry on with outside business activities. But the bullets also sent a message to Colombia’s increasingly beleaguered journalists: keep your noses out.
In May and June 2013, Cuba played host to a series of peace talks between the head negotiator of Colombia’s largest guerrilla organisation, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and the government. But even as the talks were taking place, the number of attacks against journalists rose.
Across Colombia, criminal gangs, paramilitary organisations, narco-traffickers and local and national politicians don’t hesitate to threaten reporters whom they believe are jeopardising their interests.
More than 90 journalists currently receive some form of security from the Colombian Ministry of the Interior’s National Protection Unit. Thirty-four of them carry out their interviews and investigations under the protection of armed bodyguards. And while many welcome the increased protection given to individual journalists, few believe these measures alone are adequate to tackle the widespread threat to freedom of expression.
Without measures to tackle impunity, self-censorship will become more widespread
In the days following Calderón’s attack, police uncovered an assassination plot against three prominent Colombian journalists. A hitman had been hired to kill investigative journalist Gonzalo Guillén, columnist León Valencia and researcher Ariel Ávila. The three believed the threats were directly related to an investigation and documentary they had been working on that revealed links between corrupt politicians and criminal gangs, including details of 126 local and national politicians whose election campaigns had been financed by such gangs.
Already a number of Guillén’s sources – including the wife of the former mayor of Barrancas, who himself was assassinated – had been murdered after speaking with him. Another source had been killed by a death squad in La Guajira province after revealing details of local criminal activity; the brother of one of his bodyguards was shot dead. Ávila, Guillén and Valencia have now gone into exile.
But perhaps the clearest message came six days later, on 7 May. Eight journalists in Cesar were threatened with murder. They had been investigating land seizures carried out by paramilitary groups at the same time as a group of displaced peasants asking for restitution had been killed.
The threat was published in a leaflet, signed by the paramilitary Anti-Land Restitution Army and distributed to newsrooms. It featured an image of an automatic weapon and mentioned the journalists by name, referring to them as “military targets”. They were ordered to stop their investigations immediately and given 24 hours to leave the area or be killed. “If you continue to stick your noses in cases of land restitution and victims, you will be next,” the leaflet warned. The eight journalists are currently receiving government protection.
New war on the media
In this new war on Colombia’s media, these incidents are the tip of the iceberg. There were 158 direct attacks on journalists in 2012 alone. Fernando Londoño, a radio talk show host and former politician, was injured and his driver and bodyguard killed in a targeted bombing. Freelance journalist Guillermo Quiroz Delgado died after being arrested while covering a street protest in Sucre department; there were allegations of police brutality. Collective threats were made against ten reporters in Santa Marta; six others were forcibly displaced in Antioquia. Community radio stations have been bombed. The list goes on.
In recent months, the attacks have increased. Journalists covering the April 2013 coffee workers’ strike faced systematic violence at the hands of the mobile anti-riot force (ESMAD); a radio station was forced off air after its equipment was destroyed. Several journalists were hospitalised, and a national TV crew had its cameras smashed by police officers. In Neiva, security forces stormed the offices of the Colombia Informa news service on the pretext of searching for explosives allegedly used by strikers. The news service had regularly reported on police abuse of demonstrators. In August 2013, journalists were targeted while covering clashes between protesters and police during a country-wide national strike.
Among dozens of other registered threats and attacks, Paola Osorio, a radio journalist and presenter, was wounded when attackers threw a grenade at her station. Two of her colleagues were kidnapped. Crime reporters in the Monteria region were given 48 hours to leave the city or face death.
Self-censorship
In late April 2013, a security conference bringing together hundreds of journalists from Mexico, Honduras and Colombia reached a consensus: for journalists, staying alive and unharmed must be their top priority. But in order to achieve this, too many journalists and media outlets have no choice but to resort to self-censorship.
“Threats and attacks are on the increase against journalists, human rights campaigners, union representatives and community activists. Protection measures will have no effect without a mechanism to fight impunity that is capable of dealing with these circumstances effectively,” Reporters Sans Frontières said after the attack on Ricardo Calderón.
ABOVE: Demonstration in support of displaced citizens and calling for land restitution, Bogotá, 6 March 2012
Credit: John Vizcaino/Reuters
Journalist Robert Nieto agrees. He was threatened by a local official in Caucasia, Antioquia, while investigating the town government’s spending of US$1 million on a now abandoned, half-built library. The threats were reinforced by former paramilitaries, now operating as criminal gangs, who, he says, work hand in hand with the politicians.
“We can register events, but investigative journalism is off limits,” Nieto, editor of Región al Día, told the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). “We need to have good journalism, but it’s dangerous to write about alliances between local authorities and the criminal gangs.”
Antioquia is one of the most dangerous regions of Colombia for journalists. Since 2009, FLIP has registered 31 threats against reporters, forcing some journalists into exile.
The result has been a virtual blackout of in-depth news coverage. Following extortion threats and a grenade attack on its studio, local radio station Caucasia Stereo FM now no longer reports on allegations of links between police, public officials and gangs.
Attacks on journalists ……………………… 10 July 2013: Two correspondents from Teleantioquia Noticias in Bajo Cauca receive death threats 16 May 2013: Radio talk show host and former politician Fernando Londoño is targeted in a bomb attack. His driver and bodyguard are killed 15 May 2013: Police uncover an assassination plot against three journalists, Gozalo Guillen, León Valencia and Ariel Ávila 9 May 2013: RCN Television’s press vehicles and equipment attacked in Bogota following coverage of police operation to seize contraband goods 7 May 2013: Eight journalists in Cesar receive death threats following the publication of reports on land seizures 1 May 2013: Investigative journalist Ricardo Calderón escapes assassination attempt after reporting on corruption and illegal activity among Colombia’s political elite May 2013: Journalist Rober Nieto is threatened by a local official in Antioquia, reported to be one of the most dangerous places in the country for journalists. He had been investigating local government spending at the time of the threat 3-4 March 2013: Armed and masked men in Tolima threaten Rodrigo Callejas, a reporter with Región Al Día, and TV journalists from Telecafe following coverage of coffee growers strike 28 February 2013: Writer Germán Uribe is attacked and sustains serious injuries at his home in Subachoque 27 February 2013: Police officers in Huila detonate tear gas grenades inside the offices of Radio Garzon. Journalists Humbertos Sosa, Angel Vargas, Luz Angela Rodriguez are among those injured 28 January 2013: Crime reporters Amilkar Alvear and Jairo Cassiani receive death threats after reporting on the activities of a criminal gang in the Monteria region; they are given 48 hours to leave the city November 2012: Freelance journalist Guillermo Quiroz Delgado is arrested while covering a street protest. He dies in custody 3 August 2012: A grenade is thrown at a community radio station, wounding journalist Paola Osorio. The previous month, two of Osorio’s colleagues had been kidnapped As of July 2013, 90 journalists are receiving state protection. It is recommended that they use bodyguards in order to carry out their work. In 2012, there were 158 direct attacks on journalists. Of the 140 journalists killed in Colombia between 1977 and 2011, only 12 per cent of cases have resulted in sentences. A recent survey of 700 journalists found 79 per cent of them admitting that they engaged in self-censorship Sources: Antonio Nariño Project, BBC, CPJ, FECOLPER, FLIP, IFJ, Knight Center for Journalism, OIDHACO, RSF, Reuters, Source Association de Periodistas de Antioquia
After its director received seven death threats on his mobile phone, another radio station in nearby Tarazá axed the town’s only local news programme and now only plays music. Two government bodyguards accompany Leiderman Ortiz, editor of the local monthly newspaper La Verdad del Pueblo, 24 hours a day after a grenade was thrown at his house and he received two telephone death threats.
Caucasia Mayor José Nadín Arabia unwittingly summed up the situation: “The criminal gangs pressure everyone who writes negative things about them. But reporters no longer publish much about the gangs.”
The government lauds the fact that fewer journalists have been killed in the past two years; some international organisations draw encouragement from this relative success. It’s true that there is a better funded protection scheme than ever before, but Colombian journalism associations, including FLIP and the country’s journalist union FECOLPER, together with international press freedom groups like CPJ and the International Federation of Journalists, say this is simply not enough to guarantee freedom of expression. CPJ’s 2012 annual report states that “widespread self-censorship had made the press less of a target”.
Members of the media say the statistics only tell part of the story. “The Colombian government says with pride that the number of journalists murdered has dropped, which is true, but not because Colombia is more democratic or because we are more accepting of dissident thought, or of criticism,” says Hollman Morris, former presenter of the human rights documentary series Contravia and now director of a Bogotá-based TV station. He too has had to seek temporary exile and protection in the face of death threats. Fewer journalists are being murdered, he says, “because journalists are practising self-censorship”. Journalist Claudia Julieta Duque, who went through a seven-year campaign of intimidation and harassment, told me that it is no longer necessary to kill journalists – a climate of fear that breeds self-censorship is well established. In addition, there is widespread belief among journalists that more politicians, corrupt businesses and gangs are resorting to the courts and using libel laws to silence journalists.
There has been little in the way of positive indications of change – despite the arrest warrants issued against seven former senior state security agents for their part in the campaign of “psychological torture” against Claudia Julieta Duque – but the impunity levels for 2012 (the most recent figures available) remain unchanged. With regard to the Anti-Land Restitution Army, the government offered a reward for information about their activities and has made a lot of positive noises about pursuing those responsible – but, in reality, there has been very little real action.
Direct censorship is not the problem in Colombia. “It is not something that is made public, it is not the shutdown of stations, of the media,” says FLIP. Instead, “it is stigmatisation, the threats which arrive by mail, to your house, your work”. And the government’s tendency to stigmatise certain subjects contributes to the culture of self-censorship. FLIP’s executive director Andrés Morales claims that “many journalists believe that if they don’t write about sensitive issues, they won’t be punished for their words”.
This is a reality regional reporters in Colombia recognise only too well. A recent survey of 700 journalists by press monitoring group the Antonio Nariño Project found 79 per cent of them admitting that they engaged in self-censorship.
Nydia Serrano of El Universal, who has seen some of her colleagues flee the country after receiving death threats, concurs: “The number of journalists killed is down, as is the threat … and we feel more secure. The statistics are correct, but that’s because we don’t tell about 80 per cent of what happens in this country.”
In 2012, there were 158 direct attacks on journalists
The situation is exacerbated by the scale of impunity from conviction. FLIP claims 87 per cent of the 140 killings of journalists in Colombia since 1977 have gone unpunished.
In 2012, two investigations – into the murders of Jon Félix Tirado and José Domingo Cortés – had to be dropped after they exceeded the statue of limitations. Ten investigations expired in 2011. Since 1977, 59 of the cases have been dropped after state prosecutors simply ran out of time. The statute of limitations on five further unsolved murders will expire by the end of 2014. In 2011 authorities only punished three out of the 23 attacks on journalists by state employees. For many, this is evidence that authorities lack the will to adequately protect journalists and prosecute those who commit crimes against them. In some cases, when asked, authorities refuse to provide information about who is in charge of particular cases.
And, in order to fight self-censorship, FLIP is increasingly helping journalists publish their work away from their home turf. When journalists don’t publish for security reasons, says Andrés Morales, “we help to create agreements or alliances with national media or other outlets so the work can be published”.
But such actions are a drop in the ocean. Colombia’s deteriorating media environment has prompted renewed calls for action. As Karen Granero, Latin America director for the International Federation of Journalists, points out, “the culture of impunity for crime against journalists must end. Press freedom can never thrive in the absence of the rule of law. Whilst many people talk about restitution for the victims of the conflict, the peace talks are creating new victims.” And, she adds, those journalists “tackling impunity” and helping to create a safer environment in which they can pursue their work without fear of threats is “a vital part of the peace process”.
In the run-up to the 2014 presidential elections and the end-of-year deadline for a final agreement at ongoing peace talks, human rights campaigners fear the situation will get worse.
According to the International Media Support organisation, paramilitary groups and criminal gangs opposed to both current peace talks and land reform proposals are stepping up attacks against the press. Colombia will remain in the spotlight, one of the most dangerous countries in the world to practise journalism.
“Committing acts of violence against journalists is not a new phenomenon, but that doesn’t mean the recent events are not alarming,” said Fabio Posada, head of the investigative unit of El País, one of Bogota’s leading newspapers. “The high degree of impunity sends a message to society, especially to criminals: that journalists are not important. You can kill them and nothing happens.”