Live News - A Survival Guide - International Federation of Journalists

Live News — A Survival Guide for JournalistsHowever the state is suspected of complicity in some killings. Therehave been few arrests and the Government resisted an independentinquiry. Some journalists said they were offered false witnesses tointerview after assassinations, while others were harassed whenthey tried to report on massacres. During the era of the killings,hundreds of journalists and their families lived for several years inhotels under the protection of armed guards, living and working inconstant fear.ColombiaIn Colombia, journalism is at risk from domestic armed conflict,and 84 journalists have been murdered over the last decade. ÁlvaroUribe Vélez was elected in August 2002 on a platform of gettingtough with the Revolutionary Armed Force of Colombia (FARC) andother guerrilla groups. Journalists have been put at risk throughthe various guerrilla groups, ‘self-defence groups’, and corruptpoliticians. Right-wing forces have acknowledged murdering severaljournalists and have accused the press of having ‘poisonous spirits’.On the other hand guerrilla groups have stated that the ‘mediaare our target’. Journalists are murdered with impunity — in just5% of cases have those who carried out or ordered the killings beenconvicted. The President has said: “It is uncomfortable to knowthat journalists can reach places where terrorists hide out, whenthe Government cannot reach those places. It is uncomfortable toknow that a journalist has advance knowledge of a terrorist act,which takes the Government by surprise.” However, in January2003, he promised that his Government would not impose restrictionson press freedom.Sierra, a deputy editor and columnist for La Patria newspaper inManizales, a town in Colombia's coffee-growing region, was shotwhile walking to work on January 30 2002 and died two days later.In his column for the 80-year-old newspaper, Sierra frequentlyhighlighted political corruption and human rights abuses by leftistguerrillas, a rival right-wing paramilitary army and state securityagents. Police told the Committee to Protect Journalists inDecember 2002 that they were working on the theory that one ofthe local politicians Sierra had denounced in his columns hired anassassin to kill the journalist. Sierra had accused local Liberal andConservative politicians of nepotism, vote buying, looting publiccoffers and ‘running the department like a feudal colony’. Theboss of a gang of hit men has been charged with his murder.63