COLOMBIA Journalism - the fatal profession OVER THE LAST 16 years, 358 journalists have been murdered or "disappeared" in Latin America. This figure has been given by the Latin American Federation of Journalists (FELAP) in Mexico. The country hardest hit by this wave of murders was Argentina under the last military dictatorship, where 90 journalists lost their lives.
Today, there is a new rise in murders of journalists in Colombia. The situation of journalists in this country has become one of the most dangerous in all of Latin America.
Lara, another journalist, was arrested when she arrived in New York, held for four days and then expelled from the US as a "subversive." Her explanation of this strange incident was that a Colombian state service had provided a list of "suspect" journalists to the US government.
Liberation mentioned another case of a journalist who also suffered political reprisals abroad. Eduardo MacKenzie, Paris correspondent of a Colombian magazine, was fired after his embassy accused him of participating in a demonstration against the massacre in Bogota's Palace of Justice.
In a climate of economic crisis and prevailing self-censorship, renowned journalists such as Juan G Rios and Heriberto Fiorillo have been fired and then blacklisted for refusing to submit to the self-censorship demanded by the government and the bosses.
On two occasions, bombs have Un wo casions, pomos nave gone off in the headquarters of the Communist weekly Voz. In April and October last year the journalists Heriberto Cardenas in Cali and Cesar Perez in Medellin were shot.
Three Le Monde journalists were also expelled from the country last year for doing a feature in the guerrilla zones. Two years ago, two American journalists, Timothy Weich and Joyce Holmes, disappeared while they were working in a "zone of violence."
Those are the signs of the times in a country where journalism has become a "fatal profession." [From the March issue of Murmure, bulletin of the journalists of the Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire, 9, rue de Tunis, Paris 75011.]
On December 17, Guillermo
Cano, editor and publisher of the daily El Espectador, one of the oldest papers in Latin America and one of the most important in Colombia, was assassinated as he left his office.
Although murders of journalists have been not uncommon in Colombia, this event aroused a wave of indignation that rocked the country. Three months later, another journalist, Raul Echavarria, was shot down in Cali. Along with Cano, he was the most respected figure in the Colombian press and a man of democratic convictions. He was the fifth journalist to be murdered in 1986 alone.
The journalists of Bogota called a demonstration that brought out 20,000 people. All the country's TV and radio networks and newspapers went on strike for 24 hours.
In the December 29 issue of the Paris daily Liberation, Christian Martin devoted an article to the subject. It was entitled, "Journalism in Colombia, a fatal profession."
Martin described the context in which Guillermo Cano was murdered. Over the past ten years, 26 journalists have been assassinated in Colombia, most of them "for daring to write on two burning issues in national life - the truce between the guerrillas and the army and the drug business, with the corruption that is spreading at all levels."
Almost all of them were shot down after coming into conflict with the local authorities, mayors, chiefs of police and so on. Only a minority were victims of commonlaw criminals. It should be noted that out of the 26 journalists assassinated, 17 lost their lives during the last four years.
Parallel to these murders, many journalists have been forced by death threats to leave the country. Colombia's best known editorial writer, Daniel Samper, has taken refuge in Spain for that reason.
But even exile has not always meant safety from persecution. Olga Behar, TV journalist and author of a book on the Colombian guerrillas, had to flee to escape harassment by the military. Exiled in Mexico, she was arrested on October 26 by the US Immigration Service at Miami airport while in transit through the US.
A few days before, Patricia