Radio station bombed in Medellín
New York, August 29, 2001—On the evening of August 23, a powerful bomb exploded in a street behind the Medellín offices of Caracol Radio, an affiliate of the national Caracol Radio Network, according to local news reports. The blast partially destroyed Caracol’s broadcasting facilities along with nearby buildings and houses. At least 35 people suffered…
Police defuse bomb outside Communist Party newspaper office
Bogotá, May 21, 2001 — Police bomb disposal experts defused a “cluster” bomb packed into a Chevrolet Luv pick-up truck outside the offices of the Communist Party newspaper Voz in downtown Bogotá today, a police spokesman said. The 550-pound bomb was placed directly outside the Voz offices in Bogotá’s central Teusaquillo district and concealed among…
Three journalists killed since April
New York, May 14, 2001 — Three Colombian journalists have been killed so far this year, according to CPJ research. At least one of the journalists, Flavio Bedoya, appears to have been targeted for his work. At around midday on April 27, four unidentified gunmen on motorcycles shot and killed Bedoya, 52, as he stepped…
Journalist killed by gunmen on motorcycles
New York, May 1, 2001 — Four unidentified gunmen on motorcycles shot and killed Colombian journalist Flavio Bedoya as he stepped off a bus around midday April 27 in the southwestern port city of Tumaco, police and colleagues said. Bedoya, 52, was a regional correspondent for the Bogotá-based Communist Party newspaper Voz. He had worked…
Attacks on the Press 2000: Introduction
By Ann CooperIN THE COMMUNITY OF JOURNALISTS WHO HAVE CHRONICLED the past decade’s worst wars, the news last May was devastating. Two of the world’s most dedicated war correspondents, Kurt Schork of Reuters and Miguel Gil Moreno de Mora of The Associated Press, were killed in a rebel ambush in Sierra Leone, a country where…
Attacks on the Press 2000: Americas Analysis
BY EXPOSING CORRUPTION, POLITICAL INTRIGUE, and massive abuse of power, journalists in Peru helped bring down the regime of President Alberto K. Fujimori last year. Fujimori’s dramatic fall demonstrated that the Latin American press remains a key bulwark against leaders who continue to use subtle and not-so subtle means to control the flow of information.…
Attacks on the Press 2000: Facts
In North Korea, listening to a foreign broadcast is a crime punishable by death. In Colombia, right-wing paramilitary forces are suspected in the murders of three journalists in 2000. Meanwhile, paramilitary leader Carlos Castaño was formally charged with the 1999 murder of political satirist Jaime Garzón.
Attacks on the Press 2000: Colombia
IN A DEVASTATING YEAR FOR COLOMBIA, journalists were murdered, assaulted, threatened, and kidnapped. Many fled into exile. With the peace process that began in 1999 largely moribund, a nearly four-decade conflict that pits two major leftist guerrilla groups against the army and right-wing paramilitary forces continued to escalate throughout the year. All the warring factions…
COLOMBIAN JOURNALIST KILLED
Bogotá, July 3, 2001 — Colombian radio reporter Pablo Emilio Parra Castañeda was murdered with two shots to the head in central Tolima Department on June 27, according to local press reports. Parra, 50, was the founder and head of the community radio station Planadas Cultural Estéreo in the town of Planadas. He was also…