COLOMBIA'S VIOLENCE DRIVING ITS JOURNALISTS FROM COUNTRY

REPORTERS TEETERING ON TIGHTROPE IN 35-YEAR WAR

BOGOTA, Colombia -- Newspaper reporter Carlos Pulgarin never wanted to leave
his country. Not for work. Not for vacation. Never.

But on Dec. 8, after months of death threats because of his coverage of
Colombia's civil war, he took his wife, 3-year-old son, some hastily packed
bags and a heavy heart onto an international flight. He doesn't know when
he'll be back.

"It's the first time that I left the country. I told my wife that I'm
leaving crying," he said.

Drug and political violence have long made Colombia one of the most
dangerous places to be a journalist. The situation appears to be getting
worse.

Rebel guerrillas, paramilitaries and soldiers are using threats,
kidnappings, beatings and killings to bully reporters into presenting their
views.

For much of the 35-year civil war, combatants had largely respected
journalists' neutrality. But with fighting and a peace process advancing
simultaneously, media control is considered an important weapon.

"The situation seems to have changed in the last few months because the
conflict is more violent and more bloody," said Cesar Mauricio Velasquez,
dean of the journalism school at Sabana University. "The factions have more
land, more arms. They have a greater power of intimidation. They have a
greater strategy of communication."

Ignacio Gomez, a reporter who heads Colombia's Press Freedom Foundation,
said that as factions take over territory they believe they should be able
to control journalists working there.

"They assume that any journalist that isn't working with them is working
against them," he said.

In addition, short-lived abductions of groups of journalists who venture
into conflict zones, usually by armed irregulars seeking publicity, are
becoming more frequent.

The threats and violence have taken a toll on news coverage, because editors
are reluctant to send reporters into conflict areas, journalists and media
observers say.

"Until a few years ago, the map of violence in Colombia was clear and you
knew there were armed groups in certain zones," said Daniel Coronel,
director of television news for the RCN network.

Some reporters also back away from stories.

Carlos Alberto Giraldo, a reporter for the newspaper El Colombiano in
Medellin, said he doesn't censor himself but sometimes thinks about his
7-year-old son and wonders "up to what point do you keep taking risks?"

Some journalists, like Pulgarin, have to flee.

Pulgarin was a reporter for the country's leading newspaper, El Tiempo. He
was based deep in paramilitary-controlled territory in the northwestern city
of Monteria and began receiving death threats after writing about bungled
military operations and the killing of indigenous people by paramilitary
groups.

The threats began in June, with Pulgarin being accused of being a spokesman
for the rebels. The threats continued even after he moved to another city.

When he filed a complaint with prosecutors, Pulgarin received more threats.

At one point, after he privately decided to leave, he was kidnapped and
driven around in a taxi for 10 minutes with a gun held to his head. That
incident was the last straw.

Pulgarin said his wife and mother had repeatedly asked him to quit his
newspaper job, but he always refused.

"If every time a journalist is threatened he resigns, there will be no one
to tell what's going on in Colombia," he said by telephone from a location
kept secret.

Gomez's foundation counted five journalists killed in 1999 because of their
work.

Three were killed in conflict zones in recent weeks--two television
reporters shot in the head Nov. 28 while covering elections in a turbulent
northeastern region and a cameraman killed Dec. 3 while covering a guerrilla
attack in western Colombia.

Much of the violence occurred in the late 1980s and early 1990s when the
Medellin cartel, then the world's biggest drug gang, kidnapped and killed
journalists and bombed newspaper offices.

As terrifying as those years were, journalists had an easier time drawing
the line between good and evil.

"They were drug traffickers, bloodthirsty criminals that were attacking all
of society," said Carlos Ruiz, news director for the Caracol radio network.

The country's largest guerrilla band, the 15,000-member Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia, has long been denounced by the government, U.S.
officials and Colombian media as criminals who protect drug traffickers. But
the FARC has been negotiating with the government since last January.

One day a guerrilla leader is considered "the leader of band of kidnappers
and drug terrorists," says Coronel at RCN. The next "he is the negotiating
partner of the president."