FREEDOM AND PRESS

Honest Reporting In Colombia Can Get Reporters Killed

A television reporter and a cameraman were coldly shot to death on Sunday
in El Playon, Columbia, a little town 200 miles north of Bogota where they
had gone to cover a mayoral election.

Journalism is practiced differently in Colombia than it is in the United
States.

In this country, a reporter can expect to get sued occasionally, or maybe
even punched in the jaw.

In Colombia, simply reporting something can easily get a reporter killed.

The murders of Alberto Sanchez and Luis Alberto Rincon raise to 53 the
number of reporters killed doing their jobs in Colombia during the past 10
years.

So far no one is sure who is responsible for the murders. It could have
been Colombian drug lords, Marxist rebels, right-wing paramilitary
militias. Who knows? No one has claimed responsibility.

The reporters were in El Playon covering the elections to replace that
town's mayor. The mayor, his secretary and a bodyguard were killed by
unknown gunmen in September.

The Inter American Press Association has formally written Colombia
President Andres Pastrana, protesting the journalists' murders.

Liberty and democratic institutions cannot last without a free press. One
supports the others. None can exist alone.

The multifaceted banditry and wholesale bloodletting that is Colombia today
threaten the survival of all.