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Shedding light on issues of government
corruption, state officials indirectly involved in the violation
of its own citizens' rights, or sectors of the nation's elite
hiring killers to eliminate their adversaries would, in many
countries, be on the front pages of any press or headline any
television news channel; however, this is not necessarily the
case within the country of Colombia. Rather than seeing these
issues presented in the media or awards being given to those
involved in such investigative journalism, Colombia witnesses
the dismissal, incarceration, or even deaths of those involved
in exposing information that places the Colombian state or the
elite in a critical light.
While Colombia has the highest
number of journalist killed by paramilitary death squads in the
world, it was the Colombian state that recently acted against
one well-known journalist. On the evening of November 19th, Colombia's
secret police (Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad, DAS)
detained Freddy Muñoz Altamirano, a Colombian-based journalist
and correspondent for teleSUR [a multi-state-owned news channel
located in Caracas]. Recognized throughout Latin America for
his investigative reporting on the forced displacement of Colombian
civilians at the hands of state and paramilitary forces, Muñoz
was arrested on charges of 'rebellion and terrorism' relating
to 'terrorist attacks' in Cartagena and Barranquilla during 2002.
Since its appearance in the
fall of 2005, teleSUR has presented critical reports on the Uribe
administration's security policies within Colombia garnishing
widespread attention across Latin America. However, the actions
of the Colombian state and the DAS have undoubtedly eroded the
channels regional legitimacy as an information medium outside
the Western/US-dominated services (e.g. CNN, FOX News, etc.).
Dan Feder (2006) goes a step further and argues that the state's
actions depict an even larger "attack on the independent
and critical press" in the fact that such charges open the
door to state and extra-state violence.
Being publicly accused of "terrorism"
is often an invitation for assassination attempts in Colombia,
where armed paramilitary groups rush to take out anyone who can
be portrayed as an "insurgent." At the very least,
the Colombian government, in allowing the press to discover the
accusations against Muñoz has made a very heavy-handed
attempt to discredit an accomplished journalist who has exposed
the ugly side of the Colombian and U.S. governments' war against
leftwing rebels.
The silencing of critical reporting
in Colombia is not a new issue but rather a systemic policy deeply
entrenched within the country's contemporary political history.
Dating back to the 1950s, the Colombian state passed legislation
that enabled the suppression of popular discourse by controlling
media information via Decree 3000. Passed in 1954, Decree 3000
legalized the government's ability to suppress what the press
could and could not divulge to the general population (Martz,
1962: 198). While such conditions have remained constant there
has nevertheless been an observable increase in the systemic
repression of open public thought and critical media commentaries
since the election of Álvaro Uribe Vélez to the
presidency in 2002.
While countless socioeconomic
issues have arisen over the past several years, such as increased
spending related to the civil war, mass protests towards neoliberal
bilateral trade agreements with the United States, and the failed
paramilitary demobilization of Law 975, a significant reduction
in the presentation of such conditions has been realized in much
of Colombia's popular mediums of communication. Such facts demonstrate
a systemic decline in impartial media coverage when concerning
state-based economic restructuring, extreme security policies,
and the falling socioeconomic conditions of the Colombian majority.
The manner in which these constraints are maintained are not
merely in the growth of monopoly ownership over the means of
information but also the state's direct hegemony over the mediums
of information through coercion and consent.
For over a decade, social justice
advocate Father Javier Giraldo (1996: 22-23) has stated that
sectors of Colombia's elite politically-aligned media-owners
almost exclusively obtain their information on sociopolitical
issues from either the government or the armed forces. Utilizing
such a biased information centre therefore leads to a practice
of misinformation that is subsequently reproduced by other smaller
media conglomerates, outlets, or localized mediums. Leech (2005)
has too noted that with Uribe's rise to power "journalists
have become hyperdependent on official [state] sources, which
has resulted in an increasingly distorted coverage of the conflict".
In 2004, one of Colombia's most renowned sociologists illustrated
the expansion of such centralizing activities which filter information
through the hands of the state. Alfredo Molano cited how the
flow of information is increasingly being blocked by the military
who are no longer allowing journalists to even enter regions
of conflict.
This kind of control leaves
the public essentially blind, and no one knows what happens in
these areas. There is a very tight control over information in
Colombia, and it gets tighter every day. Ninety, maybe one hundred
percent of the news about the conflict or about public order
in general are literally produced by the army. So one never completely
knows what is going on (Molano as quoted in Feder, 2004).
Even Canada's former political
counsellor with the Canadian Embassy in Bogotá, Nicolas
Coghlan, has shared his concerns about the Colombian army's manipulation
of the media to induce a manufactured reality in the purpose
of supporting the state's manipulation and exploitation of political
opponents (Coghlan, 2004: 13).
One of the methods in which
the state has promoted the actual suppression of journalists
is best described by Doug Stokes. In 2005, Stokes (2005: 108-109)
specifically criticized the Uribe government for becoming more
than opponents to the free press but structurally reactionary
in methods of silencing - or threatening to silence - those within
the media critical of the state.
Uribe is also pushing for tighter
control of the Colombian media by seeking to pass laws which
censor reporting on Colombian 'counter terrorism measures' and
Colombian military activity. One of the 'anti-terrorism' bills
seeks to hand down sentences of eight to twelve years in prison
for anyone who publishes statistics considered 'counterproductive
to the fight against terrorism', as well as the possible 'suspension'
of the media outlet in question. These sanctions will apply to
anybody who divulges 'reports that could hamper the effective
implementation of military and police operations, endanger the
lives of public forces personnel or private individuals', or
commits other acts that undermine public order, 'while boosting
the position or image of the enemy' . . . The media censorship
laws also mean that the reporting of human rights abuses will
be harder (Stokes, 2005: 108-109).
From a more cultural perspective
Leech (2005) contends that as a result of the state's hegemonic
presence, journalists have been restricted through a fear of
political reactionary aggression or occupational reprimand.
... the reality of the country's
conflict is rarely reflected in the mainstream media is largely
due to the way journalists operate in Colombia. Foreign reporters
mostly cover the country's civil conflict from the safety of
the capital Bogotá, rarely venturing into dangerous rural
zones except on press junkets organized by the Colombian military
or the US embassy.
Eberto Díaz Montes and
Juan Efrain Mendiza (2006) pronounced that the persecution of
Muñoz once again demonstrates "that the prevailing
regime in Colombia violates all the fundamental rights of the
citizens, especially when they are left-of-centre". The
President and General Secretary of La Federación Nacional
Sindical Unitaria Agropecuaria (FENSUAGRO) went on to state that
the voices of those inside the media (and society) are increasingly
allowed to only transmit ideas that are in alliance with those
of the state and if one publishes another realm of truth they
are immediately exposed to the persecution of the regime.
The Uribe administration increasingly
resembles not only a state that restricts the right of information
and press freedom, but, more disturbing, a governing body that
limits the actual human right to disseminate information relating
to state policy and the suffering of the countries masses. It
is hoped that the Muñoz incarceration is not long and
that justice will be found.
James J. Brittain teaches in the Department of Sociology
at the University of New Brunswick. He can be reached at: james.brittain@unb.ca
Works Cited;
Coghlan, Nicholas (2004) The
Saddest Country: On Assignment in Colombia. Montreal, QC:
McGill-Queen's University Press.
Díaz Montes, Eberto
and Juan Efrain Mendiza (2006) ¡Pronta Libertad Para
Freddy Muñoz!(21 de Noviembre de 2006). Bogotá,
DC: Comunicado Público.
Feder, Dan (2004) "Increasing
Repression, U.S. Intervention, and Popular Opposition in Colombia:
A Conversation with Colombian Authentic Journalist Alfredo Molano"
June 28 On-Line http://www.narconews.com/Issue33/article1003.html
Accessed June 29, 2004.
Feder, Dan (2006) "Telesur
Journalist Arrested and Accused of "Terrorism" in Colombia"
November 20 On-Line http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2006/11/20/211346/16
Accessed November 21, 2006.
Giraldo, Javier (1996) Colombia:
The Genocidal Democracy. Monroe ME: Common Courage Press.
Leech, Garry M. (2005) "Blanket
Coverage" Oxford Forum Issue 2.
Martz, John D. (1962) Colombia:
A contemporary political survey. Chapel Hill, NC: University
of North Carolina Press.
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