Open Forum
Bedoya, Jineth
Working as a reporter in this country and trying to defend and fight for the truth has become a kind of hara kiri over the past years. Very few of us are lucky enough to be alive and able to...
...Jineth Bedoya is a reporter for the Colombian daily, El Espectador...
...After trying various ways to start a conversation, especially with one boy no older than 14 who was armed with a powerful grenade launcher, we were forced to leave during a torrential downpour that made crossing the Putumayo even more dangerous...
...We never felt so relieved...
...Letters can also be sent by e-mail to: nacla@nacla...
...one of them defiantly asked us...
...it took only five minutes to leave one world and enter another...
...In less than an hour I had a response: "No problem, you can come to La Dorada and one of our commanders will be here to welcome you...
...At first sight you can't tell if they are guerrilla, military or paramilitary checkpoints because they all wear the same type of camouflage...
...Ten days later, he had to leave the region for his own safety...
...They warned us about the same thing...
...Around nine in the morning, we landed at La Hormiga military base and left immediately for fear of being pointed out as military collaborators...
...We then managed to convince the town's enbalmer to take us in his small jeep to La Dorada, on the border with Ecuador...
...The strike took place in two small locations, Puerto Asis and La Dorada, areas where there are almost no roads, and only a small airport...
...Six people were burned alive that day...
...Despite constant pressures, we managed to inform the country about the plight of the civilian population, who like us-the journalists-are caught in the crossfire...
...We are always in the mouth of the wolf...
...They forbade us from taking photos and made me radio a commander to get permission to talk to some of the guerrillas...
...They warned that they didn't want to see any photos published...
...Having no other options, we again had to sneak onto a military MI-17 helicopter going to the conflict area at 5 AM...
...1, July/August 2000...
...As government troops, the guerrillas and a paramilitary group converged on those locations, the fighting started on October 28...
...Despite the experience of these colleagues, I decided to e-mail a paramilitary leader to tell him that I would be going to Putumayo in two days with my photographer...
...But in Colombia, we are simply covering daily life...
...We spent that night in La Hormiga, the site of previous peasant massacres, without drinking water or electricity, vulnerable to an attack from any of the armed groups...
...Ahead there were three burned cars with their charred occupants still in them and 15 minutes later the road was inundated with paramilitaries who had known of our arrival ever since we landed at the Puerto Asis airport...
...We said we were journalists, not informants...
...The next day we returned to the military base and were warned: "They don't want to see you here...
...Two weeks passed among the FARC, the paramilitaries and the helicopters of the 24th Brigade...
...We work at personal risk, with no support other than the media we report for, and with the absolute indifference of the government...
...He told me to watch what I did...
...After a four-hour wait, we saw the helicopter break through the cloudy sky...
...other side, we were met by a group of guerrillas who were no older than 20...
...One week later, another group of journalists tried to enter the same area but when they arrived at La Dorada, the paramilitaries denied them "authorization...
...I secretly boarded a military flight from Puerto Asis to Santana where the military base of the 24th Brigade of Colombian Army is located...
...A journalist from Radio Caracol was in the area then and took testimonies that detailed how Carlos Castafio's paramilitary forces arrived at La Dorada and tortured farmers they accused of being guerrilla collaborators, pulling out their nails and burning their backs with cigarettes...
...We decided to return and stay in La Dorada, where the paramilitaries interrogated me about my work...
...We managed to return to La Hormiga but with the bad luck to find that military flights had been suspended, due to an attack on a nearby oil pipeline...
...How much will the army pay you for our photos...
...There was another control just 50 kilometers ahead, this time an army one...
...Before consulting with the editorial board of my newspaper, El Espectador, I took a flight to Puerto Asis...
...In the midst of endless, agonizing war, we have to deal with threats from all sides just to cover the news...
...The story of her kidnapping, rape and torture by paramilitaries was told in "Terror and the Press," by Ignacio G6mez, NACLA Report, Vol...
...In the last week of October, 300 members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) started an armed strike, protesting the fumigation of an extensive area of coca crop in Putumayo in the south of Colombia, where Plan Colombia is being put into effect...
...XXXIV No...
...E-mail and cellular phones are usually the easiest ways to get in contact with the fighters...
...When we landed in Santana we had to sleep inside the base because it was dangerous outside...
...Ten minutes later we found the first checkpoint...
...My photographer sat on the war equipment and my seat was the rifle ammunition box...
...It sounds like war reporting...
...NACLA also welcomes unsolicited editorials of up to 1000 words for the Open Forum...
...The first news I heard was that the road to La Hormiga was blocked and the guerrillas were shooting everyone that dared to use it...
...He told me to watch what I did...
...The Risky Business of Reporting in Colombia After decorating the small car with white flags and big "PRESS" signs, we headed toward the border...
...Very few of us are lucky enough to be alive and able to talk about it...
...We got there by canoe...
...We knew you were coming, we only hope you tell the truth," one of them said to me in an intimidating tone...
...The camps are separated from Puerto Asis by the Putumayo River...
...The checkpoint belonged to the FARC and they warned us about the dangerous situation ahead...
...On the The commander allowed me some interviews...
...Within hours we were back in Puerto Asis...
...Without asking a thing they let us drive to the bridge at San Miguel, at the border with Ecuador, where we found 500 refugees starving and in poor health...
...Readers are invited to address letters to The Editors, NACLA Report on the Americas, 475 Riverside Dr, Suite 454, New York, NY 10115...
...The next day we would begin a new odyssey with the FARC, who have numerous camps on the Ecuadoran border, in territory that is without army or police patrols...
Vol. 34 • March 2001 • No. 5
