14 Impunity NO MORE

Unpunished Crimes Against Journalists
INTER AMERICAN PRESS ASSOCIATION

Imp LHO
NO ORE
Unpunished Crimes
Against Journalists

CBE
Project Director & Editor
Ricardo Trotti, Miami, Florida
Contributors
Ernesto Sabato
Anthony Lewis
Gabriel Michi
Investigations
Ana Arana
Supporting investigators
Ignacio Gomez
Maria Clara Prates Santos
Assistant to the director
Melba Jimenez
Colonial Press International, Inc.
3690 NW 50th Street, Miami, FL 33142
Cover illustration
Ricardo Trotti, from the series "The Labyrinths of Impunity," 1999, acrylic and gesso
on canvas, 60in. x 48in. Cover design by Robertson Adams.
Design, composition
Robertson Adams, The Miami Herald
Note: This book was composed using the software program Adobe InDesign.
© 1999 Inter American Press Association. All rights reserved.

rf
NO OBE
Unpunished Crimes
Against Journalists
Inter American Press Association
E-mail: info@sipiapa.org • Web: http://www.sipiapa.org

In Appreciation to
JOHN S. 1D I MEN L.
Knight Foundation
... for its very loyal and
generous support toward
the realization and continuation
of the Unpunished Crimes Against
Journalists project.

In Memoriam
To all the journalists killed during
the performance of their professional
duties.

Our appreciation to The Maud Herald and El Nuevo Herald,
whomade this publication possible.
6 Impunity NO MORE — Unpunished Crimes Against Journalists
INTER A IMICAN PIES ASSOCIATION
President 1998 — 1999
Jorge E. Fascetto, El Dia, La Plata, Argentina
1st Vice President
Tony Pederson, Houston Chronicle, Houston, Texas
2nd Vice President
Danilo Arbilla, Busqueda, Montevideo, Uruguay
Chairman, Committee on Impunity
Alberto lbargilen, The Miami Herald, Miami, Florida
Vice Chairman, Committee on Impunity
Luis Gabriel Cano, El Espectador, Bogota, Colombia
Members of the Committee on Impunity
Claudio Escribano, La NaciOn, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Ricardo Troth Miami, Florida
Paulo Cabral Correio Braziliense, Brasilia, Brazil
Enrique Santos Calderon, El Tiempo, Bogota, Colombia
Gonzalo Marroquin, Prensa Libre, Guatemala City, Guatemala
Jose Santiago Healy, El Imparcial, Hermosillo, Mexico
Chairman, Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information
Robert Cox, The Post and Courier, Charleston, South Carolina
Executive Director
Julio E. Munoz, IAPA, Miami, Florida
Press Freedom Committee Coordinator
Carlos Molina, IAPA, Miami, Florida

CONTENTS
Prologue 9
Introduction 11
Message from the President 15
Report of the Committee 17
New Investigations
Colombia 19
Gerardo Bedoya Borrero 25
Jairo Elias Marquez Gallego 40
Brazil 52
Guida da Silva 56
Zaqueu de Oliviera 71
Pending Investigations 83
Irma Flaquer Azurdia 86
Jorge Carpio Nicolle 96
Hector Felix Miranda 103
Victor Manuel Oropeza 116
Carlos Lajud Catalan 122
Guillermo Cano Isaza 126
Battles 130
Hemisphere Conference 150
Roster of Distinguished Guests 172
Conference Resolutions 174
UNESCO Resolution 180
Documentation to the OAS 182
Special Report: Crime Against Jose Luis Cabezas 184
Resolutions 196
In Closing 220
7

Ernesto Sabato enjoys a relaxing moment in his garden in Buenos Aires.

No More
to Crimes Against Journalists
By Ernesto Sabato
I
have sometimes thought about how many pronouncements have been
uttered on the sacred rights of mankind throughout history and, in our
times, from those that the French Revolution enshrined to those set out
in the Universal Charters on Human Rights and in the great encyclicals
of this century. All civilized nations, including our own, have provided
in their constitutions guarantees that may never be suspended, not even
during the most catastrophic state of emergency — the right to personal
Ernesto Sabato
Born in Rojas, Buenos Aires province, Argentina, in 1911. Obtained his doctorate in Physics and
did postgraduate work in Philosophy at the University of La Plata; worked at the Curie laboratory,
then in 1945 gave up science to devote himself to literature. He has written several collections of
essays on man in crisis today and on the meaning of literature: Uno y el Universo (One and the Uni-
verse), 1945; Hombres y engranajes (Men and Machines), 1951; El escritor y sus fantasmas (The
Writer and His Ghosts), 1963; Apologias y rechazos (Vindications and Rejections), 1979. He is also
the author of the novels El tunel (The Tunnel), 1948; Sobre heroes y tumbas (On Heroes and Tombs),
1961, and Abaddon el exterminador (Abaddon The Exterminator), 1974. In 1983 he was elected
chairman of the National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons, set up on the orders of
Argentina's President RaUl Alfonsin. An outcome of the work of this commission was publication in
1985 of the startling book Nunca Mas (Never Again), which became known as the Sabato Report.
Sa bato was awarded the Cervantes Prize in 1984 and the Jersualem Prize in 1989. In the book Entre
la letra y la sangre (Between Word and Blood), 1989, he recalls his conversations with Carlos
Catania. Lo major de Ernesto Sabato (The Best of Ernesto Se bato), 1989, is en anthology whose
compilation, preface and comments were the author's own work. In 1998, he published his mem-
oirs, Antes del Fin (Before the End).
9

10 Impunity NO MORE— Unpunished Crimes Against Journalists
safety, the right to due process, the right to not suffer inhumane conditions
of detention, denial of justice or summary execution, but first and foremost.
the right to life. Nevertheless, man tragically continues being what he
is. And no technological or scientific advance has lessened such conduct,
because man's ethics and esthetics are not built upon the values of science
and technology, which do not even prevent his own planet from being
destroyed.
But responding to what the Inter American Press Association has asked
of me on this occasion, 1 will refer to the right to life and specifically to
the crimes committed against journalists, whose impunity and extent —
more than 200 in the last 10 years — justifiably alarm and concern the
IAPA. Bear in mind also that this form of "censorship" — the most archaic
and brutal to violate press freedom and freedom of expression — means
not only the disappearance of the messenger but also that of the message
itself, information; that is, the complete elimination of the essential role
of journalism.
Throughout my life I have fought in defense of human rights and
freedom of expression because I have no doubt whatsoever that without
freedom of the press there can be no democracy. And while I believe
it to be abominable and unacceptable for a journalist to be killed for
simply doing his duty to report, I also see it as morally and legally
unjustifiable for such a crime to go unpunished. That is why I wholeheart-
edly support the IAPA's Unpunished Crimes Against Journalists initiative,
which the Organization of American States (OAS) and the United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) have taken
up, giving it a worldwide projection. And I pledge, to the modest extent
of my abilities, to contribute to that projection, so that we can all say of
crimes against journalists, NO MORE!

Impunity — it's not
just a cause for journalists
By Anthony Lewis
A
free press is like a canary in a mine. Just as the canary's death sends
a signal that the miners are in danger, so the death of press freedom
means that a society is in danger.
For the press in Latin America, death is not a metaphor. It is a reality. In
the last decade some 200 reporters, photographers, editors and columnists
have been murdered. They were not covering wars or anything else that
might be considered especially hazardous. They were just doing their
regular job: trying to publish the truth. For that, they were sentenced
to death.
In most of those cases, the suspicion is that government officials,
Anthony Lewis
Columnist for The New York Times since 1969. He has twice won the
Pulitzer Prize: in 1955 for a series of articles on the dismissal of a Navy
employee and in 1963 for coverage of the Supreme Court. He worked
at The New York Times office in London. He was a Lecturer on Law at
the Harvard Law School for fifteen years, teaching a course on The Con-
stitution and the Press. He is author of three books: Gideon's Trumpet,
Portrait of a Decade and Make No Law: The Sullivan Case and the First
Amendment.
17

elements in the military or drug gangs were behind the murders. For the
victims had often spoken out against official crimes and corruption and
the viciousness of the narcotics entrepeneurs.
The suspicion of an official role in the murders is strengthened by the fact
— the chilling fact — that the crimes have not been solved. Investigations
have been thwarted by threats, official corruption and indifference.
Murder with impunity: That is the reality faced by Latin journalists
who do their job. What that means is that governments are unwilling
or unable to perform their most basic fuction, which is to maintain law
and order.
To a journalist like myself, who has spent his working life fearing little
but the anger of politicians and others whom he criticized, the idea of being
killed for uttering critical truths is shattering. So I felt at the Guatemala
conference of the Inter American Press Association in 1997, as 1 heard the
stories told by family members of the murdered journalists.
Irma Flaquer Azurdia, a Guatemalan newspaper columnist, was kid-
napped and disappeared, her fate unknown to this day. A telephone call
from the military warned her family not to investigate her disappearance
— or else. Jorge Garcia Laguardia said her kidnapping illustrated the aim of
the Guatemalan authorities at the time: "to eliminate civil society." Many
authoritarian governments in Latin America, he added, tried "under the
pretext of fighting Communism to eliminate all political opposition."
A broad movement toward democracy in Central and South America
has seen most of those authoritarian regimes replaced in recent years.
But democracy has only a fragile hold in some places. The forces that
dominated the old regimes still prevent the solution of crimes against
journalists.
Jorge Carpio Nicolle, a leading Guatemalan editor, died when 30 hooded
men ambushed his car on a remote country road in 1993. His widow,
Marta Arrivillaga de Carpio, told the conference: "They asked if he was
Jorge Carpio. Then they shot him. My husband fell in my arms." Mrs.
Carpio, who took over the editorship of the newspaper El Grafico, said the
police official in charge of investigating the killing was himself murdered
and evidence destroyed. All this at a time when Jorge Carpio's cousin,
Ramiro de Leon Carpio, was president of Guatemala.
Just before the 1997 conference a Mexican editor who had written about
the collaboration of drug traffickers and corrupt offcials, Benjamin Flores
Gonzalez, was machine-gunned to death. Guillermo Cano of Colombia,
who campaigned against the drug lord Pablo Escobar, was murdered.
A courageous news photographer in Argentina, Jose Luis Cabezas, was
murdered after he took a picture of a secretive businessman with suspect

The township of El Quiche in Guatemala, where
local people erected crosses marking the spot
where Jorge Carpio and his three companions
were murdered.
Introduction 13
connections.
June Erlick, of the David
Rockefeller Center for Latin
American Studies at Harvard
University, told the conference
about the IAPA inquiry in the
case of Jorge Carpio. "I felt as if
I were taking a college course,"
she said: "Impunity 101." That is
how I felt as witness after witness
at the 1997 conference described
the methods used to make sure
there was no real investigation of
these murders: corruption of the
police, destruction of evidence,
threats against the families of the
victims.
The Inter American Press
Association is fighting against
impunity in the murder of jour-
nalists. This book is part of that
fight, telling the story of what
has been done and of the work
that must still be done to bring
out the truth of these killings and end impunity.
But this is not just a cause for journalists. These men and women were
murdered to send a message to all in their societies: 'Do not disagree
with the powerful; do not speak out against evil.' To leave that message
unchallenged would be to accept the result, a silent society — a terrible
price to pay.
More is at stake than freedom of the press. Flagrant killing that goes
unpunished rots a society, destroying faith in law. Unsolved, these murders
testify to a culture of intimidation.

The Most Archaic
and Brutal Form
of Repressing Press Freedom
By Jorge Eduardo Fascetto
Today, on the threshold of the 21st Century, hundreds of our colleagues
are being murdered simply for voicing their opinions or carrying out
their duty to report the news.
More than 200 journalists were killed during the past decade while doing
their job. They became victims because their message was inconvenient for
those unscrupulous people who ordered or carried out their slayings. So,
in an age of rapid technological, scientific and institutional development,
the most archaic and brutal form of suppressing freedom of the press
and expression prevails. The unhappy experiences that have been recorded
demonstrate that the no-nonsense elimination of journalists is a truth-
Jorge Eduardo Fascetto
He is president of the Inter American Press Association 1998-1999. Editor
of the daily Diario Popular, Buenos Aires, Argentina, and chairman of the
board of directors of the daily El Dia, La Plata. He was vice president
of the Argentine National Publishers Association (ADEPA), vice presi-
dent of the executive committee of the Argentine National Inland Press
Association (ADIRA) and chairman of the board of directors of the news
agency Noticias Argentinas. He is a civil engineer, graduated from the
La Plata National University.
15

concealing tactic that is most difficult to eradicate.
The death of a journalist represents not only the physical disappearance
of the messenger, but also suppression of the message. The action blocks
the right to know of those who may have benefited from reading the
information the reporter hoped to share. In some way, the very future of
journalism is put in doubt by these crimes. At the same time, so is the
future of frustrated readers or listeners, whose life may have been changed
by the knowledge that has been denied them.
Through its Unpunished Crimes Against Journalists project, the IAPA
continues to draw the attention of international public opinion, govern-
ments and multilateral groups to the grave problem posed by resort to
murder in order to silence the men and women of the media. This practice
becomes even more heinous because of the entrenched impunity enjoyed
by the people who mastermind and actually carry out these crimes.
The purpose of the campaign, of course, is to bring the culprits to
justice. But it is also hoped that in solving crimes and the punishing those
responsible, potential murderers will be discouraged and an end will be
put to that disgraceful spiraling intention to intimidate the press and limit
the public's right to know.
(Excerpts from a speech in Bogota, Colombia, by Jorge Fascetto, president
of the Inter American Press Association, at a UNESCO meeting observing
World Press Freedom Day on May 3, 1999. The meeting focused world
attention, particularly that of other organizations dedicated to defending
and promoting press freedom, on the IAPA's Unpunished Crimes Against
Journalists project.)

The Battle Against
Impunity Goes On
By Alberto lbargfien
0
ver the years, the Unpunished Crimes Against Journalists project
has become a formidable weapon to combat impunity.
This book is a faithful record of that struggle, related through
the investigations of the murders and the detailed description of how the
IAPA attracted other organizations to join in the war against impunity.
The open battlefronts are many and decisive. The Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights has ruled on several complaints filed by the
IAPA. Meanwhile, UNESCO elevated the project to other regions of the
world through institutions that also promote freedom of expression.
None of this invaluable effort by the IAPA would have been possible
Alberto lbargiien
He is publisher of The Miami Herald and chairman of The Miami Herald
Publishing Co. He was publisher of El Nuevo Herald from 1995 to 1998.
He is currently chairman of the Committee on Impunity of the IAPA. He
held the position of executive vice president for operations of Newsday
and New York Newsday, having joined Times Mirror Company in 1984
as senior vice president for finance and administration of The Hartford
Courant. lbargiien previously practiced law in Hartford, Connecticut. He
served in Colombia and Venezuela as Peace Corps director. He is cur-
rently chairman of the Florida Philarmonic Orchestra.
17

without the generous support of the John S. and James L. Knight
Foundation during so many years.
It is true that today there is greater awareness of the devastating
consequences the rule of impunity brings to newsrooms, press freedom
and democracy. But it is also true that we cannot forsake this commitment.
We must continue to fight because, as Nobel Peace Prize laureate Rigoberta
Menchn declared, "we must join together to challenge impunity."
To keep faith with our duty and to follow through logically with this
project and the Hemisphere Conference of 1997, we will continue to fight
by undertaking more in-depth and systematic investigations through the
Rapid Response Units.
We are convinced that unending action against impunity and the
ceaseless quest for justice are the only deterrents that will bring an end to
the violence against journalists.

Colombia:
Introduction
By Ana Arana
C
olombia is the most dangerous country in the Western Hemisphere for a jour-
nalist. Paradoxically, it is also a country where some of the boldest journal-
ism is being practiced. Indeed, in these past three years the Colombian press
became the most daring at breaking stories that expose corruption. Such journalism
is most commonly found in the national media outlets based in the capital, Bogota.
But in recent times, provincial journalists have begun to practice similar hard-hitting
journalism.
The 1997 murders of Gerardo Bedoya and Jairo Elias Marquez reflect the price
such journalism sometimes demands. They worked in the cities of Cali and Armenia,
respectively, Marquez challenging corrupt local officials and Bedoya, drug traffickers.
Bedoya and Marquez were quite different. Bedoya was an erudite, brilliant and
Ana Arana
An investigative journalist, Arana is a fellow with the Center for War,
Peace and the News Media at New York University. She is also working
on a project at the Panos Institute in Washington, D.C., and has worked
for the IAPA. In 1992 she joined The San Jose Mercury News as a staff
reporter. She was a freelance with the New York Daily News, and from
1988 to 1991 worked as a foreign correspondent for The Miami Herald,
U.S. News and World Report, The Baltimore Sun and the Sun Sentinel,
reporting on Central America, Colombia and Venezuela. In 1994-1995,
she was program coordinator for the Americas for the Committee to Pro-
tect Journalists.
19

sophisticated writer. Marquez was an irreverent, foul-mouthed journalist whose
prose was ungrammatical and politically slanted. Both journalists were widely read
and influential in their respective cities, where they challenged power structures once
deemed untouchable. It is sad and grotesque that these journalists died in pursuit of
their missions. To allow their murders to remain unsolved would be worse.
Revelations of the Proceso 8000
Between 1995 and 1997, reporters and columnists in Bogota were expecting a
wide-ranging investigation into charges that the Cali drug cartel had penetrated
top levels of Colombia's political, business and social circles. The inquiry, known as
Proceso 8000, provided so many serious disclosures that key reporters and editors
from influential media took such precautions as using bodyguards and riding in
armored cars. The media disclosures and the judicial investigation shortened the
careers of many corrupt officials and private citizens.
Bedoya and Marquez were among those who dared to published the names of the
accused, just as was done in Bogota. Gerardo Bedoya was an editorial writer and
columnist for the daily El Pais in the western city of Cali. Marquez published a small
magazine in the coffee-growing city of Armenia. But their situation was different
from that of their colleagues in Bogota, because they lived "in the belly of the beast,"
as Bedoya' s girlfriend, Ximena Palau, used to tell him.
Bedoya was killed on March 20, 1997, apparently on orders of the Cali drug cartel.
In the case of Marquez, his death was believed to have been ordered by Senator
Carlos Alberto Oviedo, a congressman whom investigators tagged as corrupt and
with links to powerful drug traffickers.
Oviedo is currently being held in the Carcel Nacional Modelo in Bogota, charged
with ordering several murders. In late April 1999, Colombia's Supreme Court upheld
his detention. Although he is the main suspect in the Marquez murder, the evidence
is scant and he might not be formally indicted, according to knowledgeable legal
sources. Oviedo is also charged in the slaying of another journalist, Ernesto Acero
Cadena, in 1995.
The Bedoya murder probably involved not only the Cali drug cartel, but also
political cronies in Cali and Bogota. This murder investigation was transferred
to the attorney general's human rights unit, but there is no news of progress in
the case.
The Cali Cartel and its Cronies
The investigative network under which these two cases have been pursued is
"shaky" because most of the crimes against journalists were handed over to regional
(so-called "faceless") judges. The Colombian Congress currently is drafting legisla-
tion to end this system — while it remains unclear what is to become of evidence
already collected.
The Bedoya and Marquez murders have eroded the safety net for Colombian jour-
nalists, especially those working in provinces where drug cartels and corrupt officials
have great power. But the Bedoya murder touched more sensitive circles. Bedoya, a

New investigations in Colombia and Brazil 21
IATA:CgIVIA
,
if .
JAIRO ELiAS fi
MARQUEZ GALLEGO ,-/
MURDERED IN
ARMENIA, COLOMBIA 41 Medellin
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7 0 Bogota
COLOMBIA,,--
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GERARDO BEDOYA -,
BORRERO %,..,_
MURDERED IN
CALI, COLOMBIA i
Capital Bogota
Land area 1,138,914 kms°
Official language Spanish
Population 35,886,280
Population density 29.3 persons/km2
Urban population 73%
Life expectancy 69 years
Illiteracy rate 18.3%
President Andres Pastrana

top editor at Cali's leading newspaper, had close links with the Conservative Party
and especially to Andres Pastrami, Colombia's current president.
Rodrigo Lloreda, publisher of El Pais, and personal friend of Bedoya at the time
of his death, was the minister of defense early in the Pastrana administration. The
Bedoya investigation suggests the existence of a political cover-up. But this issue
has been shamelessly sidetracked by rumors that Bedoya was killed because he was
a closet homosexual.
If fully investigated, the Bedoya murder could spell trouble for members of the
former government of President Ernesto Samper. It is suspected the Bedoya murder
was planned and carried out by henchmen working for leaders of the Cali Cartel
who ordered the assassination as they were negotiating their surrender to Colombian
authorities or serving lenient prison sentences.
It is "berraquera" — bravery — that leads many Colombian journalists to continue
producing good reporting. Despite the risks, many journalists rise to the occasion.
Meanwhile, justice is thwarted by Colombia's cumbersome system of justice and
the government's lack of interest in vigorous pursuit.
Keeping up appearances
After the Inter American Press Association issued the first edition of Unpunished
Crimes Against Journalists in 1996, the administration of Ernesto Samper created a
special office as a watchdog of attacks against the press. The Office of Human Rights
(Consejeria para Derechos Humanos) was housed in an annex of the presidential
palace. But the special office fell far short of vigorously investigating the murders
of journalists. Beyond meeting with the families of victims, office staffers failed to
produce any significant findings.
They mostly engaged in public relations. "We are an office that promotes action,"
explained the lawyer in charge, Luis Manuel Lasso. When asked about the office's
record of investigating the murders of journalists, Lasso haugitily defended "the
dignity" of his office.
The office, for example, did not have updated information on the murder cases
the IAPA investigated in 1996 — Guillermo Cano, editor of El Espectator, killed
in 1986 and Carlos Lajud Catalan, a Barranquilla radio broadcaster slain in 1993.
These deficiencies were not the office's fault, Lasso asserted, but rather the result
of little interest shown by journalist groups in Colombia that refused to cooperate
with his office.
In truth, Lasso and his superiors seemed to have been more effective in thwarting
IAPA efforts to take the Cano and Lajud cases to the Inter-American Commission
on Human Rights. In its final two years, the Samper administration employed the
office to resist IAPA efforts in this regard.
The judicial branch of government has made some inroads in the investigations of
murdered journalists. The attorney general's office is seriously trying to investigate
the cases, but its actions have been far too broad in scope and limited in results.
A Human Rights Office, set up in 1995, is charged with investigating the murder
of journalists once it is determined that the crime was work-related. This office also
investigates all other human rights violations, which number in the hundreds in

a country torn by civil strife.
Rather than focus on the most recent journalist murders, the office proposes to
examine more than a hundred murders going back to the 1980s. Thus, new inquiries
have made little progress. In fact, before the IAPA met with the prosecutor in charge
of the unit, he believed the Bedoya case was progressing satisfactorily.
The office has reopened the Lajud investigation, which the IAPA investigated in
1996. But the new scrutiny has ignored old records, disregarding old testimony and
evidence. The IAPA brought the Lajud case to the attention of Attorney General
Alfonso Valdivieso, who has since retired.
On the positive side, seven years after the December 15, 1998, murder of Henry
Rojas Monje in Arauca, the first charge has been laid against the person who allegedly
ordered the murder. Retired army colonel DiOgenes Castellanos was detained for
prosecution by the nation's attorney general. Two soldiers under his command have
already been sentenced as the actual killers of Rojas Monje, who was a correspondent
for the Bogota daily, El Tiempo.
Why does impunity continue?
Impunity is a fact of life in a country where there are 36,000 violent deaths
a year. An inadequate justice system has failed to grow with the country's other
institutions.
In 1991, Colombia sought to introduce a more prosecutorial system that would
include public trials. But the achievement was the creation of the attorney general's
office and the so-called "faceless" justice system, in which judges and witnesses in
drug trafficking and terrorism cases were protected with anonymity.
These changes were financed with millions of dollars provided by the European
Community and the United States. Much of that money went into training and into
construction of the attorney general's headquarters, a multi-million-dollar marble
complex near the U.S. embassy on Bogota's outskirts. Also built was a hunker,
complete with metal detectors to protect judges and investigators.
But these changes do nothing for the dedicated judicial workers who labor in
decrepit buildings in Colombia's provincial cities. "Here we work in great fear," said
a judicial worker in the city of Armenia, as he explained the Marquez case. He asked
for anonymity so as not to violate the gag order imposed by the attorney general. One
investigator assigned to that regional office was slain a few months ago.
The Colombian justice system lacks proper checks and balances, especially in its
regional offices, which are only as good as the individuals who work there. In the
Bedoya case, for example, the investigation remains in a preliminary phase after two
years. Valuable evidence quickly disappears, witnesses grow leery of investigators.
The case has been moved to Bogota, but is not moving ahead.
The "faceless justice" system is managed by the regional offices. The system allows
witnesses to testify anonymously. "It is like the witness protection program [in the
U.S.]," said an American official familiar with the program. (Except that under the
witness protection program, a defendant knows his accuser; this is not the case
in the Colombian system.)
Nothing ensures the failure of an investigation more than bad detective work.

Colombian police units have received extensive investigative training from the U.S.
Federal Bureau of Investigation, Britain's Scotland Yard and other international
police units. Still, Colombia has not one single police unit responsible for investigat-
ing murders. Police from SIJIN, or local police unit, and other groups get involved
at the beginning of a case. But after they write their reports, the case moves to the
attorney general's office. As one officer involved in the Bedoya case put it, "One loses
the commitment acquired by being at the scene of the crime."
In the Bedoya case, for example, the SIIIN was first at the murder scene. The
case was later transferred to the attorney general's special Technical Investigative
Center (CTI), where different investigators were assigned. Because of Bedoya's
prominence, army intelligence and the Administrative Security Department (DAS),
a sort of Colombian FBI, also investigated. In the end, the CTI kept control of the
investigation. Leads that were important from the beginning were ignored or lost.
For instance, it is not positively known if Bedoya was killed by one professional hit
man or two killers. The attorney general's office also discarded a police sketch put
together by the first policemen to arrive at the crime scene.

New Investigations in Colombia and Brazil 25
Case: Gerardo Bedoya
erardo Bedoya approached the desk of Isabella Prieto, his colleague and pro-
tege at El Pais, with his column for the next day. "Think of a headline," he said
in his deep voice.
"He was pleased with himself that day," recalled Prieto. The column endorsed
extradition for drug traffickers, a touchy subject in Cali, where the Cali Cartel had
reigned for two decades.
Bedoya, a talented writer and provocative thinker whose work was not widely
known outside of Cali, was the fiery editor of the editorial page at Cali's El Pals.
"He had been writing very harshly about drug trafficking for months," added Prieto.
"We had told him to tone it down, but he kept doing it." In so doing, Bedoya
was violating an unwritten rule for journalists in Cali — avoid writing negatively
about the drug cartel.
Bedoya despised the five cartel leaders. His biweekly columns lashed out against
the drug kingpins, who pretended to be upstand-
ing civic leaders. He also thrashed those Calenos
who buckled to the traffickers' wishes. Bedoya
was an expert wordsmith whose language — ironic
and full of contempt — cut like a razor's edge. He
turned more daring every week.
The column that cost him his life ran February
27, 1997. Three weeks later, on March 21, Bedoya
was shot dead by a hired gunman in a darkened
street. It was the Cali Cartel's revenge. But it
seemed that the cartel wanted to kill not only
the man, but also his reputation. The murder
investigation has been plagued by half-truths and
delays provoked by suspicious rumors that Bedoya
was killed not because of his work but because
of a homosexual lovers' quarrel. The rumor was
unfounded — Bedoya was in fact nicknamed "crazy-
pecker," a slang phrase applied to womanizers.
What's disturbing, however, is that the prosecutor's
office has pursued this gay theory for so long,
while other evidence faded.
The insinuations have directly influenced the
government's investigation, slowing the proceed-
ings and leaving the case in total impunity more
Excerpts from the coloinn
"Textos" written by Girardo
Bedoya and published in El
Pais of Cali, Colombia:
"What most incenses me.
about-the insulting pres-
-ence of dtug‘traffiCkers
in Cali is the indifference,
'CoVvardice and tolerance.
Colelioi have displayed in
•ptitting up with these,Char-
aCters for 20 years: We• •
were.not capable,of free-
ing ourselves from their
clutches'on our own. WeVe
it not foi.the attorney 'gen-
eral and the 0ringOs, we
would.passively continue
to accept the wicked dOmi
nation of our city by the
tiatcO-traffiC."
4.January 1996

than two years after the murder.
Little Tolerance for the Narcos
The decision to kill Bedoya was probably made in 1995. That's the year Bedoya
began writing his harshest pieces about the cartel. Colombians were facing their
worst nightmare — drug-related corruption had reached the highest levels of
Colombia's political, business and social circles. Bedoya was impatient with his
countrymen's complacency toward the cartels. "We allowed them to prosper," he
would tell his friends.
He had little tolerance for drug traffickers. He even forbade his cook to shop at the
La Rebaja pharmacy chain, because it was owned by brothers Miguel and Gilberto
Rodriguez Orejuela, top leaders of the cartel.
In 1995, Colombia was shaken by disclosures that President Ernesto Samper
received six million dollars in campaign contributions from Cali drug traffickers.
The accusations were first revealed by Andres Pastrana, in a cassette he aired during
his first televised appearance on July 24, 1994, after having lost to Samper in
the presidential elections. The cassettes contained taped telephone conversations
between the Rodriguez Orejuela brothers describing their financial contributions to
Samper's presidential campaign.
"The Crusade:for Morality That was the beginning. Between 1995 and 1997
came together I had.: Colombia's attorney general, Alfonso Valdivieso,
not witnessed'se SUccess- launched an all-out campaign — known as Proceso
ful a suMmons'in,a' long 8000 — to unmask corruption in political circles.
time,...: Everyone wanted ' Dozens of politicians and businessmen charged
to shake off the collectiVe'' with receiving payoffs from drug traffickers were
indifference .r.. Group'or prosecuted and jailed. The process almost crippled
partisan interests were the government, but President Samper's political
not evident; what was:. astuteness kept him in office, despite strong public
evidentWas a repugnant anger and disgust. The Colombian Congress voted
rejection corruption and against charging him with improper behavior.
a debased demiticrecy Many members of the Colombian Congress feared
Personally, belieie thet that they, too, would be investigated.
the objectives should be. The process divided the Colombian population
clear and` unmistakable. between those who supported Samper and his
OVerturn the regime .. Liberal Party and those who wanted complete
untifthe'Presidentiesigus, accountability and Samper's resignation. Samper
..jhe Cauca Valley is did manage to complete his term and transferred
on its way to banning presidential powers to Pastrana in August 1998.
tolerance for the drug Samper clung to power by exploiting the dissat-
traffickirig.:. „ isfaction among Colombians over U.S. drug policy.
10.Ju.ne 1996 Colombians are fed up with U.S. pressure on what
(About the Camiiaign:bli'busi-: they consider their business. Many Colombians
nessmen to reject l!resident
argue that the United States unfairly focuses mostSamper and the-trafficking
in narcotics..) of its anti-drug efforts on the producer countries
and little on the U.S. consumers.

Profile
ElIA[11][113[1][111A13[11111[11
.(21 May 1941 --21 March 1997).
"The source of real power in Colombia: political cro-
nyism and narcOtra c. These two powerful factors
of power trap the government in its web, which is
to say nearly all the branches of public authority,
and prevent the general :good from taking prece- ,
dance over the political cronies."
— Gerardo Bedoya in his opinion page commentaries
published in El.Pqis,Cali, Valle province.
Place of Birth:
Santiago de Cali, Valle province
Age at death:
55
Marital Status:
Single.
Education:
Degrees in'lamancheccinomics from.
Santiago UniversitY, Cali.
Profession/Title:
Editorial pages,coordinatorrat the
newsPaper El Pais and-director of
the COloinbiari StticlieS Center,
owned by the National Conservative,
Journalirn background:
Had a long career in politics working
with conservative leader Alvaro
Gomez Hurtad6. Held the j6bs of
finance secretary for the city:of. Cali,
secretary of government for Valle
province, acting governor of Valle,
deputy finance minister, member of
the House of Represeritatives (elect,
ed twice) and minister plehipOtentia-
: ry before the European Union, based
in Brussels. Later entered jOurnalisrtr
as,Coetlitor of the newspaper; El
Nuevo'Silo,:of BOgota. From'there
he was recruited to edit the editorial
pages of El Pal§, a job he held for
five'years.
Social ActiVities and hobbips:
Had a permanent seat at the city's
bullring; was a member of the orga
niling Committee of Cali's Bullfight"
Fair; belonged to the City's prinCipal
social cltibs Spoke and read English`
perfectly; enjoyed travel to..explore
different places and particularly
liked:,going to"the, United States to
buy books.

Bedoya told his friends that the Colombian government never would have
investigated itself without pressure from the United States and the tenacity of
Attorney General Valdivieso, who took his job seriously. (Valdivieso is a first cousin
to Liberal Party presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galiian, who was assassinated
in 1989 by drug traffickers.) Bedoya's fateful February 1997 column touched on
all those issues.
Bcdoya was among a handful of journalists and columnists who wrote against
drug trafficking and Samper. Most of those journalists, however, were based in
Bogota, where there was less danger from the Cali Cartel. The national press based
in Bogota, in fact, covered much of the Proceso 8000 inquiry, spurred by leaks
from the attorney general's office, which wanted to keep the Samper administration
from hindering the scrutiny.
That Bedoya lived and wrote in Cali made his position almost suicidal. Most
Cali Cartel leaders were in prison by 1996, but their control over drug trafficking
was far from over. A review of Bedoya's columns and editorials of the time would
indicate he suspected the same.
According to former U.S. officials, the Cali organization orchestrated its downsiz-
ing a few years before its leaders surrendered. "The cartel was never conquered; they
just dismantled the large operations and splintered
"We:arknOt.aserioUS into several cells," said one official.
country; We allot/tieda With the fall of the Cali Cartel, the city of Cali
drug baron -whose lost much of the drug-connected investments that
.:escape was OrediCtable went into the construction and service industries.
cluejo: the 4rirMOusly The city's unemployment jumped to 18 percent.
C011iipting:OOWer of that The civic power the narcos exerted over the city
businest'7 to get away - began to evaporate. The police no longer stopped
inlbtood'daylight, Much, traffic along major streets to allow the traffickers'
- ;0 thistOtintrO,Shafiie motorized caravan to surge ahead. They also
.,:befOre:the.entire,wodd. stopped cordoning off the streets where Miguel
"We have deMonStrated Rodriguez Orejuela went to visit his mistress.
and undeKscOred befote Bedoya wanted steps taken to ensure the narcos
the world fact that will did not take over his city again. He supported
have Undeniable repercus- proposals to introduce strict money-laundering
:,,;tiOni: The Colombian state laws. He also hacked the controversial legislative
is:inbapahle of-keeping:: bill that would reinstate retroactive extradition
of Colombian citizens charged with crimes in
economic power who other countries, principally the United States. Hisare.
„acciiSetkof serious crimes. editorials pointedly agreed with the U.S. position.
The case ofpaplifaciibar On Jan. 18, 1996, he wrote: "The narco national-
tlemoOtr#ted it: The case' ism used the latent patriotism of Colombians to
Ail:joseSantacruz COri- abolish the extradition. They got rid of it by deto-
'thins it: nating bombs, using payoffs and spouting populist
12 January.1996 rhetoric. Our sovereignty! Beautiful words can
(Following ptisop have foolish meanings. We never should have
escape.. of Cali cartel thrown away that key. Extradition was a club that
":: „ 4Ose:Santacitg:),: dissuaded. It was an ultimate option for a weak

New Investigations in Colombia and Brazil
Conditions in Colombia at the, Time the.Murder.
. .
President:.
Ernesto Samper Pizano
Ruling Political Party:
National Liberel•Party
Political Conditions in Country or Region:
A few days before Bedoya's murder, the attorneY general's office'huFre-,opened'
the judicial proceedings against President Sarriper‘The most radical sectors
of the opposition favored removing the president because of char6es that his
presidential Campaign had acCepted illegal contributions.
Case: Details:
29
Date of the 'Murder:
'21 March 1997
How and Where Murdered:.:....:. . :
Afterwaiting more than a half-hour
for his. girlfriend in front of .a resi
dential.complex, a man approached
him..as she returned. The man fired
four shots froM a 9mm pistol at
Bedoyb's head through the window
of Bedoya's car. The.essailant fled
on foot a few yards to a.iiehicle,that
was Waiting for hire!:
Possible Motives:
Column's writtehby'Bedoya against
org'anized crime and its infiltration
into the political Class 6f hie'province
(Valle), and.the Cali drug cartel's infil-
frationof the Samper administration.
Presumed culpriti and 6ccomplices:
The case file drily contains polipe
sketches of the assassin; theauthori
ties have not managed toideritifyor
apprehend him. The main suspects
are.members of drug organiiations in
Valle province:.
Violent Consequences:
- Uri0own.
Prodedural Irregulafities:
Despite having MultiOle.leads linking
RedoYefs murder to his. WritingS, the
regional: prosecutOr in ,Cali spent two
yeals pUrsiiing an alleged crime of
passion theory that it was unable
to: prove even circumstantially: The
investigation,coordinators at the
office of the‘national attorney gen,
era! began to redirect the:probe in.
Apri1,1999.

and financially poor country, which must defend
itself from criminals who are more powerful and
richer than it is. I never believed that extradition
violates our sovereignty."
At the same time, U.S. Senator Jesse Helms, chair-
man of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
urged President Clinton to decertify Colombia.
And John Deutsch, the director of the Central
Intelligence Agency, declared that the Colombian
crisis and Samper's involvement in narco-corrup-
tion had created a serious challenge for U.S. poli-
cy.
"There is a silent threat from the drug traffickers,"
said Luis Canon, who is now the news editor of
the Bogota daily El Espectador. Bedoya apparently
misjudged the danger.
The Cali drug kingpins had received relatively
light maximum sentences of nine years' imprison-
ment, but they did fear extradition.
Pro-narco graffiti appeared on walls around the
city. The narcos were willing to serve prison time
in Colombia and to turn over a fraction of their
considerable wealth, which Forbes magazine had
estimated among the top 100 fortunes in the world.
But they would never accept the measures Bedoya
supported — full forfeiture of properties obtained
with drug money and retroactive extradition.
Bedoya's support of the U.S. position — extradite the traffickers to the United States,
because Colombian jails were not reliable enough — ensured his death sentence.
Columns such as one he wrote following the escape of Jose Santacruz Londono,
another Cali leader, from a maximum-security prison, added fuel to the fire.
"In Colombia, the maximum security prisons are actually maximum-insecurity
prisons," he wrote.
The anti-Samper Lecture
Bedoya may have been singled out for murder as early as December 1995,
around the time Cali cartel leaders began planning their surrender. Police had
reinforced security for leading journalists in Bogota, but they ignored journalists
in the provinces. Bedoya drove around Cali in an unpretentious Volkswagen Golf
I.eopoldo, 50, had been his driver for several years.
Bedoya longed for his city to become civic and law-abiding. "He constantly said
you had to remind people of what was right," said his cousin Hugo Borrero.
On January 6, 1996, he wrote: "This city could be better than it is. It could be
what it should be. It could regain its tranquility ... it could reaffirm our sense of
community. It could exile the narcos. It's easy, including the latter, if there is the
"The surrender and subse-
' quent detention of Helmer
:Pacho" Herrera will be a
victory for the authorities
provided the prosecutor's
office and the judges can
prove the crimes and the
alleged drug trafficker
receives a fitting
sentence.... Although it's
true that the top leaders
identified by the authori-
ties are in jail, it has not
yet been confirmed that
the drug trafficking activ-
ities they promoted have
ceased...: It would not be
unusual, as demonstrated
in Medellin, that some of
the bosses continue to.
manage the business from
prison."
3 September 1996
(On the surrender of the last
top boss of the Cali Cartel.)

New Investigations in Colombia end Brazil 31
official and collective will to do it."
His column about Diego Maradona, the famous Argentine soccer player, amounted
to an indictment against drug trafficking: "Maradona is providing youngsters a
great service. Why? Because he speaks the truth. Drugs are had; drug addiction is a
hell-hole and a tragedy .... In a (recent) interview Maradona said the death penalty
should exist for drug traffickers."
Bedoya came to despise President Samper.
Bedoya's first columns on Samper's involvement with the Cali cartel were direct,
but respectful.
"It is not easy to resign. But to do so would be a conscious act for which the
Colombian people and future generations would thank Ernesto Samper," he wrote
in January 1996.
His columns soon became caustic. When the Colombian Congress began to
investigate Samper in June 1996, and it seemed obvious that Samper had cut deals
with influential congressmen to thwart the process, Bedoya wrote:
"What next? The President does not want to go .... It is not improbable that we will
tire of this confrontation, that we will accept with resignation that although there
was narco money, it is better if the president remains in office .... But this attitude
is suicidal for a country now offered the best opportunity to cleanse its democracy
and make a deep and sincere examination of the
dangers of drug trafficking."
In September 1996, heroin was discovered in
the presidential plane that was to take Samper to
the United Nations in New York. Samper's govern-
ment said the heroin was part of a conspiracy by
the United States. Bedoya wrote: "Let's not get
carried away with speculations; let's not make up
so many excuses. The heroin in the presidential
plane was just another episode in Colombia's drug
trafficking tragedy ... the drug traffickers were
trying to send another shipment to the United
States, taking advantage of the presidential plane's
immunity."
Bedoya believed in his mission. "It's the job of us
poor journalists to rebuild hope," he wrote.
The Last Assignment
One of Bedoya's girlfriends, Ximena Palau,
warned him when she thought he was being too
extreme. "I kept saying, 'Keep your mouth shut.
You live in the belly of the beast,' " she said.
Bedoya did not tell her about his February 1997
column before it ran.
When Rodrigo Lloreda, then editor of El Pais
and now defense minister, read the column, alarm
"Soccer is a passion. It's
also possible for the pas-
sion of a people to be
manipulated by dark inter
ests. I suppose_that most
of. Atherica's fans don't
care that now-admitted-
drug traffickers were the
owners of their team for
nearly 20 years....
"The fans' passion super-
sedes everything else.
They don't care what color
the cat is as long as it,
catches mice. And that has
been Colombia's problem
— both political and eco-
nomic = for the past sever-.
al years. Virtually nobody
has cared about the cat's
color; what matters is that
it have money."
— 29 June 1996
(About America, Cali's
soccer team, owned
by the Cali Cartel.)

o coe en el IVIagntena.
TEXT06
ahora si?
GFFARDO B .o(),61 BORREP,;)
Despues de eats los ministraa de dustieiti y In graves la,,eolumniatna no pxiemus ser aguas
- Cansiller dieron deelaraniones proextradi- tibias y debemos asumir posiciones, debo
- • , ..Ar man mi nosicia'n es la misma que la del
'FMK
La heroina no heroica
GL 400 BE.COYA BORRERO Presidenie sea simplemente una
del nareutralico, no importa aqua cartel per-
; tene,..a. El narentratieu todo lo compra v
• 01.1%171,1, 0e met ieron en el nvi6it del
:arias taiga, ...:aneculacionen ) Presidemn porque no hay oiler!, que los
Larucu le nci,s.ea nn abran institucida quo no pen,-aina'.-n el a..i6o prosicencial es al / 1 v71 metier. en grande en la campuimurns e vpoaidio rub, in tragediacaban. pi ,Ick,ncial.i.por qm, no p,,dian desliiii mle'an del nen:. 1: 'ugar de 214.11,11. ; curl ay Ailr. nficia, mid 'n..,:ciente?
DEA y a la CIA um-.r.aberle Phe r•'+
Por Sodas ester canoes hay que decrotar
la total intoleraneia frontal al name/Jaen
o nos ha hecho ningun Laen m stumera en
la econonda, comp erranca e ingenuamente
piensa.Fumeat.4 tom economic especula-
t,va, no production, basada primordialmen-
te en la comps de inventarios
impu E••. :a ;!innanda a niveles deli-
ntes, porque no estahn fundado eua
Clippings from the, daily newspaper El Pais, in which Gerardo Bedoya published:his opinion
"The Process 8000 has been educational. Foremost, the public has been
forced —:for the first time,in many years — to focus on an important issue.
Now they say they're fed up with it all, but that's how it had to be....
The Process 8000, with its mechanism to uncover and seek out scandal,
has shed needed light into the crevices and shadows of Colombia's democ-
racy. All those instances of political corruption and drug-traffic infiltration
were suspected and sensed. Today, they have been exposed to public view
with terrifying clarity. No one should doubt any more that Colombian politics
are corrupt, in large measure, to thecore."
— 7 March 1996
bells rang.
Shortly before, Lloreda had asked Bedoya to soften his prose. A mild-mannered
man, legendary for his equanimity, Lloreda's family had founded El Pais. The daily
is modern and well-written. But it was not Lloreda's style to attack the traffickers
frontally.
Lloreda called Bcdoya at home late at night and insisted on editing the column,
according to employees at the daily. He changed the headline and took out references
to the Rodriguez Orejuela brothers. Despite those changes, the column remained
the most provocative item in next morning's newspaper. Even the headline was
aggressive: "Let them call me pro-Yankee." The lead paragraphs said:
.:column:7Testos.7

"I prefer the pressure of the United States to the
pressure of the narcos. I prefer American influence
over our government to the influence of the drug
traffickers. I prefer the United States intervening
in our internal affairs to the drug cartels.
"U.S. pressure has led to the following: 1) A
money-laundering law. 2) Longer prison terms
for traffickers. 3) Greater security in jails, so
criminals don't do whatever they want. 4) The
fumigation of thousands of hectares of poppy and
coca fields. 5) The resurgence of the extradition
topic as a legitimate issue, and not as a taboo that
is untouchable and prohibited. 6) The creation
of a public awareness that recognizes the damage
drugs have caused the Colombian political system
and society as a whole.
"Drug trafficker pressure on our government
and our society has led to the following: 1) A
penal code written under the influence of, and by
lawyers working for the traffickers. 2) Ridiculous prison sentences handed down
to those criminals. 3) Elimination of extradition (of Colombians) as a tool to
fight international crime. 4) Political corruption ... 7) Financial contributions to a
presidential campaign that won the elections."
Bedoya's friends still shudder when they re-read that column.
Bedoya had become the only loud dissenting voice in Cali. Another Cali journalist
who dared earlier was Raid Echavarria Barrientos, assistant editor of Cali's other
daily, Occidente. He was killed in 1986, two days after his newspaper ran an editorial
endorsing a proposal by former U.S. President Ronald Reagan seeking the death
penalty for drug traffickers.
His Personal Life
Ximena Palau said she almost cried the next morning when she read the pro-
Yankee column. "I knew he had signed his death sentence," she said in a choked
voice. "You had to be in Cali to understand the enormity of the headline and the
column's content."
Interviewed in Bogota, where she now lives, Palau is angry about the lack of justice
in the case. Palau shows a picture of her and Bedoya standing in front of New York
City's Lincoln Center. Bedoya was passionate about the opera and classical music.
The snapshot was taken in the fall of 1996, at a high point in their romance. She
recalls his passion for buttoned-down Brooks Brothers' shirts and Bally loafers, his
love for Cuban cigars. She is not as forthcoming about his love for women. Never
married, Bedoya had a weakness for beautiful women. There were a lot of "widows"
at his funeral, said his cousin Borrero. "He managed to remain friends with all his
girlfriends, and they all showed up at the funeral."
When he died, Bedoya was with another woman, a beautiful brunette named
"I don'tiose any sleep over
certification; but the
President should. The eco-
nomic consequences will
be much graver .... I don't
lose sleep because some-
how we could see it
coming. We are a narco-
democrady; the power of
drug trafficking still stands
in Colombia. We have yet
to reflect fully about the
intrinsic evil that the nar-
co-traffic spawns with its -
inevitable aftermath of vio-
lence and corruption."
- 30 May 1996-
(About decertification)

Maria Eugenia Arango, who was scarcely known in Bedoya's circle. A divorcee with a
small daughter, she loves gold jewelry and bullfights. His friends suspect she knows
more about the murder, but she refused to talk to the IAPA.
Suspicions about Arango have deepened among Bedoya's friends since they learned
she told police he was gay and did not have sexual relations with women. Her
statements are contradicted by his former girlfriends, including Ximena Palau. But
the Cali investigators, who remain in charge of the case, have accepted Arango's
assertions as truthful. Cali is a conservative tropical city, where Bedoya's long-term
bachelor status was viewed with suspicion. The insinuations anger Palau and Borrero.
They have refused to talk to the police while they pursue this line of inquiry.
The police in turn say the family is uncooperative, alleging that is why the case
remains unsolved.
"It is a crude deduction made by those who never knew him," said Borrero. "I would
not care, except it has slowed down the investigation. It is the perfect tactic, which
makes me believe even more that his murder is part of a larger conspiracy."
Palau, an elegant woman of 36, says she has never been with a man as manly
as Bedoya. "Do you think we would cover that up if (the rumor) were true and
provided a key to solving his murder?" she asked.
A known womanizer, Bedoya did not wish to marry. "He liked living alone,"
Borrero said. "In fact, I thought that was the right choice because he was neurotic
and impossible to live with; he would have driven any woman crazy." Every year,
Bedoya would tell his friends that "this year" he would get married, but he never
did.
Bedoya lived in a city known for beautiful
women and nightclubs, but he was not a "tropical
man." He preferred classical music, poetry and
books. His was among the best personal libraries
in Cali. He escaped often to New York City for
cultural stimulation. Indeed, he was planning to
fly there the week he was killed. Bedoya frequently
complained about the lack of intellectual compan-
ions in Cali. When Palau moved to Bogota for
her job, he lost one of his partners for good
conversation.
Bedoya held various political positions in Cali
and Bogota at the time the Conservative Party
was in office. When Bodoya died he was president
of the Cali chapter of the Centro de Estudios
Colombia nos, a conservative think tank.
A romantic at heart, Bedoya's character was
significantly molded by a strict Jesuit education
at a boarding school in Rochester, N.Y., where he
spent three of his high school years. He was a
fan of Ruben Dario and Baudeliere, and recited
sonnets and poems by other French and English
writers from memory. He loved to talk endlessly
"A cultureof.presidential
stability exists in our
midst. But public opinion
must not become infected
with that Colombian mal-
aise — Resignation. That
attitude has led us to toler-
ate and forgive everything.
At the root of this crisis
is something very different.
At stake now is our con-
science face-to-face with
trafficking in narcotics. It
is a decisive moment for
Colombian society to deter-
mine once and for all
whether it will accept or
reject drug trafficking."
20 June 1996
(Following thetriat in the
Colombian Congress to
deterMine if
President Samper should
remain in office.)

• 52 P4G;,.44•5
Now Investigations in Colombia and Brazil
ERNES
ASESINADO
PERIODISTA
:cot-
olitA
35
Fzbri $400.00
about science, politics and the arts. After his death, colleagues found a hand-written
notebook full of thoughts about life, citizenship, marriage, solitude and happiness.
In this computer age, Bedoya still used a portable Remington, like the ones foreign
correspondents carried around the world decades ago. An insomniac, he took two-
hour showers every day, while he mapped out the day's work and topics he would
write about, according to Palau.
Bedoya was a hard person to like. An extremist in his likes and dislikes, he loved
or hated people and treated them likewise. Even in death, there are people who
still hate him. Others can't hold back their tears as they remember his neurotic
personality and his sense of humor.
Juanita, a young black woman, was his cook. Bedoya had a special relationship
with her and her two children. It was an uncommon relationship in Cali, where
racial divisions are stark. "I pray to him when something wrong happens to me,
because I know he will help me," she said. "Pie was a great senor who did not
deserve to die like that."
Bedoya had his favorites at the newspaper. One of them was Diego Martinez,
the news editor. "Gerardo was amazing. I loved him very much and it pains me
to think about his death," said Martinez, closing his eyes as he looked at taped
news clips of the murder.
Bedoya dated several women. But according to his friends, he never dated women
who were not upper class. The exception was Maria Eugenia Arango, the mysterious,
beautiful woman he met at Cali's bullfighting fair in December 1995.

36 Impunity NO MORE — Unpunished Crimes Against- Journalists
...Political patronage and The Crime
the traffic of narcotics are
the real source of power
in Colombia. These two called Bedoya at his office. His office was enclosed
Shortly before 4 p.m. on March 20, Arango
by glass panes, open at the top. His secretary,mighty factors of power
Isabella Prieto, and reporters who sat nearby couldensnare the state in its
always hear his conversations, carried on in aweb — that is, nearly all the
loud voice. Arango asked Bedoya to take her apart-branches of public author-
ment hunting because her car was not working.ity — and prevent the com-
Everybody remembered it was Arango, becausemon good, which is the
ever since Bedoya brought her to the newspapercore concern of the state
shortly after meeting her, she had become theand the juridical order,
subject of vivid interest among the newspaper'sfrom taking priority over
staff.the interests of political
"I still remember the clay she entered the news-clients and drug traffick-
room," said Martinez. "All heads turned. She wasing...."
stunning and young." Few of Bedoya's close family19 September 1996
(About impunity and law- and friends knew Arango. She is still friendly with
lessness in Colombia.) his sister, Clara, but Bedoya didn't get along well
with his sisters.
Tall, tanned and with green eyes, Arango captured Bedoya's interest at the
bullfights. In 1995 she bought two seats next to Bedoya's reserved spots. Bedoya was
annoyed by his sister's decision to sell her two seats in the exclusive area occupied by
the family, one of Cali's elite. Tradition requires that these seats pass from generation
to generation. Few nouveau riche can gel in.
But his anger subsided when he saw Arango in one of those seats. While Arango
supposedly had little money then, she is said to have spent $2,000 for season passes.
Clara Ines, Bedoya's sister, denied in an interview that she was the one who decided
to sell the seats to Arango. She claimed that Bedoya had introduced Arango to her
and asked that the seats go to Arango. But other friends and relatives of Bedoya said
he met Arango at the bullfights.
Bedoya attended a birthday party for the newspaper's business manager the
evening of March 20, 1997. He left the daily's headquarters at 7:30 p.m. His friends
never saw him again alive.
Bedoya's driver took the red Volkswagen to a gated community in south Cali
where Arango lived with her mother and daughter. Arango took a few minutes to
come down. Bedoya waited in front of the entrance gate, a dark area where he
walked in a circle for 10 minutes to exercise. His friends wonder why the killer did
not follow him and kill him there.
According to what the driver told authorities, when Arango finally appeared, they
took off for Multicentro, on Calle 87 and Carrera 12, another gated community
a few minutes away by car.
Arango and Bedoya got out of the car and entered the complex through the entry
gate; they were going to see an apartment. The street light was not working — it had
inexplicably gone out that very day, leaving the entire area dark. The guard told the
driver to park a few meters away. Thus when Arango and Bedoya exiled through the

37
gate a few minutes later, they had to walk a short stretch along a row of trees to reach
the car. A man jumped suddenly from the shadows and shot five times straight at
Bcdoya. The killer wore a white T-shirt and a baseball cap.
The killer shouted, "Bedoya, you faggot..." as he emptied his pistol (another hint
that has led the police down the homosexual love tryst theory). Bedoya took five
bullets below the abdomen and fell mortally wounded on the pavement. Arango
threw herself on the ground, while the driver cowered inside the car. The gunman
casually walked toward the corner and fled on a motorcycle. Police versions vary
as to whether it was one or two killers. Detectives at the scene said the crime was
committed by professional hitmen.
"They shot to kill," one police source said. The killer walked away calmly. No one
tried to stop him. He strolled around a wall, and witnesses heard a motorcycle take
off. Police believe a second man was waiting on the bike.
The Investigation
The Bedoya murder triggered public outcries in Cali and elsewhere in Colombia.
Hundreds of mourners clad in black crowded his funeral. Every major newspaper
carried a front-page story on the assassination. Fellow columnists dedicated entire
columns in his honor. The immediate response was to blame traffickers from the
Cali area.
Bedoya was selected to receive the Maria Moors Cabot Award posthumously.
Rodrigo Lloreda traveled to New York City to accept the award, given every year
by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. The certificate is on
display at the Gerardo Bedoya Study Center in the basement of El Pais' Cali
headquarters.
More than two years after Bedoya's murder, the
stages. Many people seem to just want it to go away.
Some of the slain journalist's former colleagues at
the paper were interested in talking. But Lloreda
refused to meet with the IAPA. Similarly, the
daily's head of security would not cooperate. The
security chief, responsible for coordinating the
investigation at the paper, only hinted that many
other angles needed to be explored.
Cali's Palace of Justice is a somewhat rundown,
mint-green structure built like a maze in the 1950s.
The regular court system is on the bottom floors. It
also houses the offices of Cali's regional prosecutor,
who represents a parallel justice network set up
in 1991. to take on drug trafficking and terrorism
cases. One of six regional offices in Colombia,
it operates within the "faceless justice" designed
to protect judges and witnesses at a time when
more than 200 judges had been killed by drug
traffickers.
investigation is still in the early
'incidents are occurring in
Colombia.that are typical
of a police regime.or
'totalitarian state. The
state's security services
should not inspire,terror
in the citizenry nor should
they persectite, for
Careasons, domestic or
foreign journalists.
227;FebruarY 1996
. (Following the detention.ot
an American-journalist by
Colombia's DAS police:force.
The journalist was searched:
and documents related to
the drug money scandal
were seized and copied.)

The office is headed by Lucas Pulido, a small-framed civil servant with a studious
face. To enter Pulido's office, a visitor must pass through a metal detector and hand
identification to his bodyguards. This office handles all delicate cases involving drug
trafficking and terrorism in the Department of Valle in western Colombia. Pulido
had the Bedoya case from the beginning, until it was transferred to the human
rights unit of the attorney general's office in Bogota. There's no news of how the
inquiry is progressing.
The Bedoya case fell into a shaky investigative system because most of the
crimes against journalists were assigned to regional judges (faceless). The Congress
currently is drafting legislation to end the system, but it's not yet clear what will
happen to the evidence gathered so far.
In the past, a faceless judge managed the voluminous case, file — about 500
pages — and kept it protected from public scrutiny, as required by the Colombian
legal system.
In Pulido's office, Esperanza Leal, who coordinates the work of the faceless judges,
defends the slowness of the investigation. "We have no real suspects," she explained.
"We're working with four hypotheses," but adds that Bedoya's family is to blame
for the lack of progress. "We can't get the family to talk to us. The family knows
why he was killed."
The investigators have focused on the homosexual angle, without even inquiring
about the drug trafficking connections. "What he wrote was not that important,"
Leal said. "We see no reason for traffickers to target him."
"He was not an important writer," asserted the press secretary, Jorge Mahecha. "His
editorials did not move public opinion. He was not writing the worst things about
drug trafficking. There were others," he pointed out almost triumphantly. Pulido
and the woman appeared uncomfortable.
Who are the other writers in Cali? Puzzled, Mahecha looked around the room and,
with a grin, said: "Well, there's Rodrigo Lloreda."
Because of the delays, leads have dried up, hampering a fair and complete
investigation. The investigators followed many leads provided by Arango. According
to the special prosecutor's office in Cali, Arango presented herself as one of Bedoya's
principal girlfriends. She told police that Bedoya did not have a sexual relationship
with her and that she did not believe he had had any with other women. In
corroboration, she named another of Bedoya's friends, a man whose truthfulness
Bedoya's cousin questioned. The investigators have rejected any Arango involvement
in the crime because, they say, Bedoya wanted to give her an apartment. "Why would
she have him killed if he was going to support her?" Leal asked.
Hugo Borrero, the cousin, said Bedoya would never offer such a deal to anyone.
"He was a tightwad," he said.
Some Irregularities
The current investigators have overlooked even the most elemental rules of police
work. For example, there was no follow-up on the sketch of the potential killer,
which was drawn based on testimony from eyewitnesses. Both Pulido and Leal said
their office considers such sketches useless to an investigation.

"Frankly, in Colombia, sketches based on eyewitnesses don't work," Leal said.
"We all look like Indians. We all look alike, so how are we going to find the
suspects?" she said, smirking. "These sketches are useful only in exceptional cases,"
Pulido added.
Is there hope for the Bedoya case? "We'll see, but we have hundreds of other cases
like this one," said Leal, shrugging her shoulders.
Borrero, a towering man with white hair and beard, was Bedoya's first cousin and
best friend. He and Bedoya knew each other's secrets. He believes the investigation
raises the question of conspiracy, most probably by drug traffickers. "First they kill
him. Now their aim is to assassinate his character," he said.

Case: Jairo Elias Marquez
j
airo Elias Marquez died a death that was tragic and much too common among
journalists in Colombia — he was shot to death by two hired killers who surprised
him in a darkened, gritty street in the city of Armenia on November 20, 1997. He
was killed by hit men who approached from behind as he prepared to enter his car,
parked at the corner of Carrera 22 and 22nd Street, and shot him three times. They
fled on a motorcycle.
Marquez was the second journalist killed in the last three years in this city
otherwise known for its lush coffee farms and temperate weather. Armenia is in
Quindio Department (state), 190 miles west of Bogota, the capital.
According to the Freedom of the Press Foundation of Colombia, the following
journalists have been murdered in Quindio: Uriel Rios Tamayo, of radio Cadena
Stiper, on August 30, 1979; Jos& Eladio Arredondo, president of the Press Club,
on February 30, 1990; Ernesto Acero Cadena, of the publication Informador
Socioeconomic° del Quindio, on December 12, 1995.
Like so many journalists in the provinces, Marquez was irreverent and partisan
in the political criticism he published in his magazine, El Marques. He blended a
mixture of news, rumors and attacks on many local politicians. He wrote most
of the magazine himself, with the help of several friends he identified in every
issue by their nicknames: The Monk (El Mollie), The Skinny Guy (El Flaco), The
Camel (El Camello), and The One Who Gets Us Out of Trouble (El Que Nos
Saca de Lios).
El Marques Copies Flew off the Stands
The 20-page magazine, written in regional slang and foul language, contained
political banter of the type more often heard at the local cantina than seen in print.
But the 3,000 copies of El Marques went fast when they were distributed throughout
the city every two weeks.
Marquez was planning to launch a second magazine to focus on regional politics,
evidently with the backing of some Liberal Party politicians. The day he was
killed, Marquez was coming out of a printing shop where he had discussed the
new publication.
"I've known him since he was born," said Hugo Forero, the owner of the Indusellos
print shop. "He was talking with me, and he even asked me for help in finding the
right name for the weekly he was going to start in the next few days. He was in
my store for only a few minutes. Then I heard three pops, like firecrackers. I went
out of my shop and saw my friend lying in a pool of blood. I ran and cradled his
head. He tried to talk, but he died."

11111 EARS MAI10.11E/ GALLEG
(12 May 1956 - 20 November 1997)
"For some years now we have been noting in
Quindio department (state) a rare political phenome-
non within the Liberal Party — the politicking of cer-
tain party members who call themselves Liberals
but when it comes to the point when they have to
face the facts, they bury their heads in the sand like
ostriches..
— Editorial in El Marques, first half
of August 1997 (Jairo Elias Marquez)
Place of Birth.:
Calarca, Cluindio province
Age at Death:
42
Marital: Status:
Separated for ayear from Marleni
Moreno, to whom he was married for
five years:
Children:
Jairo Elias, 4; Salome
Education:
Learned journaliSm by working free-::
lance for loCal,radio stations.
ProfeSsion/Title:,
Editor, reporter and owner of El „
Marques inagazjne.
Journalism background:
Started working as an announcer
for RadigEstrella in 1980; became
a reporter and correspondent in
Armenia for Radio Super news
network and later for the Todelar
network. Joined the Armenia
newspaper E1 Meridiano de cluindlo,
as a reporter before launching his
own magazine
Years of experience in journalism:
17
Social Activities/Hobbies:
Played the guitar and sang regional
songs in verse ("trova0.
Marquez had been obsessed for several years with unseating State Senator Carlos
Alberto Oviedo, an influential local politician and lawyer for convicted drug
traffickers. Every issue of the magazine was full of gossip, innuendo and news briefs
about Oviedo and his allegedly corrupt practices. Some allegations were so serious
that Marquez was asked to testify before the local prosecutor.
A few months after Marquez' murder, Oviedo was arrested and implicated in
two other murders.

42 impunity NO MORE— Unpunished Crimes Against Journalists
The Supreme Court of Justice is investigating charges that Oviedo was the man
behind the murder of an agent of the attorney general's technical investigative
unit. He is also charged with the alleged murders last November of Guillermo
Acosta Botero and Fernando Celis Franco and the kidnapping and murder of Luis
Javier Alzate.
The warrant for Oviedo's arrest was upheld by Colombia's Supreme Court in
April 1999.
The sober talc of Armenia illustrates what has gone wrong in some of Colombia's
provincial cities, where dark alliances between drug traffickers and local politicians
combine to turn journalism into a deadly craft. Investigators say Marquez was not
killed because he attacked drug traffickers, as in the case of Gerardo Bedoya, who
was killed by the Cali Cartel in 1997. Rather he was eliminated because he criticized
corruption allegedly condoned and supported by Oviedo and his political cronies.
Marquez supported Oviedo during his early years as congressman, but later he
turned away, disenchanted by the violence associated with the politician.
Others argue that Marquez had political intentions of his own and used his
magazine to praise friends and criticize enemies. Jairo Eliecer Orozco of Radio
Cadena Nacional is a respected Colombian journalist who had disagreements with
Marquez. According to Orozco, "Marquez told many truths about Oviedo in his
magazine, but he erred sometimes because of his strong ties with other politicians
who were lighting Oviedo." Marquez had backed Quindio Governor Belem Sanchez
Caceres, who got elected with Oviedo's help. Sanchez later turned against the
senator.
A Simple Man
Marquez, 42, a tall man with deep brown eyes, had big dreams. He wrote and
published his bi-weekly magazine out of his printing business called Impactar.
Known by his pen name, Marques, he took up journalism only in recent years. As a
young man, he briefly considered a career as a singer, but his voice led him instead
into broadcasting. He became a radio disc jockey for local music stations.
By the time he started the magazine, political criticism had become his passion.
"He loved to write everything he heard," said his wife Marleny Moreno, with whom
he had two children. They were separated at the time of his death, and he was
living with a younger woman.
Marquez was careless, said Moreno, reproachfully."Knowing that he had children,
he still wouldn't listen to advice about taking care regarding the things he wrote."
Moreno continues to publish El Marques, but the edge is gone. In the magazine's
20th anniversary issue, five months after Marquez's death, she wrote: "And because
it is Christmas time, we ask you, God, that you guide all journalists so their writings
are liked by everybody. Amen." Marquez on the other hand would always say his job
was to tell the truth, whether people liked it or not.
Marquez' office is at the back of the printing shop, behind rolls of paper. It is a
small square room with a desk and two chairs. Now that his wife uses it, it is clean
and orderly, the opposite of how Marquez kept it — stacks of files folders, sheets of
paper, his manual typewriter. To dispel superstitions, Moreno has built a makeshift

New Investigalions in Colombia and Brazil 43
Conditioni in Colombia at time of the murder:
President of Colombia:
Ernest6Samper Pizano
Ruling Political Party:
National Liberal Party.
Political Conditions in Country or Region:
Failure of opposition efforts to haVe President Samper removed frbm office,
based on'the attorney general's investigation of drug money flowing into his cam-
paign fund. National campaigning started for candidates running for congress;
10of whose members were already in jailor were being tried for illegal enrich-
ment
Case Details
Date Of Murder:
20 November 1997
How and Where Murdered:
Two armed motorcyclists intercepted
the victim as he left the El Marques
office, in: downtown Arrnedia, and
was about to enter his car. They shot
him three times.
Possible Motives
Revelations that linked Sen. Carlos
AlttertcrOviedo to the„death;of jour-
nalist Ernesto Acero Cadena (12
December 1995) as well as folkloric
articles that questioned the honesty
of the local class. may have
led to Marquez' slaying.
Presumed culprits or accomplices
revealed by the, investigation:
According to testimony and other
evidence in the poSsession of the
attorney general's office, Sen. Oviedo
assigned members of a death squad
that followed his orders to kill the
journalist
Violent Consequences: •
Other jOurhalists working in Armenia
received threatening•phone:calls
during the three weeks following
Marquez' murder. The threats
warned them,they might share his
fate if they continued :digging into
the murder story. CarloS:Hurriberto
Guzman Bernal, the attorney general
office's investigator in the Marquez
murder, was killed just days after takj''
ing on the,caSe
Procedural irregularities:
The attorney general's office admits:
having been pressured (not speci-
, tied) by, mernberS of congress who
hope to pass legislation that would
free Oviedo from jail.'
altar to the right of the desk. There is a picture of Marquez with Jairo, his 5-year-old
son. Little Jairo accidentally saw television news reports with close-ups of his father's
body. For months after the murder, he would ask his mother why his father's bullet
holes didn't heal so he could return home.
Moreno still fears those who killed Marquez. When asked who she thought would
want him dead, she shrugged her shoulders and folded her arms on her lap. "It was

ig3 Oltima .;
DIARN, Ul 011.C6IBI1
VIERICIES
IARIO
Acribillan a Jairo Elias
Marquez Galle o
afterwards that we found out he was threatened," she said quietly. Will the family do
something to seek justice? "We're all afraid — his family, my two children and 1," she
explained. On the nearby altar, a Bible is opened to Psalm 91: "God is my refuge. He
will protect me from every danger."
Dangerous Territory
Marquez knew he was entering dangerous territory when he wrote about specific
politicians, according to his former colleagues. In the last three years, as Oviedo
gained power, Armenia turned from a safe city into a city under siege. Writing about
politics had become risky. "It has become a crime to have an opinion," said Orozco
of RCN, as he walked near his office with two bodyguards.
The bustling streets of Armenia defy the danger that many police investigators say
lurks in the town. It was said that a death squad with alleged ties to Oviedo worked
exclusively to keep the politician's enemies in line.
The story that apparently provoked the Marquez murder appeared the week before.
Headlined "The Mausoleum of El Marques," the article ridiculed a number of
politicians who had lost their bids in the October 1997 national parliamentarian
elections. In jest, Marquez placed a small cross next to each name. The story also
included a list of politicians whom Marquez had placed "in purgatory." These were
people he predicted would be voted out of office in the next election. Oviedo was
among those named.
Newspapers, among them
Diario de Colombia and La
Cronica in Quindio (next
page), gave extensive cover-
age to the murder of Jairo
Elias Marquez.

LA RONICA PRISO
Luto en el perinclisrno regional
Asesinado Jairo Eiins Marquez Galle
El &ruby de la revisra Muarues fue abet&
par swonkv que se mciectatxm en urn mow.
Tenia el promisito de fundar rat:,:crnonario, quo
fur extactoOft Its Judas Osculate..
"We thought he never received death threats, but he had been warned in the weeks
prior to the killing, and that article contributed to his murder," said Moreno. "Some
say there were those who wanted to make a little cross for him."
A Town Down on its Luck
Armenia first gained international notoriety in the early 1.980s when Carlos Lehder,
a member of the Medellin Cartel, moved to the city. He attempted to enter local
politics and formed a neo-Nazi party. Local citizens were mesmerized by Lcdher's
self-promoting ways, spending dollars in a display of ostentation previously unseen
in Armenia. in those early days of drug trafficking in Colombia, few citizens could
imagine the corrupting power the trade would engender in their cities. Lehder was
extradited to the United States in 1982 on drug trafficking charges. He is currently
serving a life sentence at a high-security prison.
Since then, good fortune seems to have abandoned Armenia and other cities in the
coffee-growing departments (states) of Quindio, Caldas and Risaralda. Armenia has
become the second most important port for drugs and, in practice, the surrounding
areas are controlled by armed groups — paramilitary units, guerrillas, narco-traffic
protection bands, the army and/or police. Declining international coffee prices and
a pest infestation that destroyed many coffee plantations have left the area in its
worst-ever economic crisis. A number of local farmers have sold their farms to
traffickers or representatives of drug traffickers, according to press reports and local

residents. Those farms have been turned into cattle-raising haciendas, which drug
traffickers often use to launder money. A few others who have survived the crisis
have turned their farms into resorts that recall the coffee-growing days and sell
tourist packages with guaranteed security.
Violence in the area has multiplied with the advent of the traffickers. Leftist
guerrilla groups also have penetrated the region. More people are disappearing.
Senator Oviedo
The grisly finding of two bodies on fire, dumped near a small road in Armenia,
focused attention on the bloody empire Senator Oviedo allegedly built there. The
bodies belonged to Fernando Celis Franco, a known hit man, and Juan Guillermo
Acosta, an upper-class engineer whose wife was rumored to have had an affair with
Oviedo. Autopsies revealed that both men had been tortured and stabbed in the
heart with a sharp object.
The rumor that Senator Oviedo killed the men spread quickly. More allegations
emerged gradually. Some told investigators that Acosta had hired the hit man
to kill Oviedo after he discovered his wife's affair. Others said that Acosta had
been Oviedo's business partner in a profitable and illegal business. The politician
supposedly got rich by running an illegal drug transportation network. Investigators
told IAPA that Celis, the hit man Acosta approached, worked for Oviedo, who
ordered his employee to set a trap for Acosta. After Acosta was killed, Oviedo then
had Celis killed to avoid paying the $300,000 kill fee for Acosta's murder.
The death of Acosta may well have remained unsolved, as many others do
in Armenia. But he came from a rich, politically connected family who was
determined to seek justice. Petitions were presented to the Supreme Court, which
has jurisdiction in cases against elected officials, who enjoy considerable immunity
under Colombian law.
The Hit Men Talk
The confession from one hit man was included in the warrant issued for Oviedo's
arrest. That is but one document in the thick court file that the Supreme Court
justices are to review before making legal decisions in this case.
The investigation, led by the prosecution office of the Supreme Court, implicates
Oviedo directly. The office consists of high-ranking prosecutors through whom the
attorney general carries out his duty to investigate the "afuerados," that is, special
officials who can only he judged by the attorney general. Given the current state of
the inquiry, the attorney general is considering bringing up the senator on murder
charges before the Supreme Court.
Court files in Colombia often are not available for public examination. Nonetheless,
the defense or the prosecution frequently leak internal documents, and these showed
that both Acosta and Celi.s died of sharp wounds to the heart and strangulation
with a rope.
Acosta prayed loudly throughout the ordeal, according to one deposition. "It broke
your heart to hear him praying," said a witness, presumably one of the killers.

"The problem for Oviedo was that when he killed Acosta, he killed someone
important," said Orozco, a dapper man with bushy eyebrows and eyes quick to wink.
"His sister was a former deputy minister of justice. They are well connected. These
people were not going to keep quiet about the murder."
More articles began to appear in the local press, saying Oviedo ran a death
squad led by his half-brother, Guillermo. Guillermo had the habit of killing the
mercenaries who carried out the murders to eliminate them as witnesses. Oviedo
threatened everyone who came forward to testify, several witnesses said. The town
was full of rumors and fear. And even the police exercised extra caution in their
investigations.
Oviedo apparently was angry at Marquez because he had testified against the
politician at the Armenia prosecutor's office about another murder.
Reporters who traveled to Armenia to report on the story were asked to register
under assumed names and to keep a low profile. "It's very dangerous," said one
investigator in Bogota. "The man is an octopus who has spies everywhere. Many
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El Marques magazine, owned by Jairo Elias Marquez, made his murder and the campaign by
colleagues and family members to have the guilty brought to justice cover stories.

times we hear of witnesses being threatened soon after we talk to them."
The story of Oviedo repeated around Armenia eventually made it into a Bogota
newspaper. A self-made man, Oviedo came from a humble beginning — the son of
a prostitute who worked hard to send her precocious son to college. After college,
Oviedo joined a youth group in the Conservative Party and won a scholarship to
law school, where he excelled.
His career as a specialist in criminal law took off after he began representing
reputed drug traffickers in the northern Cauca valley and members of the Cali Cartel.
Soon he was driving fancy cars and flaunting his wealth at local hangouts.
After being elected to Congress in 1994, supposedly with the help of drug
traffickers, Oviedo endorsed many hills favored by the drug cartels. He voted
to absolve President Ernesto Samper during the congressional investigation into
charges that he accepted campaign contributions from drug traffickers. The Supreme
Court is investigating Oviedo for alleged illicit enrichment, drug trafficking and for
representing the interests of drug traffickers.
Oviedo's political connections and his wealth, estimated in the millions, enhanced
his appeal with women. "He was always with the best girls in town," said one
investigator. He often used his political connections to get jobs for young women
he was wooing, said town residents.
Investigators implicated Oviedo in nine murders of businessmen, singers, students,
journalists and even mercenaries. John Jairo Duque Valencia, a singer and owner
of the bar "Doorway to the Guitars" (El Zaguan de las Guitarras), allegedly was
killed because he refused to admit Oviedo and his friends because they provoked
fights with the other customers.
To some of Armenia's poorer residents, Oviedo was a sort of Robin Hood. "He
had a good side and a killer side," said a local resident who, like many in Armenia,
did not want to be identified.
Oviedo built a legion of followers by granting favors to many residents. Through
his contacts with drug traffickers, he solicited investments from some of Armenia's
most prominent citizens, according to several residents.
"What Oviedo did in Armenia was to set up a network where many people
answered to him," said Orozco of RCN. "He had many girlfriends. If you went
to any government ministry and saw a beautiful girl, they would tell you she was
going out with Oviedo."
Oviedo also owned a newspaper, Diario de Colombia, and two radio stations. He
owned the local soccer team, Deportes Quindio, and the basketball team, Cafeteros.
All these businesses allegedly were purchased with his salary as a congressman —
S8,000 a month.
The Murder of Ernesto Acero Cadena
Jairo Elias Marquez would still be alive if the 1995 murder of Ernesto Acero
Cadena had been solved. Acero Cadena was the first journalist allegedly killed on
Oviedo's orders, investigators told the IAPA. Acero, 59, was shot dead the morning of
December 12, 1995. A young hit man approached him two blocks from his house in
downtown Armenia. Acero was a veteran reporter who had worked for Colombian

national radio stations for 25 years. He also was a psychiatrist and the publisher of a
regional bulletin called The Socioeconomic Informer of Qlundio. Acero, who focused
on local political corruption, had criticized Oviedo many times. The man accused
of his murder, Jorge Ivan Obando, has been in jail at Carcel Nacional Modelo in
Bogota since his arrest in November 1998.
The Acero investigation lay dormant for several months until 1997, when witnesses
began to talk and investigators began to dig. The Acero family tried to push for
a more thorough investigation, but stopped after receiving death threats. "Nobody
knows what one has to do when facing the death of someone so dear," said his
20-year-old son, Ernesto Jr, who now supports his mother with earnings from a
modest advertising agency. "We stopped investigating his murder because of the
threats that hang over our family members," he added.
Acero's murder marked the ascending power of Oviedo, according to journalists
and other town residents. "Not solving the murder of a journalist of Acero's stature
represents a real failure of the system," said Orozco of RCN.
After Acero's death, journalists were threatened at their newspapers and radio
stations. "If you are not afraid, just wait to see what will happen to you," said
one warning. Most journalists ignored it as idle talk, but the attacks against the
press were just beginning.
Instead of an editorial to condemn the Acero murder, La Cronica, headed by
Miguel Angel Rojas, ran a blank space with just two sentences. "Yesterday they
killed journalist Ernesto A.cero Cadena. Tomorrow could be your turn," read the
message intended to jolt local residents to demand justice. But justice never came.
Rojas declared at the time that the only way to deal with death threats was to
denounce them publicly.
Rojas was silenced two years later. He quit his newspaper job in fear, taking a
job in the printing plant his family owns. It all happened after a hit man delivered
a pointed message. He entered the journalist's office gun in hand and aimed the
sidearm at Rojas. That mock ritual was enough. Today Rojas writes articles only
about tourism and other safe subjects.
Rojas agreed to meet with an IAPA representative, but failed to show up for the
scheduled appointment.
Oviedo is accused of killing Carlos Humberto Guzman Bernal in November 1997,
according to the authorities. Guzman, a special investigator looking into the Acero
murder, was killed two blocks from the prosecutor's office. The murder gave new
urgency to the investigation; police were more intent than ever on getting the senator.
The authorities decided a few months later that the inquiry would benefit from
having Oviedo under arrest until his trial.
The Arrest of Oviedo — End of an Era
Members of the special investigations unit of the Armenia prosecutor's office had
sweaty palms when they approached Oviedo's BMW. They had an arrest warrant for
the senator, identified as a suspect in the murders of a well-known architect and a hit
man, whose bodies were found on the outskirts of Armenia.
"He didn't resist," said one of the participants. Oviedo was taken quietly to a

A charming and outgoing Jairo Elias Marquez enjoys a vacation at a Colombian resort.
special cell in the central prison at La Picota, in BogotA. His half-brother, Guillermo,
had been arrested a month earlier.
Oviedo's arrest on April 22, 1998, finally brought peace to Armenia.
Witnesses soon appeared willing to testify in several murder cases. "Previously, all
the witnesses had wanted to retract their statements, because they were threatened,"
an investigator said.

CHRONOLOGY
1995
December 12
Ernesto Acero Cadena is murdered by a hit man in downtown Armenia at 11:00 a.m.
1997
January 3
Juan Guillermo Acosta, an engineer and member of a prominent Armenia family, is
killed by a known hit man. Police think Oviedo is behind the murder.
October
Carlos Humberto Guzman Bernal, a special investigator for the Armenia prosecutor's
office, is killed by hit men. Guzman was investigating the Acero murder and its links
to Oviedo.
November 20
Jairo Elias Marquez, publisher of El Marques, is murdered.
1998
April 21
The Supreme Court issues an arrest warrant for Congressman Carlos Alberto Oviedo
Alfaro.
April 22
Officers detain Oviedo and confine him in La Picota prison.
1999
April
The Supreme Court upholds the warrant for the arrest of Oviedo.

52 Impunity NU MORE — Unpunished Crimes Against Journalists
Brazil:
Introduction
B
razil's news media hit a historic high last decade when press investigations led to
the impeachment of former President Fernando Collor de Mello in 1990. Only
five years had passed since censorship under a military dictatorship ended, but
discovery of the role that an independent press could play in strengthening Brazil's
democracy deeply impressed journalists and voters alike.
The media in general embraced the principles of investigative reporting and the
people's right to know, including thousands of provincial journalists who publish
newspapers and simple pamphlets. The effect of these changes, however, led to the
murders of more than a dozen journalists in Brazil's rural areas.
Aristeu Guida da Silva was one of them. He was murdered in 1995 in Sao Fidelis,
a dusty farming town about five hours' drive from the bustling international airport
of Rio de Janeiro. Guida was killed because he took his role as a journalist to
heart. What he did not know was that rules were applied differently to provincial
newsmen like him. Two weeks before Guida's murder, Edilson Gomes, his partner
and a seasoned provincial publisher from Sao Goncalo, a Rio suburb, wrote a
cutting editorial.
"Many political events have marked this century," Gomes editorialized in the
Gazeta de Sao Fidelis, "but the most important one, without a doubt, was public
participation in the process that led to the impeachment of then President Collor
de Mello." Gomes underscored the need "to remember that Collor de Mello's
impeachment began with an investigation into the purchase of a Fiat Elba car."
Gomes' editorial listed a series of alleged misdeeds committed by Sao Fidelis
politicians and revealed by Guida. "The press today — and this newspaper in
particular — are without a doubt a powerful weapon to fight corruption and political
wrongdoing," Comes wrote.
Gomes, in fact, had not written the editorial. Guida had, but the editorial did
not have his byline because he was not a member of the journalists guild. Because
Comes was a guild member, Guida let him sign the editorials and appear as the
newspaper's publisher.
Investigation
As that editorial hit the town's streets, Guida was investigating the alleged
involvement of several local city council members in a car-theft ring — thus the
mention of the Fiat Elba and of Collor de Mello. Guida was about to publish the

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