A seventh journalist in Colombia has been forced to flee following death threats. Marcos Perales Mendoza, editor of La Portada, an investigative monthly based in Barrancabermeja (in the northern department of Santander), has been forced to flee the region by the death threats he has been getting since May 2005 in response to his articles about local corruption. He finally decided to leave after getting a message on July 22 warning him that he would be the target of an attack in a month's time. His present location is being kept secret for security reasons.
"Perales is the latest of a total of six (seven acording to Newswatch) journalists in Colombia who have had to flee the area where they work since the start of the year, and the situation is getting more and more critical for local media," Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) said.
"The government and judicial authorities must react by quickly moving against politicians who think the mandate they got from their voters guarantees their impunity," the organisation added. "The parties to Colombia's civil war are not the only ones responsible for these threats and attacks on the news media."
With a circulation of 5,000, La Portada has specialised in denouncing local government corruption, sometimes naming the officials allegedly involved. Last month, Perales exposed irregularities in the assignment of a public works contract for the building of an aqueduct in Barrancabermeja. As result, the local prosecutor's office ordered the municipal authorities to cancel the contract.
On July 22, Perales received a email offer of flowers for his funeral. The message said Barrancabermeja's mayor, Edgar Cote, would complete his term and added that Perales would not be around to know who the next mayor was.
Perales said he has been the target of intimidation each time he has published an article on a sensitive issue since May 2005. The first time he received a bag containing the photos of three bodies and a message put together with letters cut from newspapers that said, "Leave the mayor alone or you will end up like this."
He filed a complaint with the prosecutor's office at the time but is not aware of any progress being made in the investigation. He has received three other email threats since the start of this year. His family has also been the target of intimidation and intruders broke into his home, making it look like a burglary.
Journalists based in Barrancabermeja told RSF that Cote is a controversial mayor with many enemies within the municipal council. His supporters recently disrupted a news conference organised by a number of municipal councillors and breaking down the doors.
- Diro César González, who published the weekly La Tarde, was forced to relocate to Bogotá in January after receiving death threats. He also suspended publication of his newspaper, which published investigative reports on corruption, the armed conflict, and paramilitary activities in northeastern Santander province.
- In February, reporter Olga Cecilia Vega was forced to leave the province of Caquetá after her life was threatened following a published interview with a guerrilla leader.
- The same month, Antonio Sánchez Sánchez of the daily El Meridiano de Córdoba was forced to leave the north-western city of MonterÃa because of death threats.
- In March, Jenny Manrique a reporter for the newspaper Vanguardia Liberal fled the city of Bucaramanga, also in Santander, after getting death threats for reporting on abuses by rightwing paramilitary forces.
- In May, Pedro Antonio Cárdenas Cáceres, director of the biweekly La Verdad, was forced to flee his hometown of Honda after getting death threats in the wake of his reports on government corruption in central Tolima province.
- Earlier this month, Radio Caracol producer and host Herbin Hoyos Medina announced that he was being forced to leave Colombia as a result of threats from a mysterious Action and Justice Front for Freedom and Democracy, probably a group of former rightwing paramilitaries.
