Impunity - Colombia

WHEREAS the national attorney general’s office decided to suspend the investigations in the cases of five journalists: Carlos Lajud Catalán (Atlántico, March 29, 1993); María Elena Salinas (Antioquia, March 5, 2000), Marco Antonio Ayala (Valle del Cauca January 23, 2002), José Nel Muñoz (Putumayo, October 6, 2003) and Jaime Alberto Madero (Magdalena, September 20, 2004) WHEREAS twenty years after the murder of Guillermo Cano (December 17, 1986); 10 years after the murders of Gerardo Bedoya, Freddy Elles Ahumada, Alejandro Jaramillo Barbosa, Francisco Castro Menco and Jairo Elías Márquez, and five years after that of Orlando Sierra (January 30, 2002) no one has been punished for masterminding these crimes and the cases of Bedoya, Ahumada, Jaramillo, Menco and Márquez are still in the evidence gathering phase without a single person being linked to the crimes WHEREAS six journalists were killed between 2005 and 2006 in Colombia; three cases were clearly because of their work and the other three for reasons that are still under investigation and none of the six cases has been accepted for investigation by the Human Rights Office of the national attorney general’s office. The journalists who were killed because of their work are: Rafael Enrique Prins (Bolívar, February 9, 2005), Gustavo Rojas Gabalo (Córdoba, February 4, 2006) and Milton Fabian Sánchez (Valle del Cauca, August 9, 2006). The indefinite cases are: Julio Hernando Palacios Sánchez, (Cúcuta, January 11, 2005), Hernando Marné Sánchez (Valle del Cauca, February of 2005) y Atilano Segundo Pérez (Bolívar, August 22, 2006) WHEREAS within the framework of “free version” confessions that the Justice and Peace Office of the national attorney general’s office is pursuing with members of paramilitary forces, it was possible to identify and convict the instigator of the murder of Efraín Varela and to identify and issue arrest warrants for three members of the paramilitary forces for the murders of Luis Eduardo Alfonso and José Emeterio Rivas WHEREAS most of the investigations of crimes against journalists being handled by prosecutor’s offices around the country have been shelved, suspended or have made no progress toward identifying the killers WHEREAS Principle 4 of the Declaration of Chapultepec establishes that “Freedom of expression and of the press are severely limited by murder, terrorism, kidnapping, pressure, intimidation, the unjust imprisonment of journalists, the destruction of facilities, violence of any kind and impunity for perpetrators. Such acts must be investigated promptly and punished harshly” THE MIDYEAR MEETING OF THE IAPA RESOLVES to urge the national attorney general’s office to explain why it issued an order to suspend the investigations in the cases of five journalists Lajud, Salinas, Ayala, Muñoz, Madero and to ask it to look for a legal mechanism to reactivate them within its Human Rights Office. to ask the national attorney general’s office to investigate the officials who have been in charge of these investigations for more than 10 years and are still in the evidence gathering stage without identifying a single suspect, and, if it is appropriate ¸to assign someone else to the cases to suggest to the national attorney general’s office that the Human Rights Office in Bogota take over the investigations of journalists killed in 2005 and 2006: Julio Hernando Palacios Sánchez, (Cúcuta, January 11, 2005), Rafael Enrique Prins (Bolívar, February 9, 2005), Hernando Marné Sánchez (Valle del Cauca, February of 2005), Gustavo Rojas Gabalo (Córdoba, February 4, 2006), Milton Fabián Sánchez (Valle del Cauca, August 9, 2006) and Atilano Segundo Pérez (Bolívar, August 22, 2006) to ask the Peace and Justice Office of the attorney general’s office when interviewing members of the paramilitary forces under the “free version” process to investigate their responsibility for other crimes against journalists to insist that the national attorney general’s office follow up the 24 cases of crimes against journalists that are being handled in regional prosecutors’ offices and report on them to urge the national attorney general’s office to provide greater human and technical resources to the prosecutors in the Human Rights Office with regular support from the Judicial Police so they can move the investigations forward.