The Suicide Letter of Tulua

In the 1950s, Tulua, Valle del Cauca, was a dangerous town for Liberal Party members: Right-wing pajaros' were assassinating Liberals amid long-running political violence.

León María Lozano

paramilitary groups called '

In July, 1955, a group of nine Liberal Party leaders took a daring and desperate step: They sent letters to dictator Gustavo Rojas Pinilla and El Tiempo newspaper denouncing the killings and blaming the most feared pajaro of all: León María Lozano, a devout Catholic who was apparently only a humble cheese seller who never missed 6 a.m. mass.

'We are convinced...that, as long as the central government does not decide to implacably punish the sinister people who sow terror...the painful chain of assassinations and depredations will continue.'

The fatal letter.

The letter went on to ask why the killing continued: The answer, it said, 'was very simple:' 'Because those obscure personalities which should be in a penitentiary paying for their horrendous crimes continue walking freely and tranquilly along the streets of this city.'

The consequences were tragic. One by one, the letter's signers were assassinated, while survivors fled to other parts of Colombia. The episode was immortalized in a novel by Gustavo Alvarez Gardeazábal, later made into a movie, called 'El Condor No Entierra Todos Los Días,' and the letter became known as the Suicide Letter of Tulua. Last year, a non-fiction book about the incident by Omar Franco Duque was published under that name.

The Suicide Letter returned to the news recently because its last surviving signer, Ignacio Cruz Roldán, died last week. He had survived being shot in the face in 1957.

The pajaro León María Lozano had powerful friends and escaped punishment.

The long-running inter-party violence, which had surged after the April 1948 assassination of populist leader Jorge Eliecer Gaitán, declined but ended only in the late 1950s, when the Liberal and Conservative parties agreed to share power in the Frente Nacional.

Afterwards, however, came guerrilla and narco-violence which continues today.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Colombia's Own Charlie Hebdo Moment

On the morning of Aug. 13, 1999, journalist and satirist Jaime Garzón was driving to work when gunmen murdered him. Right-wing paramilitaries are believed to have been behind the assassination, which is still under investigation 16 years later.

Today's newspapers reported the Paris massacre. El Tiempo
printed its front page in black and white.

Whoever was behind it, Garzón's murder shook Colombia, which had become tragically accustomed to the killing of politicians, but not to that of popular commentators. And, inevitably, Garzón's killing, like that of many Colombian journalists before and after him, inevitably sent fear thru every Colombian journalist and commentator, who wondered whether his or her next observation would bring a bullet.

Sound familiar?

Today, journalists the world over have become very aware how just a few armed fanatics can destroy lives and a newspaper.

I'm not defending Charlie Hebdo, which I've never read and wouldn't understand if I did. A Financial Times columnist called Charlie Hebdo's ridiculing of Islam "stupid," altho the commentary has since been revised. And it sounds as tho the magazine was very offensive not only to Islam, but to many groups and religions. But it was a group of Islamist extremists trapped in a medieval mentality who apparently stormed the newspaper's office yesterday and massacred 12 people.

'We are all Charlie.' El Espectador published a
French-language cartoon on its front page..

Today, journalists all over the world, including Colombia, feel a bit more scared about what they
right and where they go. Journalists, more than other professionals, are vulnerable because they must constantly venture out into unfamiliar places, amongst strangers, to get the story. Probably there'll be less of that now, which will mean a loss for society. It will also mean suffering for Muslims and other immigrants across Europe, since right-wing, xenophobic protests like those last week in Germany will undoubtedly intensify.

Those offended by Charlie Hebdo, like those who hated satirist Garzón, had lots of reasonable alternatives, including filing a lawsuit, marching in protest or just closing the magazine and tossing it into the trash.

The Committee to Protect Journalists lists 45 Colombian journalists murdered since 1992. Those murders have inevitably had a muting effect on media investigation and reporting. Freedom House ranks Colombia's press as only 'partly free.'

During recent years, Colombia has had many scandals, including the parapolitica, government spying and the horrific falsos positivos murders. We can only speculate about how much wrongdoing would have been reduced or even prevented had Colombia had a more vigorous press.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Colombian Journalism - A Lot Less Deadly

A newsstand in central Bogota.  

Conditions are improving for journalists in Colombia - in contrast to much of the rest of the region.

In its annual report isued today, The Federation for Press Freedom, or FLIP, reported 123 'agressions' against Colombian journalists during 2013 and two killings, of a radio reporter and an informal journalist. Many of the attacks took place against reporters covering last year's massive anti-government protests.

Still, as disturbing as those events are, Colombian journalists had it much worse in years past, when often more than 10 journalists were murdered annually. Many of those past killings, the FLIP points out, remain unsolved.

José Dario Arenas

The FLIP made a specific report about the violence-wrought Bajo Cauca region, where radio stations have abandonded news reporting in favor of sports and music to avoid angering the wrong people.

One of the journalists killed was a young man in the town of Caicedonia, near Armenia, who had Extra Quindio to support his wife and children. Soon, he started phoning in information about the local prison and police incidents to the newspaper. Apparently, he reported on the wrong person. One day, two men bought a newspaper from him, opened it, looked at an article about Caicedonia's prison and then shot Arenas dead.
practiced the trade informally, and for only six months. Jobless, José Dario Arenas, 32, had started selling the

Both Arenas's mother and a journalist who investigated Arenas's murder received death threats. The journalist later quit his job at the newspaper, which is no longer sold in Caicedonia. The killers won.

On the positive side according to the FLIP was the passage this year of legislation broadening access to government documents - altho it still requires the president's signature to go into effect.

But across Latin America, many media are under siege from their own governments - in many cases,

El Tiempo reports the demise of Venezuelan newspapers.

ironically, leftist governments whose leaders suffered decades ago under repressive right-wing dictators.

In Ecuador, Argentina and Venezuela, governments have used new laws, slander charges and economic weapons to intimidate and disable critical journalists. In Venezuela, probably the most critical case, broadcast media have lost their licenses and newspapers find themselves unable to import newsprint. Venezuela's leftist leaders have repeatedly accused the media of causing the nation's soaring crime.

In much of the region, it seems, the violence once used to repress the press has been replaced by intimidation, economic and legal tactics.

During this week's protests in Venezuela, the Venezuelan government banned Colombian TV station NTN24 from cable networks and the government-owned phone company even blocked Twitter photos.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Colombia's Many Martyrs

Supporters with the corpse of leftist politician Jorge Eliecer Gaitan, assassinated in central Bogotá on April 9, 1948. 

The 50th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy seems like an appropriate time to recall Colombia's many, many political martyrs.

Colombia's most famous martyr was undoubtedly leftist, populist politician Jorge Eliecer Gaitan, whose slaying in downtown Bogotá in 1948 triggered the Bogotazó riots and generated almost as many conspiracy theories as did Kennedy's assassination. The shooting has some parallels to JFK's: after Gaitan was gunned down on a sidewalk, the apparent assassin, a mentally ill man named Juan Roa Sierra, was killed by the furious crowd. As a result, some still dispute that Sierra was the real killer, and conspiracy theories abound about political enemies or foreign powers having planned the killing.

The tomb of Gaitan, by his house in Bogotá's Teusaquillo neighborhood.

A portrait of guerrilla priest Camilo Torres on the Plaza del Che in the National University in Bogotá.

Camilo Torres, chaplain of the National University in Bogotá, was an idealistic leftist who in 1966 gave up on the system, joined the ELN guerrillas and was killed in his first battle. He remains an enduring symbol of protest for many young Colombians.

The monument to revolutionary martyrs executed by imperial Spain on Los Martires Plaza in central Bogotá.

The tomb of Liberal Pres. Candidate Luis Carlos Galan, assassinated on orders of drug cartel kingpin Pablo Escobar while campaigning for president in 1989 in south Bogotá. Galan's assassination is still being investigated. Apparently, authorities cooperated with the assassins by changing Galan's bodyguards before the killing. 

The Justice Palace on Plaza Bolivar in Bogotá. In 1985, the M-19 Guerrillas attacked the building and took the Supreme Court magistrates hostage. The episode ended with about 100 deaths, and is still under investigation.

A list of those killed following the M-19 guerrilla attack on the Justice Palace. The victims included guerrillas, palace employees and 11 of the 12 Supreme Court judges. Some were murdered extrajudicially by the military.

The tomb of AfroColombian union leader Jose Mercado, in Bogotá's Central Cemetery. Mercado was kidnapped and murdered by the M-19 guerrillas. 

The tomb of M-19 presidential candidate Carlos Pizarro in Bogotá's Central Cemetery. Pizarro was assassinated on an airplane in 1990 by a youth hired by right-wing paramilitary leader Carlos Castaño.

More than 3,000 leaders of the far-left Union Patriotica political party were killed during the 1980s and '90s. Recently, the party was revived and now has a candidate for president. 

A mural in central Bogotá memorializes the Union Patriotica political party, thousands of whose leaders were assassinated by right-wing groups in the late '80s and early '90s, including its two presidential candidates Jaime Pardo Leal and Bernardo Jaramillo.

A mural on 26th Street memorializes comedian Jaime Garzon, assassinted nearby in 1999. The killing, apparently by right-wing forces, is still being investigated.

El Tiempo put JFK on its cover today. 

A mural on the National University's campus with portraits of leftists allegedly killed by the government or right-wing groups and the words 'Neither Pardon nor Forgetting.'

A section of Colombia's memorial to police adn soldiers killed in battle. 

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours