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