A gunman killed a Colombian journalist who had received threats and reported on politicians linked to paramilitary death squads, police and the victim’s family said on Saturday.
Clodomiro Castilla, an editor of El Pulso magazine and a reporter for local radio, was shot to death on Friday night as he read a book on the terrace of his home in the city of Monteria in the north of the Andean country.
Colombia’s decades-long internal war has eased after President Alvaro Uribe sent troops to take back areas under control of rebels and paramilitaries. But armed groups and cocaine traffickers still occasionally target journalists.
“When the journalist was sitting reading a book on his terrace, he was approached by a gunman, who shot him several times and fled on a motorcycle,” said Colonel Pedro Angelo Franco, a state police commander.
The journalist’s family said he had received death threats but declined a government offer of protection.
Castilla, 49, was killed in the state of Cordoba where in the 1980s paramilitary squads were formed by landowners, ranchers and drug traffickers to defend themselves against leftist rebels fighting the state.
Several lawmakers and mayors from the region have been jailed for making deals with the outlawed militias to guarantee their election.
Ex-paramilitary commanders demobilized their fighters after reaching a peace deal with Uribe’s government. But human rights groups say remnants of the paramilitary gangs are still active and running drugs.
Colombia was once considered one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists to work. More than 100 reporters were killed during the 1980s and 1990s by cocaine traffickers, rebels and paramilitaries.
In other news, FARC guerrillas kidnapped five local oil contractors near a US-operated oilfield, whisking them into a mountainous area close to Venezuela with troops in pursuit, officials said on Saturday.
The captive men were working for oil service companies Tuboscope and Tecnioriente, subcontracted by the local unit of US company Occidental Petroleum, near the Caricare oilfield in the state of Arauca, a local army commander said.
A sixth worker managed to flee into bushes when rebels crashed their vehicle as army helicopters closed in on them.
Violence and kidnappings in the country’s long war have eased under Uribe, who sent troops to retake areas under rebel control. But the kidnappings underscored the threat guerrillas still present in the country.
“They kidnapped six workers from Tuboscope and Tecnioriente,” army commander General Rafael Neira told local radio. “They took them to a rural area ... the army reacted and rescued one of the workers.”
Arauca state Governor Luis Ataya said he believed the men were taken for extortion and blamed the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
Once a powerful rebel force, the FARC has been battered to its weakest in decades. Foreign investment, especially in oil and mining, is booming as companies are drawn to Colombia.
Weakened by the loss of top commanders and desertions, the FARC has turned to hit-and-run tactics, ambushes and homemade landmines to harass troops.
But they can still carry out high-profile attacks.
In December, a guerrilla commando unit snatched the Caqueta state governor from his home, speeding him into nearby jungles where they slit his throat and dumped his body.
The oil worker kidnapping came just days before the FARC planned to free two soldiers, one of them held for nearly 12 years in secret camps in the jungle.
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