The National Union of Journalists (UNP) rendered this Tuesday, April 4, 2023, a Tribute to the El Comercio newspaper team what was it kidnapped and killed five years ago by a dissident group of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
The president of the UNP, Cristobal Penafieldelivered the statuette of «Eugenio de Santa Cruz y Espejo» (the highest medal that honors journalistic activity), to the familiars journalist Javier Ortega, photographer Paúl Rivas and driver Efraín Segarra.
Kidnapping
The three were kidnapped on March 26, 2018 when they went to the slaughter zonein the province of Esmeraldas to gather information on the rise of violence in the sector.
In Aprilafter 18 days of uncertainty, the then president of Ecuador, Lenin Moreno (2017-2021), confirmed that the three were killed by the group of Walter Patricio Arízala, alias “Guacho”, leader of the dissident organization Oliver Sinisterra.
The bodies of the press team were found in a remote area of the Colombian municipality of Tumaco, on the border with Ecuador.
family testimony
Peñafiel recalled that “five years ago anguish, despair and some hope flooded the newsrooms of the media offices and the journalists’ homes”, when photographs began to circulate of the members of the press team “making a dramatic call” for their lives to be saved.
He remembered that then The authorities of the Government reported that the kidnappers they asked to be release guerrillas prisoners to respect the life of the press team.
«That the dignity of the nation must be respected, they told us, and finallythe hijacked team March 26 was tortured and killed on April 8, although the cruel news was released on April 13, 2018,” he recalled.
He added that journalists bowed their heads that day, “not as a sign of defeat but as a sign of outrage and frustration.”
“The ‘dignity’ of a stateof a Government, of the National Police is not beyond people’s lives“, stressed Ricardo Rivas, brother of Paul.
Peñafiel recalled that the UNP has declared to the April 8 as “day of mourning for Ecuadorian journalism“, to pay tribute to the murdered press team and, in their memory, to the journalists who have died in the line of duty.
At the ceremony, journalist Byron Rodríguez, who worked with the El Comercio team, recalled the human and professional quality of Ortega, Rivas and Segarra.
“Deceit, lies and impotence”
In a short intervention during the tribute Galo OrtegaXavier’s father thanked the society for its support to advance in the search for justice before authorities “who never did anything, who deceived us, lied to us, and therefore impotence.”
He expressed his hope that the government hand over the declassified information about the case that, five years later, is still under investigation.
Ricardo Rivas insisted on his request for “memory, truth and justice”but he lamented that “five years later, the State has no memory, five years later some journalists have been assassinated, and a great investigative journalist friend has to leave the country due to threats.”
He found it obvious that the state during this time did not learn anything while the relatives understood that “the fight is for a fairer society and transparent journalism.”
Rivas highlighted the tribute made to remind the State “negligence, ineptitudethe state silence that has generated impunity, that now we are living the consequences ».
“We will never give away our voice, we will never shut up, we will never give away silence,” he noted when demanding that the information be declassified before society.
For her part, the journalist Mercedes Álvaro, a member of the UNP, said that the case of the El Comercio team “is a sad example of the ineffectiveness and failure of the State” and joined the voices calling for the information to be declassified. . EFE