Five years ago Javier Ortega, Paul Rivas and Efrain Segarramembers of the press team the market, they were killed. They arrived in Mataje, at the time a hot zone on the border between Ecuador and Colombia, where the FARC dissident group was conducting its criminal operations. They were kidnapped, chained and forced to convey their demands to the Ecuadorian state. At that time I was working as a reporter. I met the three of them during those years, in reports, press conferences, court hearings, in short, events from public life. Five years ago, I covered one of the most shocking stories of my journalistic career: the murders of Ortega, Rivas and Segarrite. A brutal crime against freedom of expression in the sad history of journalism in Latin America.

Five years after the kidnapping and murder of an El Comercio journalist, the case remains unpunished; attacks on communicators are increasing

On December 17, 1986, Guillermo Cano Isaza was killed by assassins in the service of the Medellín cartel near the newspaper to which he devoted his life, The viewer. He was considered the doyen of Colombian journalism. He never hesitated when it came to condemning and investigating Pablo Escobar, the drug trafficker who was spreading terror in his country. After the murder of the director, the newspaper continued its investigation, and on September 2, 1989, a car bomb with 135 kilograms of dynamite exploded near the newsroom, destroying a large part of the buildings. For these dark forces, journalistic work represented an inexorable threat.

Throughout history, journalists, writers and intellectuals from Latin America have had to go into exile and hide in order to protect their integrity. Critical thinking is dangerous and has historically been persecuted by various enemies: religious theocracies, military and civilian dictatorships, authoritarian populism, organized crime or political and economic forces that take care of particular interests. The tradition of Ecuadorian journalism was not exempt from shameful events, but from its beginnings it was marked like this: Eugenio Espejo he also knew prison John Montalvo he lived in wandering and exile. Journalism destabilizes, scolds, irritates.

Already at the time of the murder of the journalist from the market, a penetrating and lucid voice stuck in Ecuadorian journalism, characterized by rigor, curiosity and capacity for wonder. The horror of that crime testified to the necessity of deep, courageous journalism, without stated truths, transparent. Investigative journalism Karol Norona it grew quietly in the new context of the country, unfortunately with sinister but sure steps to enter the most complex issues of national security and human rights. Perhaps the strength of her reporting is that she is one of those journalists who does not seek coverage to confirm her prejudices, but to begin any investigation knowing that there is something to learn, because every story has a unique complexity and a special way of explaining the world, like the most intricate mystery. She was not in any government or party, she was critical of everyone, she was a journalist every day, every minute and second.

Few voices were so necessary for Ecuadorian society to know the harsh reality of prisons, as a reflection of a broken state and the high level of violence that, with horror, structures everyday life in Ecuador. Thanks to Karol, thousands of closed minds realized that the problems of those deprived of their freedom belong to all the inhabitants of the country, and that the insecurity and vulnerability in which they survive reflect a society that is slowly sinking into negligence, incompetence and crime. Faced with these adversities, despite the vulnerability of the conditions, she decided on one of the most humane forms of resistance: writing.

Last March 24, GK, the branch where Karol works, announced that due to the danger to her life, she had to be safely and urgently taken out of the country. There was a threat to his journalistic work and freedom of expression in Ecuador, in a context where there are no guarantees that he will continue to report and write what Phil Graham considered the outline of the story. Not only Carolina’s freedom of expression is affected, but also the entire Ecuadorian society, which has the right to receive and know the information it creates, as many other voices have. It is not the first and it will not be the last time we see these attacks, which will not stop the brilliant career of Karol Noroña, nor the urgency of more, much more journalism. (OR)