BOGOTA, Colombia -- (AP) Gunmen killed a Colombian print and radio
journalist outside his office in the turbulent eastern state of Arauca on
Tuesday.
Luis Eduardo Alfonso Parada, 27, was the second reporter with Radio
Meridiano-70 killed in the past year. He also was a correspondent for
El Tiempo, the Bogota-based daily that is Colombia's most widely
read newspaper.
Parada spoke with his assailants after arriving at the radio station in
the state capital, also called Arauca, early Tuesday. He tried to flee
but was shot dead, police Col. Luis Alcides Morales told The Associated
Press.
Morales said the killers got away on motorcycles and a witness gave
descriptions of them.
Many journalists working in Arauca have been threatened by both leftist
rebels and their right-wing paramilitary foes fighting for control of the
oil-rich state.
The director of the radio station, Efrain Varela, was killed in June
after he reported on the arrival of the outlawed paramilitaries in the
state capital.
Arauca, located in the grassy plains along the Venezuelan border, is one
of Colombia's most violent states, with frequent car bombings, murders,
and kidnappings.
Colombia is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a
journalist. At least 114 journalists have been murdered in Colombia in
the past 14 years, the Inter American Press Association said.
The South American nation is mired in a decades-long civil war in which
rebels are battling U.S.-backed Colombian government forces and the
paramilitaries. About 3,500 people, mostly civilians, died in fighting
last year.
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