Police officers are investigating the March 21 attack on five journalists. POLICE ECUADOR (via Portal)
The explosive device was on a USB stick that had arrived in a Manila envelope with a message printed on it. It was for the journalist and presenter Lenin Artieda from the Ecuadorian broadcaster Ecuavisa. Artieda entered it into the computer as the discharge took place, causing him minor injuries, although it could have been more serious because “only half of the explosives were activated,” explained Javier Chango, chief of police forensics.
It was one of five envelopes with the same contents sent by courier last week, addressed to journalists Carlos Vera, Radio Democracia’s Mario Rivadeneira, TC’s Mauricio Ayora and Teleamazon’s Milton Pérez. Only Artieda’s exploded, and that’s when the other communicators realized it was a multiple attack.
The first investigations showed that it was the same sender. H. García is said to have sent the packages from the town of Quinsaloma in the coastal province of Los Ríos. The police consider him the prime suspect in the investigation, but he has still not been caught seven days after the crime. César Ricaurte, director of Fundamedios, fears this attack is yet another attack going unpunished in an increasingly violent environment against the press. In 2022, the organization monitored 356 attacks on journalists, 67 more than in the previous year.
Milton Pérez, one of the journalists who received the USB last week, says the case needs to be investigated. “That they tell us where to step,” he adds. Inside the envelope was also a sheet of paper with a message printed on it that read: “Information will demask correísmo.” “They didn’t say shut up, they didn’t give any instructions not to get involved in a particular case, it was a trap,” says Pérez.
This case has a different profile than that used by organized crime in other multiple attacks on journalists and the media over the last year. They have fired on the RTS channel facilities, they are using motorcyclists to leave leaflets with specific messages, such as warnings about attacks on civilians or banning the Extra newspaper in some cities. “This time they are highly visible journalists with a long history. This pattern tells us that they want to convey a message of high attention to the public,” says Ricaurte.
Most attacks take place in small towns, where there is heavy conflict over illegal mining, drug and human trafficking. Four digital media journalists whose work is characterized by live broadcasts were murdered in Ecuador last year. And so far in 2023, there are already 89 journalists who have faced any kind of aggression, such as threats, stigmatizing speeches, lawsuits, attacks in digital and physical space.
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“There is no further information about these attacks, and I fear that under the crutch that they are attributed to organized crime, this will all end,” explains Ricaurte. Silence and impunity have permeated hundreds of cases of assaults and murders of journalists, like the one that shocked the South American country five years ago.
On March 26, 2018, photographer Paúl Rivas and journalist Javier Ortega from the newspaper El Comercio were aboard a truck driven by Efraín Segarra on the highway that leads to the municipality of Mataje, in the province of Esmeraldas, which is on the border with Colombia, when they were kidnapped by members of Front Oliver Sinisterra, a dissident from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
Javier Ortega, Paul Rivas and Efraín Segarra died sharing what is happening in one of the country’s most violent areas, and impunity for their deaths has turned Esmeraldas into a “silence zone” that prevents communicators from reporting serious events in the north province and extends to other areas where criminal gangs have taken control.
Five years after the crime, prosecutors have yet to hypothesize what happened and the case is being kept confidential. The families have urged for information, but neither Lenin Moreno nor Guillermo Lasso, who have offered to release the files on this crime, have done so.
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