Semana or Revista Semana (Spanish for Week Magazine) is a Colombian-based weekly magazine. It was founded in 1946 by Alberto Lleras Camargo (who would become president in 1958), but was shut down after a controversial cover depicting Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

In 1983, journalist Felipe López Caballero re-founded the magazine. The magazine is published by "Publicaciones Semana" and its current director is Alejandro Santos Rubino.

The magazine was directed by Mauricio Vargas between 1983 and 1997, and by Isaac Lee Possin between 1997 and 2000 and by Alejandro Santos Rubino from 2000 to presently.

References[link]

• "Historia" (in Spanish). Revista Semana. http://www.semana.com/wf_InfoHistoria.aspx. Retrieved 2008-09-05. 

External links[link]

• Semana.com - official website

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Jaime Hernando Garzón Forero (October 24, 1960 – August 13, 1999 in Bogotá) was a Colombian journalist, a comedian, lawyer, peace activist and political satirist. He was very popular on Colombian television during the 1990s, especially for his political satire. In addition to his work on television, he also had roles as a peace negotiator in the release of FARC guerrillas' hostages. He was murdered by suspected right-wing paramilitary forces in 1999, although the case remains opened and unsolved.

Life[link]

Jaime Garzón was born in Bogotá on October 24, 1960. He studied law and political science at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, but his active involvement in politics and television did not allow him to finish.^[1]

Mayor of Sumapaz[link]

Garzón joined the political campaign of Andrés Pastrana Arango for the Mayor of Bogotá. After winning the elections, Pastrana nominated him as mayor of Sumapaz in 1988.^[2] Sumapaz is an underdeveloped rural locality of the District of Bogotá. Garzón tried to improve the standard of life of its population. In a year, he created a health center, the school was improved^[3] and the only street of town was paved.

But his originality was not well seen by the central administration of Pastrana. Asked in a telegram to notify the number of legal brothels in Sumapaz, he answered: "Después de una inspección visual, informo que aquí las únicas putas, son las putas FARC",^[4] a sarcastic answer typical of his sense of black humor, roughly translated as "After a visual inspection, I report that the only whores around here are the fucking FARC", a wordplay, as in Colombian Spanish the word 'putas' can signify both 'whores' as noun, and 'fucking' as an intensifier adjective. That answer and other eccentricities, brought to the conclusion by the central administration that he had founded a brothel in Sumapaz.^[5] The municipal government secretary, Volmar Pérez Ortiz, signed his destitution.^[4] For this reason, Garzón sued Pastrana's administration, complaint which ruled in his favor only in 1997.

Between 1990 and 1994 he worked at the Nariño House during the presidency of César Gaviria. He helped in the translations of the new Colombian Constitution of 1991 in the indigenous languages and as a communications presidential adviser.^[6]

Career[link]

In 1987 the director of Noticiero de las 7, Antonio Morales Riveira, knew of the fame of the Mayor of Sumapaz in imitating politicians. He brought Garzón to the news and it was the first time he would appear in television.^[7]

He worked on various television parodies, becoming famous with the TV Show "Zoociedad" (Zoociety) in the 1990s which contained humor about materialistic society and politics. Garzón then started working on a TV Show called "¡Quac! El Noticero" in which he participated with the Colombian Actor Diego León Hoyos until 1997.

Garzón created many different and instantly recognizable fictional characters, the last of which was his debut as "Heriberto de la Calle", a shoe polisher who interviewed different personalities, including politicians.

Peace activist[link]

On March 23, 1998, 200 FARC guerrillas kidnapped 32 persons in the Villavicencio - Bogotá road. Among the hostages were four US citizens and an Italian.^[8]

On March 27 a commission, with the authorization of the anti-kidnapping czar, José Alfredo Escobar and led by Jaime Garzón, allowed the release of nine of the hostages.^[8]

On May 6, 1998, General Jorge Enrique Mora Rangel, commander of the Colombian Army, asked publicly to the anti-kidnapping czar, to investigate Jaime Garzón for his participation in the release of the hostages.^[9][10] On June 4, the anti-kidnapping czar, José Alfredo Escobar, defended the role of Garzón in the release of the hostages as a humanitarian mission.^[10] Garzón tried to have an appointment with General Mora Rangel, but he is not accepted. The journalist sent a telegram to the military where he said: "General, do not look for enemies among the Colombians that risk their life everyday to build a proud nation as I want and as you are fighting for."^[11]

In May 1999 Garzón said in a cocktail before some personalities, among them the US Ambassador, that General Mora was accusing him to be a collaborator of the FARC.^[12]

On May 25, 1999, Senator Piedad Córdoba was kidnapped by the Paramilitary group of Carlos Castaño and she was accused by him of being a collaborator of the guerrilla.^[13] According with Senator Córdoba, Castaño mentioned also Jaime Garzón. Once she was released, she met the journalist and warned him of the danger.^[14]

The participation in the process of the FARC's hostages releases and the intention to promote a dialogue of peace, brought him many threats, but the most noticeable was that of the Paramilitary chief Carlos Castaño.^[11]

Murder[link]

On Tuesday, August 10, 1999, Garzón visited the Paramilitary leader Ángel Gaitán Mahecha, who was in the Modelo Prison in Bogotá with the intention to arrange a meeting with Carlos Castaño. The meeting was to be held on August 14 in the Córdoba Department.^[11]

On Wednesday August 11 Garzón said to his wife and a makeup artist that he was going to be killed the next day.^[11]

On Friday August 13, at 5:45, local time, journalist Jaime Garzón was approaching the Radionet's station in his gray Jeep Cherokee.^[15] When he was turning toward the south coming from the 26th Street in the Barrio Quinta Paredes sector (streets 22F with 42B), in front of Corferias, two men riding a high velocity white motorcycle with hidden plates^[15] approached to the car and calling his name, shot him five times. He was 38 years old.^[11]

The crime took a quick dissemination in the country when his own fellows of Radionet were the first to give the news to Colombia.^[16] Hundreds of persons went out the streets. The vehicular traffic worsened when a pedestrian bridge fell onto the North Highway, near the 122nd Street, because a group of people thought wrongly that the funeral would pass by the site. Three people died and 30 were injured.^[17][18]

On that Friday night, sport presenter César Augusto Londoño in CM& News, had to introduce a memorial note to Heriberto de la Calle, one of the characters of his murdered companion. He introduced the note saying: "and sports here ... country of shit!".^[19]

Investigation[link]

According to Judge Julio Roberto Ballén Silva, the AUC reacted against his involvement in negotiations for the release of guerrilla-held hostages on behalf of their family members. There are several versions of what happened in the days preceding his murder, in one of them Jaime Garzón was informed of an order to assassinate him, he then contacted Castaño, who scheduled a meeting with him to take place just the day after his murder, and sent a counter order to abort the assassination. The order apparently either never reached the actual killers, or came after it was too late. This led some to speculate that the meeting was a trap.^[20]

An investigation of the TV program Contravía directed by Holman Morris shows evidence of the participation of agents of the Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad(DAS) (state intelligence agency) by using false witnesses and therefore the investigation turned away from the real events.^[21] Likewise, the paramilitar Freddy Rendón Herrera aka "El Alemán" accused members of the military forces of being intellectual authors of the murder.^[22]

Castaño is accused of being the mastermind of the crime[link]

On September 13, 1999, the authorities reacted with promptitude to guarantee the arrest of the assassins of the journalist. Four persons participated in the first investigations as key witnesses of the crime: María Amparo Arroyave Mantilla, Wilson Llano Caballero alias El Profe, Maribel Pérez Jiménez and Wilson Raúl Ramirez Muñoz.^[23]

Although it was too early at the moment of the crime and María Amparo Arroyave was at the 4th floor of the building, 100 meters from the place of the assassination, and the two criminals wore helmets, she gave a detailed description of one of the assassins face and clothing.^[24]

On August 19, 1999, the Minister of Defense, Luis Fernando Ramírez and some commanders of the National Army, did a public declaration as an answer to the suggestion of a journalist, who said that the responsibility for the crime of Garzón fall on the military superiors. They said that such suggestion is defamatory and that they reject and condemn the crime of one of the best journalist of the end of the century, the best humorist and the sharper critic of the Colombian society of the last decades.^[25]

On January 6, 2000, the Police of Medellín arrested Juan Pablo Ortiz Agudelo, alias Bochas. According to the Administrative Department of Security, he was the assassin that shot to Garzón and was recognized by María Amparo Arroyave.^[24]

On April 24 Carlos Castaño Gil, top leader of AUC, was formally accused of being the mastermind of the crime.^[26] On June 6 he was declared absent defendant.^[24]

On September 24, 2001, the Police arrested Edilberto Antonio Sierra Ayala in Belén de Umbría under the accusation of being the other criminal that drove the motorbike.^[24]

On January 3, 2002, the tribunal made official the closure of the process. The request of the civil part to review the hypothesis was ignored by the tribunal.^[24]

Complain of manipulation of the investigation[link]

On January 21, 2000, the Attorney General was the first entity to put in doubt the veracity of the testimony of María Teresa Arroya Montoya. The Attorney ordered a careful inspection of the place she argued that she saw the crime.^[24] According to lawyer Alirio Uribe Muñoz, the Attorney concluded that from the place she said that she saw the crime, it is impossible to observe the details of the assassins. The Attorney found several contradictions in her description and little coincidences with other witnesses, who were more near to the place of the crime: none of them could remember the face of the assassins, because they were very fast, but none of these inconsistencies were reviewed in the record.^[24] But Arroyave Montoya disappeared^[23] and the Attorney General Office did not allow the investigation of the DAS' official Juan Ángel Ramírez García, who contacted Ms Arroyave Montoya.^[24]

In October 2002, Reporters Without Borders and Red Damocles questioned the veracity of other witness that was considered a key witness during the first investigation: Wilson Llano Caballero, alias El Profe, who was presented as an Informant of DAS. He provided with pictures and information about the allegedly murders, alias “Bochas” and “Toño”. He convinced his girlfriend, Maribel Pérez Jiménez, and his neighbor, Wilson Raúl Ramírez, to declare against the two suspects.^[23]

Confessions of Paramilitary leaders[link]

On March 11, 2004, Judge Julio Roberto Ballén Silva, acquitted of the crime the two allegedly assassins of the journalist. The sentence allowed the opening of the investigation to agents, officials and false witnesses of the first process.^[27] The tribunal concluded once more that Carlos Castaño Gil was the mastermind of the crime and sentenced him to 38 years in prison and a fine of 790 million pesos.^[27] In April of that very year, the Paramilitary leader was killed probably by disputed among the same Paramilitary members.^[28]

On May 9, 2008, the former Paramilitary leader Diego Fernando Murillo alias Don Berna, said that members of the criminal gang La Terraza of Medellín that served Carlos Castaño, were the assassins of Garzón.^[29]

In June 2008 Paramilitary leader Jorge Iván Laverde, alias El Iguano, declared before Law of Justice and Peace that the former sub-director of the Administrative Department of Security, DAS, José Miguel Narváez, instigated Carlos Castaño to kill Jaime Garzón.^[30] A month later, in July, another Paramilitary former member, Ever Veloza García alias HH, gave to the Attorney General a USB that belonged to Carlos Castaño. He said that in the USB there was the prove that he ordered to La Terraza gang to assassinate Jaime Garzón. Veloza said also that Castaño said in different moments that the crime of Garzón was a mistake and that "it was done to make a favor to some friends of the National Army".^[31]

In October 2009 the former Paramilitary leader, Freddy Rendón Herrera alias "El Alemán", said to Justice and Peace process that Carlos Castaño ordered the killing of the journalist under "specific request of senior military leaders of the time".^[32]

References[link]

Notes[link]

Bibliography[link]

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External links[link]

• Carlos Castaño Gil convicted for murder of journalist Jaime Garzón - IFEX
• [2]
• Edificio Colombia. Blog with Garzón's Tv appearances.
• "La sonrisa inteligente": song about Jaime's thoughts, life and death.
• Interview with Jaime Garzon - English Captions
• Memorial for Garzon on Bogotá's Plaza Bolivar