1 COLOMBIA Media and Telecoms Landscape Guide December 2012 1 2 Index Introduction.....................................................................................3 Media overview……………………………………………………..…14 Radio overview..............................................................................25 Radio stations................................................................................33 Television overview........................................................................50 Television stations..........................................................................55 Print overview.................................................................................66 Newspapers...................................................................................71 Online media..................................................................................87 Media resources.............................................................................91 Telecommunications overview.......................................................101 Telecommunications companies...................................................105 Annexes I -List of community radio stations by province…………..............109 II -List of community TV cable networks by province……............151 2 3 Introduction Colombia is a middle income country with huge economic potential, but it is plagued by conflict and natural disasters. Political violence is endemic in this South American nation of 47 million people, despite its long tradition of multi-party democracy and regular elections. The government has been waging a civil war against two separate left-wing guerrilla movements for nearly half a century. Since the 1980s right-wing paramilitaries protecting the interests of large land owners and highly organised criminal gangs of drug traffickers have also come on the scene. The drug gangs employ large numbers of heavily armed guards and assassins. They use their own planes, ships and even submarines to export processed drugs to North America and Europe, often via third countries in Central America, the Caribbean and West Africa. The drug cartels also hide consignments of cocaine, marijuana and heroin in ordinary commercial cargo. All the armed factions that claim a political agenda have turned to criminal activities such as extortion, kidnapping and drug trafficking to fund themselves. The frontiers between politically motivated violence and criminality for financial gain have become increasingly blurred. Colombia is one of the world’s largest suppliers of cocaine. It also grows large quantities of marijuana and opium poppies for the manufacture of heroin. All those involved in the fighting have committed horrific human rights abuses. Extra-judicial executions and mass killings are common. According to human rights organisations, the insurgent groups have an established practice of recruiting child soldiers. In recent years, the leftist guerrilla groups FARC and ELN have made increasing use of mines and roadside bombs. These often cause high civilian casualties. Rural families suffer the brunt of this conflict, especially those living in remote rural areas where most of the drug cultivation takes place. The armed factions not only control the drugs trade. They have also moved into mining areas to develop protection rackets. 3 4 Their gunmen extort money from companies operating in the oil and gas sector and also from artisanal miners of gold, emeralds and other precious minerals. Oil companies which refuse to pay up can expect to have their oil pipelines bombed and their vehicles attacked. Many people have moved out of those parts of the countryside worst affected by fighting. At the end of 2011, the government estimated there were 3.9 internally displaced people (IDPs) in Colombia. Some NGO estimates put the true figure at over five million. According to a report by the International Crisis Group published in October 2012, Colombia:Peace at last?” www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/latin-america- caribbean/andes/colombia/045-colombia-peace-at-last.aspx, the four departments (provinces) with the highest rates of population displacement in 2011 were Caquetá and Guaviare in the Eastern plains, Chocó on the Pacific coast and Nariño in the far South near the border with Ecuador. Between 1.2% and 1.8% of the population of these conflict-ridden departments had been forced to leave their homes by lack of security in 2011, it said. The majority of IDPs end up in the Colombia’s main cities. Although most displaced people abandon their homes to escape conflict, some are the victims of natural disasters. Volcanoes and earthquakes Colombia is prone to frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions because it sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire. The tectonic plate beneath the Pacific Ocean slides back into the earth’s molten core beneath the Andean mountains along the West coast of South America, provoking frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. These affect the heavily populated mountainous regions of Central and Western Colombia. In 1999, an earthquake measuring 6.0 on the Richter scale killed more than a 1,000 people in the town of Armenia in West Central Colombia. A further 160,000 were left homeless. The Andean mountain ranges of Colombia are dotted with active volcanoes, some of them rising to over 5,000 metres. Many of them erupt frequently. Earthquakes and landslides associated with volcanic eruptions often cause greater loss of life and human displacement than the outpourings of lava and volcanic ash. 4 5 Administrative map of Colombia Source: Vidiani.com 5 6 In 1985 an eruption of the snow-capped Nevado del Ruiz volcano in central Colombia triggered a mudflow that buried the town of Armero, killing 25,000 people. A similar disaster occurred on a smaller scale during the 1994 eruption of Nevado de Huila volcano in south western Colombia. The eruption triggered an earthquake measuring 6.4 on the Richter scale. This provoked landslides and mud flows that killed 1,200 and made 20,000 homeless. Several volcanoes lie close to large cities which are constantly at risk. For example, the southern city of Pasto, with a population of 450,000, lies in the shadow of Galeras volcano. This experienced 17 minor eruptions between 2004 and 2010. A really big one could prove catastrophic. Flooding Severe flooding has also caused much human suffering and economic damage. Normally Colombia has two separate rainy seasons. The first stretches from March to June. The second lasts from October to December. However, in recent years fluctuations in the ocean currents off the West coast of South America have made the timing and intensity of rainfall less predictable. A phenomenon known as La Niña, sometimes causes the temperature of surface water in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Colombia and Ecuador to cool by up to five degrees Centigrade. This in turn provokes heavy rainfall in western and central Colombia. La Niña conditions persisted from mid-2010 until early 2012, provoking torrential rain and serious flooding in many parts of Colombia over a continuous period of nearly two years. By the end of 2011, more than two million people had been affected by floods across the county. Over 500 people lost their lives and tens of thousands were made homeless. The floods cut roads, isolated communities and caused heavy economic damage La Niña conditions finally petered out in April 2012, raising hopes of a return to more normal weather patterns. Recent history Colombia was conquered and settled by Spanish colonists in the 16th century. 6 7 Today, Spanish is the national language, spoken by nearly everyone, and Roman Catholicism is the dominant religion. Most Colombians are of mixed race. The Spaniards mingled with the indigenous South American Indian population that they found living in the country. They also imported black slaves from Africa to work on plantations near the Caribbean coast. Today, about two thirds of the population is mixed race. Most of the rest are white European or black African. Only 3% of Colombians are of pure indigenous stock. Under the leadership of Simon Bolivar, Colombia rebelled against Spanish colonial rule in the early 19th century. The country declared independence in 1819, but Venezuela and Ecuador broke away to form separate states in 1830. US influence As an independent state, Colombia moved rapidly from the Spanish to the US sphere of influence. It remains there today. The territory of Colombia originally included Panama, but this northern province seceded to become an independent state in 1903. It broke away with active encouragement from the US government, which was anxious to secure control of the then half-built Panama canal. US companies are major investors in the Colombian economy and the US government has provided billions of dollars of military aid to help the Colombian government combat left-wing guerrilla groups and drug traffickers. US military aid to Colombia intensified between 2002 and 2010 during the presidency of Alvaro Uribe to back his successful offensive against the FARC and ELN leftist rebel movements. By the time Uribe handed over to the current head of state, President Juan Manuel Santos, in 2010, both rebel movements had suffered heavy losses and had reduced the scale of their military activities. However, they remain far from defeated. 7 8 La Violencia and power sharing Two political parties have dominated Colombian politics ever since independence; the Liberals and the Conservatives. Rivalry between them has often spilled