Colombia Uncovers Plot To Kill Reporter And 2 Intellectuals; Why Were They Targeted?

Two policy analysts at the Colombian think tank Corporación Nuevo Arco Iris and a journalist were targets of an assassination plot, the Colombian government revealed today. Andrés Villamizar, the chief of security for the 4,000 people under government protection, wrote on Twitter that a plot existed to kill "three of our protected people", naming them as León Valencia and Ariel Ávila - the two analysts - and Gonzalo Guillén, the journalist. Villamizar said that government security "will not permit that these plans be concretized" and reiterated that his agency has intelligence as to the identity of the planned sicario, or hitman, though he did not reveal the person's identity.

The news comes just two weeks after Ricardo Calderón, also a journalist with Semana magazine, was shot at five times while doing research for a story. Two armed men called him by his name and began shooting. Calderón was able to shield himself behind his car and survived unscathed. Human rights groups recorded 158 cases of intimidations of reporters in 2012.

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It is thought that the threats are a response to an investigation carried out in 2011, when local elections were held, to inquire into relationships between mayoral and gubernatorial candidates and paramilitary groups. The investigation, which was headed by Valencia and Ávila, pointed to 127 politicians and was divulged in the newspaper El Espectador under the title "La lista negra de Arco Iris" ("The Black List Of Arco Iris"). Two years after the report was published, the public prosecutor's office has opened an investigation into many of those links, using the think tank's academic report as its base.

"This quasi-attempt isn't the work of guerrillas or narcos, it was going to be done by a structure organized by a politician currently in power," Ávila told El Pais. He added that the politicians involved are from the north of the country. "The hitman hasn't been captured, but the political structure has been identified." The analyst said he has trouble sleeping at night. "I've got a twin brother, that's my biggest worry."

Gonzalo Guillén, the journalist, was not involved with the government report, but he was recently researching smuggling of weapons and gasoline in the northern frontier region of La Guajira. The governor of La Guajira was included in the Arco Iris list.

"Here we're going to keep on doing what we do," Valencia told El Pais.