Colombia: A Bloody Sort of Censorship

Guillermo Cano had just driven away from the Bogota offices of El Espectador in a Subaru packed with Christmas presents when two men on a motorcycle pulled alongside and opened fire with a submachine gun. Cano, 61, editor of the newspaper for 34 years, died 20 minutes later.

Cano, an outspoken opponent of Colombia’s drug cartel, is believed to be the victim of the country’s ruthless cocaine kings, who annually murder dozens % of judges, police and journalists who attempt to expose their activities. After the shooting, an angry President Virgilio Barco signed back into law a U.S.-Colombia extradition treaty that had been invalidated by a technicality, and decreed stiffer penalties for drug violations. Barco, who attended Cano’s funeral, denounced the drug lords as men “with no God” who “stop at nothing.”