The newspaper ready to take on the traffickers

One of our Observers in Colombia reacts to the return of El Espectador, an independent newspaper which, according to him, is capable of criticising Colombia's political and social elites and is not afraid of exposing their links to the drugs trade. The paper's return is a welcome relief for the daily Colombian press, which until now has bowed under pressure from the nation's powerful narco industry.

"El Espectador has paid dearly for its daring"

Sébastien Longhurst is a French expat living in Colombia.

Last Sunday [May 11], Colombia's oldest newspaper, founded in 1887, has come back as a daily. It's really good news for Colombians, because it's a "liberal and independent" newspaper, which condemned political and financial circles in the eighties for their involvement with the "narco" mafia.

El Espectador has paid dearly for its daring. In 1986 Guillermo Cano, the paper's director and a member of the founding family, was assassinated by "sicarios" (hired assassins) sent by Colombian drug lord, Pablo Escobar. Three years later, a bomb went off at their head office, making an already unsteady financial situation worse. It was on top of these problems that the paper became a weekly rather than a daily in 2000.

The return of the publication is a very symbolic event in a country which stills suffers under the control of the mafia and the narcotics trade. Even these scourges have changed their way of working since the eighties.

El Espectador will step on the toes of the big seller El Tiempo, which despite having the image of a serious publication is in fact rather favourable to the powers that be. It will bring a breath of fresh air to the Colombian press."

The advert for the re-launch of the daily

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