*The following are a set of letters and commentaries regarding the recent
death/killing of student and radioperson Oscar Leonardo Salas Angel.  They
were sent in Spanish to the OURMedia List by Cesareo Galvez on March
18th.  More
letters will be sent when translated.*
*FIRST LETTER:*

PRESS NOTE 01:

The communicator and poet assassinated, a crime of State



The Lebanese community radio station, from Libano, Tolima - Colombia (not
related to Middle East Libano): CAFÉ 93.5 FM, communicates to the general
public that today – Friday March 10th - at 2am, the son, brother, partner,
and friend OSCAR LEONARDO SALAS ÁNGEL passed away.  He was a social
communicator and a linguistic student at the University Francisco José
Caldas, in Bogota - Colombia.



OSCAR LEONARDO was only 20 years old.  He was wounded last Wednesday at noon
during a skirmish with the Antiriot Movable Unit, AMU (ESMAD).  The students
were protesting against the Free Commerce Treaty, while celebrating Women
Day.



The regrettable death of our brother and friend, OSCAR LEONARDO is another
criminal action against a social communicator and university student.  The
crime against OSCAR LEONARDO adds to those against of Tolima's social
communicators: Pablo Emilio Parra, in

Planadas, Arquímedes Arias Henao, in Fresno and Carlos Restrepo, in San
Luís.



OSCAR LEONARDO was part of a group of Lebanese youngsters that had set their
minds to complement their high school studies by building our municipality
community radio, before they went on with the pursuit of their college
degree.  During this enterprise, OSCAR LEONARDO stood-up for his talents as
mime, actor, musician, walking on stilts, poet, and mad.  He was also an
outstanding student leader. Beginning 2004, he was elected as a student
representative for the Municipal Council of Libano Youth.



During his four years as part of the community radio station CAFÉ 93.5 FM,
OSCAR LEONARDO showed all his aptitudes as a social communicator that
emerged during long instructing sessions for people in charged of the
National University radio station: UNradio 98.5 FM, which he conducted with
great solidarity during 2002.  His sharpness and intellectual aptitude
helped him manage, little by little, all the aspects regarding radio
production.



Son of poverty and misery of our country, OSCAR LEONARDO was born in one of
our municipality's humble homes.  It was because of charisma, intelligence
and thanks to the friendship of Lebanese students that he was now studying
in the Universidad Distrital.



The Libanese municipality of Tolima – in Colombia – sent a young man filled
with dreams to Bogota, so that he could become the great professional he
promised to be.  And today, two years later, the city of Bogota gives back a
body, stripped of its dreams.



Due to the fact that OSCAR LEONARDO'S funerary arrangements were done in
Bogota, the community radio station CAFÉ 93.5 FM, the Libano Mayor's Office,
students from his school ISIDRO PARRA, and all the Libanese community, will
have posthumous tribute in his memory on Wednesday, march 15th, 2006,
starting at 10 am at the towns main square.



For this reason, we invite all of his high school and college colleagues to
join us in this day, since the Bogotanian Mayor's Office as well as the
Universidad Nacional and Distrital authorities – in an act that can only be
qualified as despise for human solidarity – chose to close their university
faculty, in a failed attempt to stop the last good-bye to OSCAR LEONARDO.  With
or without his permission, and even on the doors to a new election –
paradoxically considered the maximum expression of democracy for any nation
– Colombian students have now been protesting for three straight days.  Still,
the excessive use of force of the AMU (ESMAD) and the government of
"democratic security" are in the eye of the storm.



It is important to mention that we did not expect any outcomes from the
Bogotanian Mayor's Office nor from the metropolitan police's "exhaustive
investigation", we just wished that young men and women would be free to
protest, without putting having to die in the process.



From early hours of March 10th, alternative and community media
communicators, as well as poets, actors, dreamers, and madmen have an angel
from utopia itself that encourages our actions.  The unfulfilled dream of
the crazy kid with the deep blue and tender look in his eyes, the kid who
was too soon and too fast taken away from us.



Miguel Marín
Director

*SECOND LETTER*
**

MEMBERS OF THE COMMUNITY RADIO CAFÉ 93.5 FM



Libano, March 10th, 2006

Bogota D.C. March 10th, 2006



To: Community Radio Station CAFÉ 93.5 FM and the networks.



From: The Colombian Network of Community Radios Recorra



It is with deep pain and sorrow that we learnt about the death of the
community radio communicator from radio station Café 93.5 FM, and founder of
the Net Pijao of Tolima Community Radios – OSCAR LEONARDO SALAS ANGEL, who
was known by those who interacted with him for being a brilliant and
enthusiastic community radioperson.  He came from its native city of Libano,
to the capital to study linguistics in the Universidad Distrital; however,
he was still close to his radio station.



The events that occurred on march 8th at the Universidad Nacional de
Colombia (Colombia National University) are still part of an investigation
process and his death is attributed to a strange projectile that went
through one of his eyes into his brain, which caused him to go into a coma
for two days.  The student's protests that were going on as part of the
celebration of Women's International Day, as well as a protest against the
Free Commerce Treaty – recently signed between the US and Colombian
government – was subdued by the Colombian National Police's Antiriot Movable
Unit (ESMAD).



This one more action against freedom of expression and the true right of
social protest, which are constitutionally granted; for that reason, we
reject these procedures as a way of official censorship towards popular
manifestations and we express our sorrow with Oscar Leonardo's family and
friends from Libanese Radio Station Café 93.5 FM.



We hope that the investigations on this event do not become part of the
crimes that go forgotten and without punishment in our society.



For community radios this moment has to be a time to stop and think, since
we are still contributing with our share of sacrifices, and it shows the
risks of working with words, because of the long social, political, cultural
and environmental conflict and with expressions of armed conflicts that have
characterized Colombian society; this act also puts in evidence the need to
establish communication channels and dialogue with the insurgency, in order
to achieve our so wanted peace.



The teachings that this young man left for us should push us in our effort –
one that he was most fond of -- to make of communication a right and to turn
radio production in an art of high quality, especially for the most larger
social levels.



We expect of community radios and networks that we belong to, to express
their solidarity with our friends from the Pijao Network and the Libanese
community station.



Cordially,

JORGE ALBERTO LONDOÑO LUGO

President



HERNÁN CASTELLANOS RAMIREZ

Secretary



CESÁREO GÁLVEZ PERDOMO

Treasurer



CARLOS ACERO RINCON

Collective Our Voices (Voces Nuestras)



HERNANDO URRUTIA

Station Stereo Winds (Vientos Stereo)



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