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 18 th.  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 10 th - 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 15 th, 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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