Human rights workers in Colombia are frequently murdered by rightist paramilitary forces or the country's untrained, undisciplined, and inadequately funded military. The paramilitary groups, who are protected by the military and paid by narcotics traffickers and large landowners, have grown exponentially. In May, a military intelligence unit was disbanded after credible reports tied it to support for death squads and a string of political assassinations, including the 1995 murder of Colombia's top opposition leader. In 1998, left-wing guerrillas used as many as 400 villagers in a single town as human shields to protect themselves against aerial bombardment. Perpetrators of political violence operate with a high degree of impunity.
Journalists are frequently the victims of political and revenge violence.
More than 120 journalists, including at least seven in 1998, have been murdered in the past decade. Many were killed for reporting on drug trafficking and corruption. After threatening mass suicide, the 5,000-member Uwa Indian tribe has reported that foreign oil companies have retreated from plans to exploit their ancestral lands. In August, however, an Embera Katio community leader was murdered by a right-wing death squad because he was protesting the planned construction of a dam that would flood tribal lands. In a positive development in September, the constitutional court overturned as discriminatory a 1979 law that allowed teachers to be dismissed for homosexuality.