Maria Cristina Caballero
Colombia

Maria Cristina Caballero is a journalist, writer, and leader who has analyzed Colombia's history of violence and created a forum for constructive, negotiated solutions to the violence affecting her country. After interviewing leaders of the armed factions involved in Colombia's lengthy conflict, Ms. Caballero published the 60-page Peace on the Table, which included the views of each. She has received numerous awards for her courage and determination, including the Simon Bolivar National Prize for Journalism in both 1991 and 1998, the 1991 Inter-American Press Association's Human Rights Journalism Award, and the 2001 Committee to Protect Journalists World Press Freedom Award. A member of the International Women's Media Foundation's Advisory Committee, Ms. Caballero holds a bachelor's degree in social communications and journalism from Javeriana University in Bogotá, Colombia. She is a fellow at Harvard University's Kennedy School's Center for Public Leadership and has held fellowships at Harvard's Nieman and Mason programs (while a Mason fellow, she earned a Master of Public Administration and Management). Ms. Caballero was a working fellow at Time magazine's bureau in Washington, DC. Through the World Press Institute, based at Macalester College in Minnesota, Ms. Caballero received a diploma in American studies, traveling to 15 US cities to participate in conferences and debates on poverty, peace resolution, and US foreign and domestic policies.

Ms. Caballero's peace-building activities include:

• traveling into Colombia's jungles to interview Carlos Castaño, leader of Colombia's paramilitary group, and Jorge Briceno, military leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) of Colombia;
• journeying to numerous villages in the aftermath of massacres to investigate and report on the internal conflict between guerillas, paramilitaries, and government agents, as well as the effect this violence has on civil society and civil resistance to violence;
• directing the investigation departments of Semana, Colombia's main weekly newsmagazine, Cambio 16, another Colombian newsmagazine, and El Tiempo, Colombia's largest daily newspaper;
• reporting on Colombian drug cartels and the infiltration of drug money in the highest ranks of government, as well as violence and the proliferation of human rights abuses in Colombia; and
• contributing analytical articles and op-ed pieces to international media such as the New York Times, Boston Globe, and Miami Herald, to inform the international community about ongoing challenges in Colombia and other Latin American countries.

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