Colombia

A journalist, writer, and leader, Maria Cristina Caballero has analyzed Colombia’s history of conflict and created a forum for constructive, negotiated solutions to the violence affecting her country. She instituted an initiative to gather and publish peace proposals from each faction involved in the decades-old conflict. The 60-page Peace on the Table, a collection of the unedited proposals, shows eight points of agreement among them. 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 has been a working fellow at Time magazine’s bureau in Washington, DC. Currently a fellow at the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, she holds a bachelor’s degree in social communications and journalism from Javeriana University in Bogotá, Colombia, and has held fellowships at Harvard’s Nieman and Mason programs. While a Mason fellow, she earned a master’s degree in public administration and management. 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 largest paramilitary force, the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, 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 internal conflict among 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, the country’s largest daily newspaper;
• reporting on drug cartels, the infiltration of drug money in the highest ranks of government, 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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