Ricardo Uceda, Peru
By Global Journalist Staff Posted Sat, Apr 1 2000
Ricardo Uceda, one of Peru’s most renowned investigative journalists, is famous for his fearless reporting on government corruption and the military’s abuse of human rights. Under his editorship, the newsweekly Sí implicated military officers in the 1991 massacre of 15 people in the Barrios Altos district of the capital, Lima, and revealed the existence of a clandestine grave containing the bodies of nine college students and their professor who had been abducted by the army. Steadfastly refusing to reveal his sources, Uceda became the focus of legal actions, physical threats and censorship. In 1994, he left Sí to found the Investigative Unit of El Comercio, Peru’s oldest and most prestigious daily.
Born in Chiclayo, Peru, on July 24, 1953, Uceda studied journalism at the Jaime Bausate y Mesa Institute of Journalism and Economics at the Mayor de San Marcos National University. He joined the magazine El Mundo in 1974 and worked for the dailies Expreso, El Diario, and El Nacional before joining the TV station, Canal 2, as an investigative reporter in 1987. After a brief stint as editor in chief of the daily La Razón, he was appointed deputy editor of the magazine Sí in 1988.
When President Alberto Fujimori suspended the constitution and dissolved Congress on Apr. 5, 1992, ostensibly to eradicate corruption and combat terrorism, he created a presidential dictatorship that continues to violate basic rights, including freedom of the press. Fujimori uses his control of the country’s judiciary to intimidate the independent press. The military continues to demonstrate low tolerance for journalists reporting on corruption and human rights abuses. In addition to threats and physical attacks, favorite methods of intimidation have included jailing, detentions, economic pressure, wire tapping and surveillance to force many journalists into exile.
In this climate of threats, harassment and intimidation, Uceda and his dedicated staff of investigative reporters at Sí conducted investigations into government corruption, collusion between drug traffickers and the military, and human rights violations.
After the magazine revealed new information in December 1992 that implicated senior military intelligence personnel in the 1991 Barrios Altos massacre of 15 people, the Minister of Defense, Victor Malca Villanueva, initiated a case against Uceda for falsifying information. Through the public prosecutor, Malca accused Uceda of lying about the involvement of the army in the massacre. When the authorities demanded that he reveal his sources for the story, Uceda refused. A provincial criminal prosecutor said that Sí had acted within its rights to exercise free expression and closed the case.
In July 1993 Uceda revealed the existence of a clandestine grave containing the remains of nine students and a professor from La Cantuta University. They were victims of a military death squad and had been missing since July 1992. When Uceda was accused of obstruction of justice, a crime punishable with prison, the Peruvian Congress voted overwhelmingly to guarantee the safety of the editor, who had resisted all pressure to reveal his sources. An inquiry led to the arrest of several high-ranking officers despite attempts at a cover-up by the authorities who had threatened Uceda and his family and accused him of complicity with the Shining Path terrorist movement.
Uceda resigned his post as editor in chief of Sí in August 1994 to found and also head the investigations unit of El Comercio, Peru’s most important daily. His team of investigative journalists continues to uncover numerous cases of corruption among politicians and the military. One of the most notable cases was in 1998 when El Comercio exposed the misuse of state funds intended for victims of the El Niño floods and mudslides. The story led to the arrest and jailing of Peru’s civil defense chief, General Homero Nureña.
An uncompromising advocate of freedom of expression and the public’s right to know, Uceda is also a founding member of the Instituto Prensa y Sociedad (Press and Society Institute), an association founded by Peruvian journalists to defend journalism, promote press freedom and to strengthen the media’s role in the development of democracy in Peru.