Ricardo Uceda, Peru
Journalist and Writer, * 1953
Muerte en el Pentagonito. Los cementerios secretos del Ejército Peruano
“Once upon a time, corruption had virtually taken over the Peruvian state. Things have since changed, but we know that only transparency can guarantee that our leaders are accountable. Access to information contributes to this transparency … First of all access to information must be recognised as a fundamental human right. Governments must act transparently, and the community must exercise control over the political process. What we are attempting now is nothing less than a change in culture. The current culture of secrecy, in which bureaucracies tend to wall themselves off and refuse information, must be changed into one of publicity. Legislation is one possible instrument to achieve this fundamental change.”
Ricardo Uceda was born in Chiclayo, Peru. He studied journalism and economics at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos in Lima. Since 1974 he has worked for a number of different newspapers, including El Mundo, Expreso, El Diario and El Nacional, as well as at the television station Canal 2.
In 1988 he was briefly editor-in-chief at the daily newspaper La Razón, before becoming assistant chief editor at the weekly magazine Sí. He published reports on corruption in the government and collaboration with the drug barons, army massacres and the secret graves of disappeared opposition students and lecturers at La Cantuta University. Uceda always refused to reveal his sources and therefore became the focus of legal actions, physical threats and censorship. Despite efforts to try to connect him to the Shining Path, he was always cleared of the charges. Instead, his reporting led to the arrest of several high ranking officers. In 1993 he received the International Press Freedom Award from the Committee to Protect Journalists in New York.
In 1994 Uceda moved to El Comercio, Peru’s oldest and most reputable daily newspaper, where he founded an investigative journalism unit. He and his editorial team increasingly cover cases of the misuse of office and corruption. 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.
In 2000 Uceda was awarded the Maria Moors Cabot Prize by Columbia University and was also named one of fifty World Press Freedom Heroes by the International Press Institute.
Uceda is a founding member, and current director 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. Each year, in conjunction with Transparency International, the organisation awards a prize for the best reporting on corruption in Latin America.
In 2004 he published Muerte en el Pentagonito. Los cementerios secretos del Ejército Peruano (Planeta, Bogotá). The book concentrates on particular cases from the long violent civil war between the Shining Path and the Peruvian army and exposes incidents from the period 1982 to 1993 that were previously unknown. The book is thus part of the latest wave of contemporary journalism in Chile, Argentina and other countries that is re-examining and re-writing the recent history of Latin America.
Ricardo Uceda lives in Lima.
