Erlick, who worked as a foreign correspondent in Colombia from 1975 to 1984 for Time Magazine, the New York Times and the Miami Herald, said that the violence against journalists and their subjects is directed mostly at Colombian citizens.

"As a correspondent I felt safe except for the same things as everyone, such as falling off a cliff on the edge of a road," she said. "I was never afraid for my life in Bogota or traveling through the country and never received a threat. My accent protected me and gave me greater access."

However, she did note that more and more local journalists are finding themselves the targets of threats.

Drugs are one of the main sources of conflict in Columbia, said David Aquila Lawrence, a free-lance journalist for National Public Radio, the Los Angeles Times, The Christian Science Monitor, the BBC and CNN for the past three years.

"Before I went I had been following the news from here," he said. "My impression was that everything in Colombia was about drugs. It's not excusable but it's quite common. But the violence there also had a political base as well."

He said that he would often visit the site of a massacre immediately following it, and concluded that somehow, everything related back to drugs, but that the influence of drugs isn't as strong as the resulting influence of money.

"Drugs provide the cash flow, and the armed factions benefit from this 'fuel' provided by the United States and Europe by consumption," Lawrence said.