HOLLMAN FELIPE MORRIS
DIRECTOR AND FOUNDATOR MORRIS PRODUCCIONES

Morris has spent most of his career covering Colombia’s internal armed conflict, with a particular focus on human rights issues. He has done this in a variety of settings: through local and national radio, television, newspapers, as a documentary filmmaker, and independent writer.

In his coverage of the conflict Morris has been fiercely committed to uncovering the truth about atrocities committed by both sets of illegal armed groups in the country: right-wing paramilitaries and left-wing guerrillas. Morris has not shied away from covering abuses committed by government authorities such as the police or military. His work has done a great deal to shed light on the conflict’s impact on Colombia’s most vulnerable – and often forgotten -- citizens.

Morris spent 1999-2000 as a correspondent for Television Channel RCN in San Vicente del Caguan, where the Pastrana administration was conducting peace negotiations with the leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). During this time, Morris produced a number of special reports on the peace negotiations, including a series of pieces designed to educate the public at large on the details of the resulting agreements.

He was also among the few journalists covering the atrocities that the FARC was committing in the “zona de distension” – the Switzerland-sized piece of territory that the government ceded to the FARC to incentivize negotiations.

In 2000 Morris founded and became the editor of the Peace and Human Rights Section of El Espectador, one of Colombia’s two most prominent newspapers. In this capacity, Morris wrote numerous articles on the Colombian conflict, including pieces on Colombia’s “disappeared,” the problem of impunity for human rights abuses, the practice of “confinement” (by which armed groups strictly limit access to and exit from certain communities), the situation of the so-called “communities of resistance” in the region of El Choco, and the FARC’s involvement in the assassination of U.S. citizens.

After having to leave Colombia under threat in 2000, Morris wrote and published his first book, Operación Ballena Azul. The books tells the true story of how the M-19 guerrilla group stole a cache of weapons, and how Colombia’s armed forces recovered them. Through this story, the book also gives an account of systematic human rights violations during a particular period of Colombia’s history.

While in Spain, Morris also continued writing articles about the Colombian conflict. One of his stories dealt with the number of people who had been forced to leave Colombia as a result of threats.