First modification:
In the first hearing of the Peace Court on the case, soldiers told their stories about how they kidnapped and murdered civilians during the government of former President Álvaro Uribe, to make them pass as guerrillas killed in combat in the midst of the so-called “democratic security” promoted by the president, who denies any connection with the crimes. The relatives of the victims ask to know “who gave the order”.
Second day of hearing of macrocase 03 of the Special Justice for Peace, also known as ‘False positives’. An appointment considered historic in the Latin American country, since with this it intended to clarify how the Army cold-bloodedly murdered 120 innocent civilians, passing them off as guerrillas.
The hearing took place in Ocaña, in the Norte de Santander region, on the Colombian border with Venezuela. This municipality is one of the most marked by extrajudicial executions in the country. There, the military deliberately chose citizens or brought them from other parts of the country to assassinate them.
An Army general, nine other soldiers and a civilian reported to the families of the victims. These 11 people were charged by the Peace Court in July 2021. The ordinary Justice would have charged them with the crimes of homicide of a protected person and forced disappearance.
Among those who testified was former sergeant Sandro Mauricio Pérez Contreras, who told dozens of relatives of victims how he had attracted young people from urban areas in the center of the country by offering them jobs to hand them over to soldiers who killed them. “These were murders that were committed against innocent human beings who had no connection to any group outside the law,” he said.
💬 “I wonder which of these houses my son Daniel was in for the last time, convinced that he was going to work (…), so far we have learned many things. I learned many things and details that I did not know, “said Gloria Martínez.
🔴#Live: https://t.co/Zk7c1tClKU pic.twitter.com/UfcvgOhjIN— Special Jurisdiction for Peace (@JEP_Colombia) April 27, 2022
Retired General Paulino Coronado also declared, who acknowledged having omitted war crimes in his chain of command. Coronado claimed to have learned that under his leadership, “they had brought 11 young people from Soacha (near the capital, Bogotá)”, but that when he received the news, a long time had already passed. The investigations could not determine if this general gave the direct orders.
“An institutional policy of the Army consisting of counting the corpses”
Many relatives ask that the authorities recognize that their relatives were not involved in the conflict. “We want today before this public and before the world to say that our relatives were not combatants or guerrillas,” asked Eduvina Becerra, a peasant who has been demanding justice for the murder of her partner, José Eliécer Ortega, for 14 years.
According to the JEP, a total of 6,402 extrajudicial executions took place during the government of former President Álvaro Uribe, who made the fight against the FARC guerrillas his political banner. The president implemented what was called the “democratic security” policy, which was intended to put an end to the power of the guerrillas.
The defendants specified that the majority were young people between 25 and 35 years old, mostly peasants who were kidnapped and later murdered, and indicated that it was an “institutional policy” with the aim of counting bodies to increase results.
Another of the defendants, Colonel Rincón Amado, said that the network of executions was “the outcome of the democratic security policy that at the time and for 2007 and 2008 was being experienced at the national level.”
Uribe, for his part, has assured that these are “isolated cases” and has denied that the Army carried out systematic action against civilians during his mandate.
The victims continue to ask for it to be known “who gave the order”
Many of the relatives of those who died in the midst of the ‘False positives’ network were sitting before those who recognized that they were their executioners. They wore black T-shirts with a question they’ve been asking authorities for years: “Who gave the order?”
An unanswered question so far. “I tell the defendants that they please, they have sons, daughters, relatives, put their hands on their hearts and tell us the truth sincerely and don’t just throw yourself into the water but the one who gave the order,” said Carmenza Gómez, mother of one of the victims.
Some relatives expressed their disagreement with the statements of the accused soldiers, since all of them had already confessed before the ordinary Justice, and then went on to testify before the Peace Court, which plans to grant more lax sentences in exchange for clarifying what happened. during the conflict.
For many, these statements continue to leave relatives unanswered and the chain of command when the murders were committed has not yet been clarified. Case 03 will continue and the victims will continue asking for answers, since these 120 deaths are just some of the 6,402 ‘false positives’ counted by the JEP.
With EFE and local media
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