Colombia’s military carried out at least 6,400 extrajudicial killings and presented them as combat deaths between 2002 and 2008, a number significantly higher than previously estimated, a special court said on Thursday.
The court, called the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, is investigating crimes and atrocities committed during half a century of armed conflict between government troops and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Marxist rebels who laid down their weapons following a historic 2016 peace accord.
The tribunal, set up under the peace deal, described the killings as “illegitimate deaths presented as combat fatalities,” which are known in military circles as “false positives.”
Photo: Reuters
Until last year, the public prosecutor’s office had acknowledged 2,249 executions of civilians between 1988 and 2014 — the majority of which were carried out between 2006 and 2008, during the administration of former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe, the political mentor of Colombian President Ivan Duque.
Although the military high command has always denied that there was a systematic policy of declaring “false positives,” some soldiers and officials have told the court that they were put under pressure by superiors to inflate the success of their military operations against rebels.
General Mario Montoya, who was the army commander at the time, is the highest-ranking military figure to have testified before the court.
Despite witnesses blaming him for the killings, Montoya denies ordering the execution of civilians.
There are 2,140 military personnel under investigation over extrajudicial killings, which is less than 1 percent of the total number of troops operating in the army at that time, Montoya’s lawyer, Andres Garzon, told reporters last year.
“That shows there was never a directive to the army to commit such atrocious acts,” he said.
The court is looking into the worst rights abuses committed by guerrillas, paramilitaries and soldiers during the conflict.
Those who confess responsibility and compensate the victims can avoid prison time, but those who do not face up to 20 years in jail.
However, the court has yet to convict anyone since it was set up in 2018.
It said that most of the killings took place in the northwestern Antioquia department, where soldiers and right-wing paramilitaries fought with left-wing rebels.
The Colombian Army’s IV Brigade, which operated in the region, “could be responsible for 73 percent of the deaths identified in the department between 2000 and 2013,” the tribunal added.
Some remains of victims have been found in a cemetery in Antioquia thanks to statements made by members of the security forces, but the court said that those “haven’t been investigated.”
Tania Parra, a lawyer representing soldiers who have confessed, said that Thursday’s report shows there was “complicity” by authorities “to hide” the murders.
However, she said that while many investigations are opened, “either there’s no result or ... they’re cleared.”
At least 20 of the 219 security forces personnel who have testified before the court are receiving protection after facing threats.
Two medieval fortresses face each other across the Narva River separating Estonia from Russia on Europe’s eastern edge. Once a symbol of cooperation, the “Friendship Bridge” connecting the two snow-covered banks has been reinforced with rows of razor wire and “dragon’s teeth” anti-tank obstacles on the Estonian side. “The name is kind of ironic,” regional border chief Eerik Purgel said. Some fear the border town of more than 50,0000 people — a mixture of Estonians, Russians and people left stateless after the fall of the Soviet Union — could be Russian President Vladimir Putin’s next target. On the Estonian side of the bridge,
Jeremiah Kithinji had never touched a computer before he finished high school. A decade later, he is teaching robotics, and even took a team of rural Kenyans to the World Robotics Olympiad in Singapore. In a classroom in Laikipia County — a sparsely populated grasslands region of northern Kenya known for its rhinos and cheetahs — pupils are busy snapping together wheels, motors and sensors to assemble a robot. Guiding them is Kithinji, 27, who runs a string of robotics clubs in the area that have taken some of his pupils far beyond the rural landscapes outside. In November, he took a team
SHOW OF SUPPORT: The move showed that aggression toward Greenland is a question for Europe and Canada, and the consequences are global, not just Danish, experts said Canada and France, which adamantly oppose US President Donald Trump’s wish to control Greenland, were to open consulates in the Danish autonomous territory’s capital yesterday, in a strong show of support for the local government. Since returning to the White House last year, Trump has repeatedly insisted that Washington needs to control the strategic, mineral-rich Arctic island for security reasons. Trump last month backed off his threats to seize Greenland after saying he had struck a “framework” deal with NATO chief Mark Rutte to ensure greater US influence. A US-Denmark-Greenland working group has been established to discuss ways to meet Washington’s security concerns
DIPLOMATIC THAW: The Canadian prime minister’s China visit and improved Beijing-Ottawa ties raised lawyer Zhang Dongshuo’s hopes for a positive outcome in the retrial China has overturned the death sentence of Canadian Robert Schellenberg, a Canadian official said on Friday, in a possible sign of a diplomatic thaw as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney seeks to boost trade ties with Beijing. Schellenberg’s lawyer, Zhang Dongshuo (張東碩), yesterday confirmed China’s Supreme People’s Court struck down the sentence. Schellenberg was detained on drug charges in 2014 before China-Canada ties nosedived following the 2018 arrest in Vancouver of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou (孟晚舟). That arrest infuriated Beijing, which detained two Canadians — Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig — on espionage charges that Ottawa condemned as retaliatory. In January
RSS