Bogota, Colombia – Almost twenty years after the Colombian military killed her 19-year-old son, Beatriz Mendez heard the phrases she had lengthy waited for.
On Tuesday, Defence Minister Ivan Velasquez issued a public apology for the extrajudicial killings of 19 civilians, together with Mendez’s son and nephew, clearing their names of any wrongdoing and acknowledging the state’s accountability for his or her deaths.
“We come to say sorry,” stated Velasquez. “We all know that at this time it’s tough to acquire forgiveness as a result of the state has tried to cover the reality.”
President Gustavo Petro and armed forces head Luis Ospina Gutierrez additionally issued apologies. It was the primary time the state admitted its position within the scandal, referred to as the case of the “false positives”.
The time period describes a apply within the army of murdering civilians and passing them off as rebels in Colombia’s decades-long inside battle, with a purpose to increase the variety of fight “kills” that troopers may declare credit score for.
These statistics, in flip, allowed the army to assert the tide was handing over its conflict in opposition to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the most important insurgent group on the time.
Mendez’s son, Weimar Castro Mendez, and her nephew, Edwar Rincon Mendez, have been final seen on June 21, 2004. They disappeared from the impoverished neighbourhood the place they lived in southern Bogota, whereas out on a stroll with a pal.
Two days later, the Mendez household discovered from a radio broadcast that the military had recognized the 2 younger males as insurgent fighters killed in fight.
Mendez, who had been in a close-by rural city on the time of the disappearances, arrived in Bogota to search out her son and nephew in a coffin. Their our bodies, wearing blood-stained insurgent fatigues, have been riddled with dozens of bullets. The corneas of her son’s eyes had been eliminated.
“It was horrible, like one thing out of a horror film,” stated Mendez.
Their grotesque deaths marked solely the start of Mendez’s trials. After she reported the crime and despatched letters pleading for justice to then-President Alvaro Uribe and his defence ministry, nameless callers flooded her cellphone with loss of life threats, forcing her into hiding for 5 years.
Consultants estimate the 19 killings acknowledged this week are solely the tip of the iceberg, a tiny fraction of the deaths the federal government is chargeable for.
Between 2002 and 2008 alone, at the very least 6,402 civilians have been killed extrajudicially, based on the Particular Peace Jurisdiction (JEP), a tribunal created out of the 2016 peace deal between the FARC and the federal government.
Most of the victims have been poor farmers from the countryside or younger males from cities who have been lured to distant areas with job presents.
The JEP has positioned greater than 3,500 army members beneath investigation for crimes associated to the killings, however human rights advocates imagine the deaths symbolize a broader, institutional failing.
“The state has an obligation to ensure human rights. If these rights are violated, even when there isn’t any direct accountability, there’s a accountability for having failed to stop the occasions and for failing to guard the rights of residents,” stated Maria Camila Moreno, director of the Worldwide Courtroom of Transitional Justice (ICTJ), a nonprofit devoted to pursuing accountability for mass human rights abuses.
That perception, nonetheless, has stirred controversy in Colombia, the place right-wing politicians have pushed again on the notion that the crimes have been systematic and ordered by military superiors.
Colombian courts have ordered earlier administrations to problem formal apologies as a part of reparations owed to victims. However former President Ivan Duque refused to conform, stated Pilar Castillo, director of Asociación Minga, a gaggle that provides authorized illustration to victims of extrajudicial killings.
Duque’s inaction displays a wider tradition of denial, Castillo added.
“In impact, the Duque administration didn’t have the political will to adjust to the rulings as a result of it will have meant acknowledging that the extrajudicial killings have been a felony apply throughout the army forces,” she stated.
She identified that the Duque authorities was not alone in dodging accountability: The administrations of President Uribe and his successor Juan Manuel Santos likewise denied extrajudicial killings have been a systemic downside within the army.
As a substitute, the administrations argued that the instances have been remoted, a story that has been refuted by the JEP however continues to flow into in right-wing sectors, based on Moreno, the ICTJ director.
In JEP hearings, nonetheless, army officers have testified that state insurance policies and stress from superiors motivated the crimes. Extrajudicial killings elevated in 2005 when the Defence Ministry introduced a directive that rewarded army members with holidays, promotions and bonuses for fight kills.
Officers have additionally advised the JEP that former Colombian army Common Mario Montoya ordered troopers to prioritise kills over captures.
The JEP has to date indicted three generals, together with Montoya, who’s charged with the extrajudicial killings of 130 civilians throughout his time as Fourth Brigade commander, from 2002 to 2003.
In September, retired Common Henry Torres Escalante publicly confessed to ordering extrajudicial killings and hampering investigations into the crimes.
On the public occasion on Tuesday, family of the 19 victims gave emotional testimonies on stage in entrance of prime army brass. Some refused to simply accept the state’s apology, and others cursed on the nation’s armed forces.
A couple of known as on former presidents Uribe and Santos — who served as his predecessor’s defence minister — to publicly apologise as effectively.
Santos, who acquired the Nobel Peace Prize for ushering in a peace take care of the FARC throughout his presidency, apologised to victims in 2021, however his assertion was issued in a closed-door listening to. He advised native media he had not been invited to Tuesday’s public occasion.
On Wednesday, Uribe denied that his administration was chargeable for the crimes, with out mentioning the potential for a public apology.
Castillo, the director of Asociación Minga, stated that Tuesday’s formal apology had been a precedence for victims’ households as a result of prime authorities officers, together with Uribe and Santos, had both denied the killings or justified the army’s actions when the scandal first broke in 2008.
Among the victims, for instance, have been accused of being criminals, with a purpose to downplay their deaths, based on households and rights advocates.
Mendez, who has spent virtually twenty years combating to show her son’s innocence, stated her youngster had by no means been concerned in felony actions. On the time of his loss of life, he had lately graduated from highschool and aspired to discover a job to assist care for his household.
She considers Tuesday’s apology from Defence Minister Velasquez to be a results of her struggle — and that of hundreds of others.
“We’ve demonstrated that all the things that we’ve completed for our sons wasn’t in useless,” she stated.
