Peace court: Colombia army 'behind 6,400 extrajudicial killings'

[Eugene]

Source: BBC

Peace court: Colombia army 'behind 6,400 extrajudicial killings'

18 February 2021

An inquiry in Colombia has found that 6,402 civilians were killed by the military between 2002 and 2008 and falsely passed off as enemy combatants.

The number of killings, known as "false positives", is almost three times higher than previous estimates.

The inquiry is by a special court looking into crimes committed during a half century of conflict between troops and left wing rebels.

A peace deal ending the conflict was signed in 2016.

What were the "false positives?

It is the name given to the killings of young men - mainly from poor families - carried out by the Colombian army.

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Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-56112386

[Judi Lynn]

1. Thank goodness, someone is still working on this. They wanted to keep it buried, obviously.

From the article:

. . . . It also suggests that the majority of the "false positives" were carried out between 2002 and 2008, during the presidency of Álvaro Uribe.

What's the background?
The "false positives" scandal first erupted in 2008, but the practice is thought to date back as far as the 1980s.

More than 1,700 people have been sentenced for their role in the false positives.

Members of the military have given evidence in a number of court cases over the past decade and told how they were pressured by their superiors to drive up their "kill rate" and how they would be rewarded by being given promotions or extra days off.

In one case, eight soldiers were jailed for taking four farmers from their homes by force, shooting them in the back and dressing them up as rebels.

In other instances, young men were lured from poor neighbourhoods of the capital, Bogotá, with promises of work, only to be murdered and dressed in rebel fatigues.

Álvaro Uribe, bloodthirsty dictator, drops by to receive the Medal of Freedom.



"Oh, you shouldn't have."