Colombia's Military Killed Three Times More Civilians During FARC War Than Previously Reported
A special court found that 6,402 civilians were murdered by the armed forces and falsely presented as rebels killed in combat - 4,000 more than previously thought.
WM
By Wes Michael Tomaselli
February 23, 2021, 7:51am
MEDELLÍN, Colombia - Over six thousand murdered Colombian civilians were fraudulently reported as rebel kills by the Colombian army during the use of a war-time policy to boost body count during the South American country’s civil armed conflict.
Following a landmark peace deal between Colombia’s government and rebel group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) five years ago, the country’s special peace tribunal found this month that the civilian body count in what has become known as the False Positives scandal is actually triple what has been reported in the past.
“The special peace court [known in Colombia by its Spanish language initials JEP] found that 6,402 civilians were murdered by the armed forces and falsely presented as rebels killed in combat,” said Santiago Vargas Niño, an international crime lawyer, on Twitter.
“That’s 4,000 more than originally reported and 78 percent of those deaths occurred between 2002 - 2008 at the height of [former president] Alvaro Uribe’s democratic security policy.”
More:
https://www.vice.com/en/article/wx8a74/colombias-military-killed-three-times-more-civilians-during-farc-war-than-previously-reported
