“I converted to asesino”: Colombian militaries recognize extrajudicial executions in Dabeiba

Hace unos 20 años ellos estaban vestidos con uniform camouflaged cometiendo crimes de Estado. Now you see pants and a white shirt to offer transparent, to confess how they are seated and leave 49 citizens and how they hide their bodies in a cement store so that their family members cannot meet them. A group of military men recognized publicly, this Tuesday, were the maximos responsible for these asesinatos. The hicieron ante los familiaris de las 49 víctimas, que llevan dos décadas buscando esclarecer al pasado.

The confession took place before the special court of the Jurisdicción Especial para la Paz (JEP), which judged the maximum responsible for the fuerza pública and the extinta guerrilla de las FARC since un acuerdo de paz entre esos dos bandos was confirmed in 2016 —y otorga judicial benefits to those who recognize their responsibility in war crimes―. The audience is part of the macro-case de false positive, since it is known to more than 6,000 asesinatos de civils cometidos por militaris that hicierons pass as guerrillas killed in combat. Various generals have denied their responsibility in this case, but various soldiers and coronelles have admitted it. So it happened in Dabeiba, an emblematic case because in the cement plant of this municipality of Antioquia the cuerpos de ciudadanos asesinados por los militaris were hidden away. A holy field has been transformed into a fosa común.

“Todo el que se visatiera de negro, era guerrillero,” continued retired mayor Yaír Leandro Rodríguez Giraldo when he habló de one of the asesinados: Edison Alexander Lezcano Hurtado. The crime occurred on May 18, 2002 in the rural area of ​​the municipality, at a time when the exercise was fighting against the guerrillas in the area, which controlled the ascent to the mainland of the Gulf of Urabá, on the Caribbean Sea. Rodríguez tomó aire antes de contar como lo mataron: anything that is in an area near where the fighting occurs, any farmer, could be a victim. “No thoughts on the damage that I could cause, we keep the whole world stigmatized,” he confessed. He called the commander of the batallón, who told him yes, that he was a man who lived in this rural house.

“I converted into a small ases”, dijo ante la esposa y madre del campesino. “Lament ser el causante de la muerte de Edison Alexander Lezcano Hurtado, que ya no le pueda sing los vallenatos en la mañana a su familia di lui”, añadió lui. The bride struggled to ask for this last sentence, and a dense silence filled the audience for one second. El mayor retirado no pudo hablar más, conmovido, and on his intervention, known in the JEP as a contribution, ended with this exculpa.

Además de los ocho máximos responsible, various soldiers who executed órdenes también hablaron este martes ante las familias. Dieron más macabros detalles: buscaban a personas vulnerable en ciudades como Turbo, o a inhabitants de la calle adictos a las drugs, para llevarlos engañados a Dabeiba, asesinarlos, y camuflar sus identidades. How? Someone will say several times in the car that they won’t recognize them. A otros les quemaron sus cédulas de ciudadanía para que ningún judicial organism pudiera rastrearlos. And they know that, they consider themselves confessing their crimes before Justice, they can kill them.

“Debía haber denunciado”, dijo arrepentido el coronel retirado Efraín Enrique Prada Correa, who is reconoció ser responsible for concealing the identity of the varias of the victims. “Pero si lo hubiera hecho, hoy lui no estuviera de este lado, estaría del lado de ustedes”. Es decir, no del lado de los victimarios, sino de las víctimas. Así le ocurrió al second lieutenant Jesús Javier Suárez Caro, a military asesinado después de que he opusiera a cometer false positive, according to recordó Prada Correa. “Si usted quiere que le pase lo mismo que le pasó al teniente Suárez, o le pase a sus hijos…”, the decían otros, like the coronel Jorge Amor Páez, who has not admitted before the JEP ser responsable de estos crimes. “In this moment you understand”, dijo Prada.

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The case of Dabeiba is also particular because at least 12 people have received amenazas during the investigations that the JEP has been carrying out for several years. “Les decimos aquellos que han querido cubrir con impunidad y violence estos international crimes, sus despreciables métodos no van a amedrentar a la Justice colombiana”, dijo en la audiencia el magistrado Alejandro Ramelli, who was relieved of the paramilitary group Lamado Clan of the Gulf. Also of those who recibido amenazas is the retired soldier Levis Contreras, who has admitted to being responsible for more than 40 asesinatos in Dabeiba and his alrededores. When Ramelli asked her to know that he was detrás de esa amenazas, Contreras replied that he did not know, “pero son personas que no quieren que este macabro hecho, que sucedió aquí en esta region, que salga a la luz”.

The PEC has rescinded Gustavo Petro’s governorship. In the audience this presents the ministers of justice, Néstor Osuna, and defense, Iván Velásquez, as well as the high commissioner for peace, Danilo Rueda. This last recognized the value of the present victims, not only to seek the truth during two decades, but to follow it today, when criminal groups are present in the area that can bring about their lives. “A quienes illegally control this territory, we are inviting them to stop the violence”, said Rueda, voice of the total peace policy. Faced with the fact that the public force is trying to extort the investigation process, the defense minister said that “we do not generate any restrictions” so that a soldier can wear all green. “We are rebuilding collective dignity,” he added.

They have also studied the high hands signaled by their old colleagues, who have not admitted any responsibility for the crimes. Between them are the coroners Jorge Alberto Amor and David Herley Guzmán Ramírez, whoever happens to pass will have a fortune, without the benefits that the JEP offers to those admitted to war crimes —and the tribunal does not seem to have any doubts that both were responsible for the estos asesinatos―.

But the absent mayor is General Mario Montoya, who will be the mayor in authority in the area for two decades and who has been singled out in multiple testimonies as one of the most responsible at national level, although he has always been denied. At the audience final in Dabeiba, retired Fidel Ochoa got silver, which he recorded in Montoya. “This practice is volvió systemática con la llegada del general Mario Montoya a la Septima División y luego a la commandancia del Ejército”, dijo lui sobre los false positive. Ochoa recorded that General Montoya decía, en programas radiales, con cada commander de platón: “Yo no necesito litros de sangre, yo necesito carro-tanques de sangre”. Sangre que fue regida los sobre los cementerios.

The proceso de aporte de verdad de los people in charge who admitted their guilt before the JEP allowed you to identify the restaurants at 11 de las víctimas in the cementerio Las Mercedes. But pay at least 38 more. “Estamos ante la punta del iceberg con el cementerio de Dabeiba”, dijo el magistrado Ramelli. The idea of ​​the PEC is truly the iceberg, transparent and complete.

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By James Brown

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