In historic hearings held on 26 - 27 April 2022 in Ocaña (Norte de Santander), 11 leaders and officials from the military in Colombia acknowledged before the Chamber for the Recognition of Truth, Responsibility, Determination of Facts, and Conducts of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (SJP) their responsibility under the macro case 03 (available in Spanish), also known as the “falsos positivos” (false positives), committed within the context of the decades-long armed conflict.
During the hearings, the first of its kind, a former military general, four colonels, five other army officials, and one civilian admitted to having kidnaped 120 civilians between 2007 and 2008 in Catatumbo (Norte de Santander) and neighboring communities to kill and later falsely portrayed them as members of armed groups operating in the region. These extrajudicial executions, committed in several areas of Colombia during Álvaro Uribe’s presidency, were a “strategy” widely used to strengthen the country’s discourse of winning the conflict. The “falsos positivos” became one of the most emblematic and darkest periods of Colombia’s recent history.
According to the SJP, the tribunal created under the peace agreement signed between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC-EP, for its acronym in Spanish), these crimes have amounted to the war crime of murder of protected persons and the crime against humanity of murder and enforced disappearance of persons (available in Spanish). For the first time, Colombia and the victims of mass atrocity crimes had the opportunity to hear publicly from the perpetrators about their involvement and responsibility for these crimes and answer questions before their victims. On this crucial development, PGA member,Senator Iván Cepeda Castro, a long-standing supporter of the peace agreement and a fierce human rights defender, stressed that:
At this critical juncture for our country where the peace process that was signed in 2016 has been repeatedly criticized and attacked by different political and social actors, the hearings that took place this week are a clear example of the important advances that the Special Jurisdiction for Peace is achieving to clarify the truth of the facts and provide justice for the victims of these international crimes.
In processes that seek to investigate international crimes, truth and responsibility must be acknowledged to fulfill the transitional objectives of truth, justice, reparations, and guarantees of non-recurrence and contribute to restoring and maintaining peace and national reconciliation processes. The hearings held this week are the getaway to the imposition of alternative sanctions by the SJP that will seek reparation for the damages caused and justice for the victims. Should the SJP considers that the perpetrators acknowledged the whole truth and responsibility, they may benefit from reduced sentences of 5 to 8 years through alternative punishment arrangements, such as house arrest or other restricted freedoms.
Truth, justice, reparations, and guarantees of non-repetition is an inalienable right of a victim. What is envisaged with this, and with future hearings to be carried out by the SJP, is to seek the truth of what happened in the framework of the internal armed conflict and contribute to clarifying the violations committed. Therefore, the government must guarantee the correct functioning of the SJP as foreseen in the cooperation agreement recently signed between the Colombian government and the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.Ms. Ángela María Robledo, former PGA member and former member of the Chamber of Representatives
Despite these significant advances, much more remains to be done. The SJP’s own estimates established that 6.402 civilians were murdered by the army and presented as combat deaths, and several military officials allegedly involved in these crimes are still active. Moreover, according to some representatives of the victims, there wasno full substantive acknowledgment of responsibility by all of the military(available in Spanish) who appeared before the SJPand no details as to the creation of an institutional policy that transmitted the orders to commit these egregious crimes were given.
Parliamentarians for Global Action (PGA) welcomes these critical steps in advancing toward justice and accountability. Nevertheless, PGA stresses that more efforts should be taken to bring those bearing the greatest responsibility for the commission of international crimes before a court of law. The ordinary courts, the Justice and Peace Law Tribunals, and the Special Jurisdiction for Peace have shown a significant commitment by initiating national accountability proceedings in their quest to achieve peace and justice. This progress signals that the principle of complementary - a cornerstone of the entire International Criminal Court system based both on the primacy of domestic jurisdictions and on considerations of efficiency and effectiveness - is working in Colombia. Indeed, this has led to the Office of the Prosecutor’s determination to close its longest preliminary examination after considering that Colombia was “neither inactive, unwilling, nor unable to investigate and prosecute Rome Statute crimes.”
PGA, therefore, urges other States under preliminary examination or investigation to continue cooperating with the ICC and take all necessary measures to prevent and investigate the commission of crimes falling under its jurisdiction, namely genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression. Moreover, States must:
enact and implement legislation consistent with international legal standards to comply with the overall objective of putting an end to impunity;
adopt laws on cooperation as these can increase legal certainty both for States Parties and the Court; and
take steps to ratify all the amendments to the Rome Statute.
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