Colombia’s False Positives: “In Colombia Heroes Do Exist”

[struggle4progress]

Abstract: As a result of interviews with two human rights defenders and two family members of victims of extraordinary acts of violence, this two-part article investigates the “false positive” scandal that has cast a lasting doubt on the country’s armed force´s claim to be the “heroes of Colombia.” In October, it was revealed that at least eleven young men from the Cundinamarca municipality of Soacha had been lured to Ocaña, in North Santander, where they were executed and their bodies presented as enemy combatants killed in battle so that the soldiers could claim the rewards that go to troops which have demonstrated “results.” This article investigates the historical and structural causes of the phenomena, and explores the nature of the government’s relationship with the vaunted “democratic security policy” of President Alvaro Uribe Vélez. It concludes that while the Government clearly has a high degree of responsibility for the phenomena, it is still premature to insist on qualifying the killings as “crimes of the state" ...

Although Jaime had talked vaguely about the opportunity, Doña Maria didn’t understand why he had to leave, and thought she had convinced him not to. She didn´t try to claim any type of “mother´s intuition” when she was recounting this sad, sinister story. In the days before Jaime left, she said she hadn´t noticed any dramatic change in his behavior. He was still the same fun-loving, charismatic, affectionate child she had always known, who was keen on sports, girls, and ranchera music sung by popular singers like Vicente Fernandez and Antonio Aguilar. When she left him sleeping at home on February sixth, there seemed no reason to worry. The next day, Jaime phoned his sister, saying he was in the North Santander town of Ocaña. Speaking in a hushed tone and in a hurried manner, he told her not to worry. It was the last time the family would ever hear from him.

Nidia Milena Montañez, a 26-year old single mother of four had even more reason to trust in the armed forces: three of her brothers had served in the army. She last spoke to her separated husband, 27- year old Joaquin Castro Vasquez, on January third, ten days before his disappearance, and twelve days before his murder. Similarly to Doña Maria, Nidia had not seen any particular change in his behavior or temperament in the days leading up to the fateful event. He had, however, phoned Nidia´s mother in December, promising her that he had a good job prospect lined up, and was going to “make some money and then win my wife and children back.” Beyond this mysterious and final phone call, he did not inform anyone of his plans to leave Soacha.

Thereafter came months of agonizing uncertainty for Maria and Nidia. Both thought their loved ones would return at any moment, and Nidia once even was convinced she had seen her ex-husband on a bus. Maria frequently sensed her son was about to come back. “When I walked around Soacha, and saw other boys, I always thought that Jaime would be among them, but he never was. When I was in the house, I constantly had this sensation that he was about to walk in through the door. Then, when I finally found him again, he was still sleeping, just like when I left him.” That was in October, when Maria and one of her daughters travelled to the North Santander town of Ocaña, where they were shown Jaime Estiben´s body, and informed then that “your son, the guerrilla, was killed in combat.” Maria could not believe that Jaime, who had never held a gun in his life, could have joined the guerrillas. There were other things that didn´t fit. Jaime had left Soacha on February sixth, yet documents to be found at the forensics institute Medicina Legal showed he was killed on the 8th. “What an intelligent son I had, capable of learning to be a guerrilla in two days,” remarks Maria bitterly. For Nidia, the story was similar. While newspapers claimed her ex-husband had been “killed in combat” in August, Medicina Legal showed he had, in fact, been killed within two days of his disappearance from Soacha. By October, it was clear that these macabre cases were not isolated, and that many other mothers in Soacha were complaining about similar disappearances. At least 11 men had been killed in mysterious circumstances in Ocaña within 2 or 3 days of leaving Soacha and without notifying their families. While President Uribe initially claimed that the victims were “delinquents” as he had done in the past, by giving the worst possible interpretation, even if it indicted the victim rather than the culprit. He soon had to retract that claim in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary ...

http://www.coha.org/2009/06/colombias-false-positives/


Research Memorandum: Colombia’s Establishment and False Positives: The Case for and Against it
By COHA Research Fellow Rachel Godfrey Wood
Part Two of a Two Part Memorandum
http://www.coha.org/2009/06/research-memorandum-colombia%E2%80%99s-establishment-and-false-positives-the-case-for-and-against-it/