The confession of 21 soldiers in Colombia that they took part in the execution of hundreds of civilians, whom they later portrayed as guerrillas killed in battle.
According to the APE-MPE, the 21 accused, including a brigadier general, admitted to killing 247 people during the decade 2000-2010, Judge Catalina Dias stated in a press conference she gave. The executions took place in the Cattatumbo coca area (120 victims), on the border with Venezuela and on the Caribbean coast (127).
One civilian also confessed to being a “collaborator” of the military in their “illegal acts”.
The special court has prosecuted 25 soldiers for the cold-blooded execution of young men, most of them poor villagers. The victims then appeared as rebels who fell in battle in order to improve the “performance” of the military in the war against insurgents and armed groups.
Last February, JEP estimated that at least 6,402 civilians were killed by soldiers between 2002-2008, a number three times what the prosecutor’s office had calculated until then.
The revelation of these executions is one of the biggest scandals in which the Colombian armed forces have ever been involved. The top military administration and former President Alvaro Uribe (2002-8) denied that this was a “systematic action”.
The military held accountable the guerrillas and drug traffickers who were killed, and with these “positive” results they won medals and promotions. Thousands of the dead were, in fact, ordinary civilians who were executed in cold blood.
Among the military who pleaded guilty was Brigadier General Paulino Coronado, a former 30th Brigade commander operating in the border area. According to the JEP, the brigadier apologized for “the great pain he caused” with “these heinous acts that led to the death of innocent people” and “filled their loved ones with deep sorrow”.
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