During the long civil war in Colombia, the military also committed many crimes. Now, for the first time, members are to be held accountable for the killing of civilians.
For the first time since the end of the civil war in Colombia, members of the Colombian military have been charged in connection with the killing of civilians.
Eleven people, including ten military men of various ranks, were charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity for the murder of at least 120 people in the Catatumbo area between January 2007 and August 2008, according to a notice from the Special Justice for Peace (JEP ) was called.
Accordingly, the defendants were identified as responsible, without whom the criminal acts would not have taken place in a “systematic and widespread form”.
According to the Special Justice for Peace, the Colombian military killed at least 6,402 civilians between 2002 and 2008 and pretended to be enemy guerrilla fighters in order to meet quotas and receive rewards for doing so. Former President Juan Manuel Santos, who received the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize, recently apologized for the killing of thousands of civilians during his tenure as Defense Minister (2006-2009). The pressure to produce casualties with the enemy and the rewards for doing so were undoubtedly the incentives for the killings, he said. However, the ex-president did not want to speak of systematic killings.
Colombia has suffered armed conflict between the armed forces, left-wing guerrilla groups and right-wing paramilitaries for over 50 years. More than 220,000 people were killed during the civil war and over six million were displaced within Colombia. The largest rebel organization, Farc, signed a peace treaty with the government in 2016. In the treaty, a special jurisdiction and the truth commission were also agreed to guarantee peace.
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