Attorney General's Office asks the Army for explanations for the operation in Putumayo in which civilians were killed

The Attorney General's Office requested information from the National Army to clarify the events that occurred in the midst of the military operation that took place last Monday, March 28 in the municipality of Puerto Leguizamo, Putumayo, in which 11 people were killed, who, according to the national government, would be FARC dissidents. However, social organizations maintain that they were peasants and community leaders.

In a letter, the Office of the Delegate Procurator for the Defence of Human Rights asked the commander of the military forces, Luis Fernando Navarro, copies of the order that supported the development of this operation in the south of the country, as well as the operational report of the military deployment that took place in the El Remanso village, where members of Front 48 of the residual group that committed offenses in this sector had allegedly been killed.

“It is allowed to request the report of deaths in progress of this military operation, wounded, recovered, demobilized, disengaged and/or subjected, seizures of war material, quartermaster, communications and other information related to the results of it,” states the letter sent to General Navarro.

It also requests that it be communicated whether these events in which the murder of civilians was evidenced, as reported by the community and organizations such as the Putumayo Human Rights Network and the Organization of the Indigenous Peoples of the Colombian Amazon (Opiac), the opening of a preliminary inquiry or disciplinary investigation was carried out from the General Inspectorate of the Military Forces.

This request from the Public Prosecutor's Office comes after the population's complaints were heard, which claimed that it was an alleged case of “false positives” in which a president of the communal action board, a minor and a governor of an indigenous shelter died, and in which the bodies of others did not appear of the victims of this operation, which was in contrast to the official versions.

“This information is highly contradictory to that presented by the Army and the Ministry of Defense to public opinion. It is therefore necessary to recall that attacks against civilians are prohibited by International Humanitarian Law, which is why it is imperative that the central command of the military forces serve to clarify what happened in the operation carried out on March 28,” concluded the Office of the Procurator.

This challenge by the watchdog to the public forces comes a day after the Office of the Ombudsman confirmed the death of the president of the Community Action Board, Divier Hernández Rojas, his wife, a child under 16 years of age and the indigenous governor Pablo, Panduro Coquinche, while the Minister of Defense, Diego Molano, supported the operation of the Army by assuring that “arsenal of war” had been seized.

Hours before the Ombudsman's statement, which would confirm this new false positive case, General Juan Carlos Correa Consuegra, commander of the Air Assault Aviation Division of the National Army, assured El Tiempo, “let's be clear, there was no massacre here. A legitimate military operation against dissent took place here, based on the precepts of human rights and international humanitarian law.”

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