“Colombia's public forces have always been a legitimate force, defender of life”: Iván Duque

This Thursday, April 7, the President of Colombia, Iván Duque, presented the Route of Care and Institutional Accompaniment for members of the security forces who appear before the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) for crimes committed in the middle of the armed conflict.

The president emphasized that this route, which seeks to provide guidance in the processes carried out by 3,367 uniformed personnel in transitional justice, is intended to mark the “differentiating principle between members of the security forces” with the different illegal armed actors who “subverted order”.

“The Colombian public force has always been a legitimate force, an unrestricted defender of the constitutional order, a defender, as the second article of our Charter says, of the life, honor, property, rights and freedoms of all citizens everywhere in the territory. Under these premises there is a natural, unquestionable, unobjectionable difference between those who defend the Republic and the constitutional order, and those who want to subvert, affect, deteriorate, annihilate it,” said the head of state during the event.

In turn, he indicated that this mechanism seeks to provide psychological and social support, access to the Social Protection System and to housing, as well as legal assistance, and employment and training opportunities, for uniformed personnel who have committed “conduct contrary to or allegedly contrary to military honour” or have been maximum responsible for crimes against humanity, such as those linked to 'false positives'.

In this regard, he indicated that this tool was essential because it especially sheltered young people who, “as professional soldiers, due to circumstances of mode, time and operational action” have been called by the agency created at the behest of the Peace Agreement to investigate and prosecute those responsible for some of the most cruel in the country's recent history.

“Legal accompaniment is specialized, because the fact of appearing is not that there is an incentive to self-incriminate or that participation is being sought in order, through self-incrimination, to have to resolve legal situations. Such approaches would be dire. Here all the guarantees are being given so that the fact of appearing is also supported on the principles of due process, and, above all, under the principles that within due process concern the evidentiary criteria on individual responsibilities,” said the president.

He also indicated that the national Government has ensured the strengthening of the Military Criminal Justice, clarifying that it did not seek to be an “complicit or attenuated” justice, on the contrary, a drastic justice, but “based on criteria of mode, time and operational action”, which would mean increasing its administrative structure and scope of the Special Unit, as well as an advisory council preceded by the President of the Supreme Court of Justice.

“The route is also a way of telling those who have worn uniforms from our country that they are not alone, and that this accompaniment, which is also coordinated with the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, allows us to show that distinctive element from the outset, which is the unquestionable differentiation in those who defend the homeland and those who attend against the homeland”, concluded President Iván Duque.

The statements of the president would be contrary to the arguments expressed by experts and social organizations that claim that there has been systematic crimes committed by members of the security forces such as false positives, in which hundreds of uniformed personnel would be involved, and that according to the JEP exceeds the figure of 6. 402 people who were illegitimately killed to be presented as combat casualties throughout the national territory between 2002 and 2008.

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