Soldiers accused of extrajudicial executions were accepted into the Special Jurisdiction for Peace

Three soldiers and National Army Captain Carlos Vanegas attached to the 36th Infantry Battalion in 2006 were accepted for submission. They will have to clarify the facts concerning two extrajudicial executions, known as false positives, that took place that same year in the department of Caquetá.

The uniformed men were responsible for the murder of Marco Muñoz and Fredy Rivera, who were executed on December 10, 2006 in the Puerto Rico village of San Vicente del Caguán. According to the report of the JEP Definition Room, Muñoz was reportedly taken out of a taxi to be held next to Rivera, being marked as guerrilla fighters and subsequently executed.

The document highlighted this as a violation of IHL: “... conduct that falls within the framework of a serious breach of International Humanitarian Law for homicide of a protected person.”

The soldiers together with the captain will have fifteen days to hand over their plan of contribution to the truth in order to show “their willingness to contribute to the realization of the victims' rights to full truth, to comprehensive reparation and to non-repetition”.

If they fail to comply with the benefits given by the special jurisdiction, they will be lost, in the same way the JEP will request “the circumstances of mode, time and place in which said Group operated for the commission of this type of action and what kind of benefits, rewards or incentives they will receive for it”, within Battalion 36 of Infantry.

“A false positive is the most egregious violation of human rights”: Íngrid Betancourt referred to the army's operation in Putumayo

On March 28, 2022, the National Army revealed that a military operation carried out in the Alto Remanso village, in the municipality of Puerto Lequizamo in Putumayo, resulted in the casualties of 11 people who, according to the authorities, were members of the FARC dissidents. As the weeks passed, investigations and testimonies revealed that they could be extrajudicial executions. The dead were civilians.

Among the 11 deceased persons are several civilians such as a minor, a pregnant woman, an indigenous governor and the president of the Community Action Board. The testimonies that have been revealed over the last few days, showed that a massacre carried out by the National Army had been committed at the scene of the confrontation and that there would be a possible manipulation at the scene of the events and the bodies of the people.

This situation targeted the officers and caused enormous controversy among people on social networks. The presidential candidates also spoke after what happened and the results of the investigations. The candidate of the Oxygen Green party, Ingrid Betancourt condemned the facts and affirmed that the military who were involved in the events must respond, but not the entire National Army should be questioned as an institution.

“What happened in Putumayo is unheard of and unfortunately all too common in Colombia,” presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt said in statements published in Semana. He also pointed out that, “this is very serious, because assuming they wanted to find criminals, they had every possibility in front of an unarmed population to verify the identities of each of those present there. They had no excuse, there is no justification for that hunt, killing people from afar and in hiding.”

The presidential candidate highlighted the importance of civil intelligence and stressed that, “These events cannot continue to be the bread of every day in Colombia. We are talking about the fact that we do need public forces, that public force must be coordinating with military intelligence, but also with population intelligence, civil intelligence.”

On her social networks, the candidate of the Green Oxygen party also referred to this situation and condemned what happened. “A false positive is the most egregious human rights violation in recent history. There can be no impunity. The government has to do what it takes to clarify. The State has to protect us in order to regain trust and allow reconciliation.”

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