According to officials, the death orders of the Colombian army put civilians in danger

The Colombian army commander, frustrated by the country's hesitant efforts to preserve peace, ordered his troops to double the number of criminals and rebels who kill, capture or surrender by force in combat; and possibly accept an increase in the number of civilian casualties during the process, as evidenced by written orders and interviews with senior officials.

At the beginning of the year, Colombian generals and colonels met and were invited to sign a written pledge to step up the attacks. Daily internal presentations now indicate the number of days that brigades have spent without being in combat, and commanders are reprimanded when they do not perform operations at a sufficient frequency, officials said. .

A particularly disturbing order signals soldiers not to "demand perfection" when they execute deadly attacks, even when they ask themselves important questions about the targets they are attacking. Some military officials said the order implied lowering their standards to protect innocent civilians from murder and that it had already caused suspicious or unnecessary deaths.

The army implemented a similar strategy to defeat rebel and paramilitary groups in Colombia in the mid-2000s, before signing a historic peace agreement that ended with decades of conflict.

But these tactics provoked national indignation when it was learned that the soldiers, to respect their quotas, had mbadacred and killed civilians.

Now, the new government embodies another incarnation of this policy against the country's criminal, guerrilla and paramilitary groups, according to the orders examined by the New York Times and three senior officials who have spoken of these measures.

The new orders have caused a discomfort among the military. The Colombian army continues to be investigated for the series of illegal killings in the mid-2000s known as "false positives".

The soldiers killed peasants and claimed that they were guerrillas, sometimes even dressed in uniforms and planting weapons near their bodies. Tactics came from the superiors who claimed more bodies, according to prosecutors.

During protracted talks, two officers said that Colombian soldiers were again under intense pressure and that this year, a series of suspicious killings and cover-ups began to manifest themselves.

At a meeting reported by one of the officers, a general ordered the commanders to "do all that was necessary" to improve their results, even if it meant "to combine" with armed criminal groups to obtain information on objectives, a strategy of division and coordination. to conquer

Beyond that, the officers said that soldiers who increase their number of combat deaths are offered incentives such as extra vacations, a pattern that they fear is remarkably similar to the unlawful killings in the middle of the fighting. 2000s.

"We went back to what we were doing before," said one of the officers, who requested anonymity on pain of retaliation from their superiors.

Major General Nicacio Martinez Espinel, commander of the Colombian army, admitted to issuing these new orders and asked officials to set concrete targets to kill, capture or force the surrender of criminal and rebel groups.

He said he had issued a written order enjoining senior commanders to "double the results", saying he had made the decision because of the threat that Colombia continues to face guerrilla, paramilitary and criminal organizations. .

"The criminal threat has increased," he said. "If we continue at the pace we were before, we will not reach the goals."

Nevertheless, the general asked how the officers had interpreted his instructions.

"The existing order must be operationally efficient," he said. "Some have said to exceed 10%, you want to exceed 10%." Others said, "I want to do 50% more ailments, but never the dead," I said. 39, others "I want to do 100%." ​​There are some who have accomplished it, others who have not done it. "

He also acknowledged that orders enjoin commanders to conduct operations when they are still unsure of their objectives.

However, General Martinez argued that the instructions referred only to the planning of missions and not to their execution.

"Absolute respect for human rights is the most important thing," he said. "Everything we do must be within the law."

However, the order itself states: "You must launch operations with a credibility and accuracy of 60 to 70%", which leaves enough room for error for the policy to have already caused suspicious murders, said two officials.

The new orders indicate an intensification of military campaigns against guerrillas and paramilitary groups in Colombia, a country that has managed to sign a peace agreement with the largest guerrilla group in the country, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

Peace has been difficult to achieve. Many veterans have returned to the armed struggle, while other criminal and paramilitary groups have strengthened their control over various parts of the country.

The national liberation army, a rebel group that has not signed a peace agreement, launched a car bomb attack in Bogotá in January.

The Donald Trump government is also pressuring Colombia to obtain results in the fight against drug trafficking, a strategy that has made little progress despite the US $ 10 billion aid received by the US government. Colombian government.

In response to Washington's demands, President Ivan Duque, a conservative leader who campaigned against the peace agreement because he felt too lenient for the rebels, replaced the high commandments of the US. last December.

According to documents published by Human Rights Watch, a human rights organization, the Duque government has appointed nine officers linked to murders committed in the mid-2000s, some of whom are now taking the leadership positions that lead the military offensives in the mid-2000s. all of Colombia. According to this group, one of the officers related to the killing is General Martinez, who was the second commander of the Tenth Armored Brigade.

Martinez says that he has not participated in any of the killings and that he is not being investigated by the Attorney General's office.

Illegal killings known as "false positives" are a particularly controversial chapter in Colombia's recent history. According to the United Nations, from 2002 to 2008, about 5,000 civilians or guerrillas were killed in action. Authorities say at least 1,600 soldiers have been sentenced for crimes related to illegal deaths.

Two of the officers who spoke with The Times said they were active during the killings and were promoted to the next rank.

They also said that there was a major change when General Martinez convened a meeting of his senior officers in January, one month after taking office.

The meeting brought together the 50 main generals and colonels of the country gathered in a shed in the mountains outside Bogota. Many were eager to find out if there were any changes with the new direction.

After a break, the commanders returned to the tables where they found a form for each of them, the officers said. The document titled "2019 Approach Goals" at the top and each commander had a space to sign down.

The form asked commanders to list in a column "the arithmetic sum of voluntary submissions, captures and deaths in the development of military operations" of various armed groups during the previous year, and then set a goal for the next year.

Some of the commanders seemed confused, until told to double their numbers this year, officials said.

Shortly after, they received the same order from General Martinez in writing.

"The goal is to double the operational results at all levels of command," explain the orders that bear their signature.

Three days after the meeting near Bogota, a group of military intelligence officers and regional commanders met in the town of Cucuta, on the border with Venezuela, officials said.

According to the military, at the meeting, they were told that they had to "do all that was necessary", including using paramilitary groups to provide information on rival armed gangs "in order to generate results" .

The suggestion of working with an armed group to defeat another one created a silence among the participants in the meeting, said one of the officers.

On February 19, a new document entitled "Fifty Command Orders" was published. An instruction required "swift and mbadive operations" against the enemy.

But the instructions on the threshold required to order lethal attacks were the most significant change from the previous policy, officials said.

In the past, they argued, military operations had to be conducted with at least 85 percent of the target's certainty, following a series of meetings between commanders and intelligence officers to approve the strategy. The new order required a lower level.

Police say that shortly after, they began to identify murders or alleged arrests.

One of the officers cited a murder described in an army report as the death of a member of the paramilitary group Clan del Golfo on February 25. The document stated that three members of the group had been beaten against an army platoon and that the fighting had resulted in one death and two arrests. A pistol and a revolver were found with the men.

The report was provided to The Times by an officer who estimates that it is unlikely that three small arms criminals will face a platoon of 41 men.

The most controversial badbadination since General Martinez took office was around 22 April. The body of Dimar Torres, a veteran who had laid down his arms under the peace agreement, was found on the outskirts of a border town with Venezuela.

A video taken with a mobile phone by neighbors shows Torres' body with a bullet in his head. Farmers can be heard shouting against the army, accusing the army of acting on behalf of paramilitary groups.

Colombian Defense Minister Guillermo Botero first announced that Torres had died during a fight with an army corporal he was supposed to attempt to disarm. But a few days later, the general in charge of the region made a public apology.

Although the Torres case has become a national controversy, officials have said that other murders may go unnoticed.

The army made a copy of a February presentation bearing the title "Days without a fight". It listed the brigades and the operational forces and counted the time spent without fighting. According to the officers, the instructions were clear: to increase the number of deaths, captures and surrender.

Copyright: 2019 New York Times News Service