“Uribe did not oppose changing this nefarious doctrine”: Santos in his contribution to the False Positives Truth Commission

This June 11, the former president Juan Manuel Santos, who was Minister of Defense between 2006 and 2009, spoke before the Truth Commission on the dimensions of “false positives”, in order to help clarify the truth and provide an explanatory context for the country, but especially for the victims, to help understand the causes and impacts of this phenomenon which has affected thousands of families.

In his account, the former president made it clear that his lifelong boss was Álvaro Uribe Vélez, with whom he did not share the vision of how to end the FARC guerrilla warfare. “Uribe was the president and I was his subordinate”, he condemned. For Santos, Uribe’s failure to recognize the armed conflict made his strategy difficult, as it meant that the laws of war on bombing that humanitarian law allows in armed conflict could not be enforced.

“Uribe never wanted to recognize the existence of an armed conflict, the guerrillas for him were simple drug traffickers and terrorists”, Juan Manuel Santos.

“The double message created some confusion within the Armed Forces because they applied human rights but their Supreme Commander and Head of State did not recognize the existence of an armed conflict. For me, that doubt did not exist. And that’s how we let the troops know: we have to apply human rights, period ”, said the Nobel Peace Prize.

In his speech, Santos, after explaining how he learned that the “false positives” had indeed occurred and knowing first-hand cases of Soacha, said:

“With these recognitions, I do not intend to downplay the gravity of what happened in Colombia between 2002 and 2008, when members of our military violated their oath to protect the lives of Colombians and did the opposite: they have become their assassins “.

He also admitted that the “original sin”, which ultimately led to the occurrence of these cases, “It was the pressure to kill and all that was woven around what many called ‘the Vietnam Doctrine.’ But at the same time, to be honest, I must say that President Uribe did not oppose the change of this infamous doctrine, which he himself had encouraged. I have never received a counter-order, nor have I been authorized “, he assured.

The false positives of the young people of Soacha

Santos also brought up the case of Soacha mothers, one of the triggers of the macabre episode. “In mid-September 2008, Carlos Franco, director of the presidential human rights program, attended a meeting of the commission at the Ombudsman’s office, during which the Institute of Forensic Medicine said he found at Ocaña of the deceased who had been denounced. as missing in Soacha since February, ”said the former president.

He also said that Franco called the Ocaña prosecutor’s office and asked what these people had died of. “They started to find out and after a few hours told him that they had all been found dead in action with the military. Then he called Cimitarra and the same thing happened: they appeared as killed in action “.

The cup has been passed, I thought to myself, and we have to take the bull by the horns and make this public. A statement was issued indicating that we have very worrying information about some of the missing from Soacha who appeared as “NN” killed in action in Ocaña, reported by the army, and that we are investigating. My experience as a journalist had taught me that if we made this public, more information could emerge that would help us resolve such a situation. “Santos said.

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