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Bogota, March 2 (RHC)-- A local Colombian media outlet this week reveals what it calls "the painful mark left by extrajudicial executions, better known as 'false positives,'" which it claims "is becoming more acute every day in the country."
The journalistic medium recalls that in the most recent report of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) indicated that there are 6,402 and not 2,248 victims of these murders committed by the military, which, they describe led Noticias Caracol to carry out what they call "a complete radiography on these events and the terrifying way in which they were committed."
According to the investigation, the execution of the false positives in this area of the country was characterized by alliances between members of the Colombian army and paramilitaries and they cite the statements of a retired army major, who appeared before the JEP and said: "The battalion was a war machine and therefore the operational results had to be seen."
According to the media, "it was this pressure for operational results that would have led to the creation of an alliance of death with the paramilitaries" and they quote one of their interviewees, without naming names, who said: "The commander of La Popa, Colonel Mejía, was decisive in these operational results. He -- with alias '39' -- was the one who coordinated these situations."
The report highlights that "another retired lieutenant, also under investigation, tells how soldiers were paid important sums of money for each supposed combat death" and quotes him: "I heard my colonel say that 500,000 (pesos) for a short weapon and one million (pesos) for a long weapon", in a scenario where the victim could be anyone, from a peasant in the region or anyone who, as they themselves say, "smelled like a guerrilla".
Although these people are no longer part of the Colombian army and, as part of the implementation of the peace accords, they appear before the JEP, they assure that the pressures to change the truth have not ceased.
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