Summary

Between 2002 and 2008, army brigades across Colombia routinely executed civilians. Under pressure from superiors to show “positive” results and boost body counts in their war against guerrillas, soldiers and officers abducted victims or lured them to remote locations under false pretenses—such as with promises of work—killed them, placed weapons on their lifeless bodies, and then reported them as enemy combatants killed in action. Committed on a large scale for more than half a decade, these “false positive” killings constitute one of the worst episodes of mass atrocity in the Western Hemisphere in recent decades.

In September 2008, a media scandal over army troops’ killings of young men and teenage boys from the Bogotá suburb of Soacha helped force the government to take serious measures to stop the crimes, including by dismissing three army generals. Prosecutors are now investigating more than 3,000 alleged false positives by military personnel. Upwards of 800 army members have been convicted for extrajudicial killings committed between 2002 and 2008, most of them low-ranking soldiers. The convictions have covered a handful of former battalion and other tactical unit commanders, but not a single officer who was commanding a brigade or holding a position higher up the chain of command at the time of the crimes. Of the 16 active and retired army generals under investigation, none have been charged.

This report provides the most detailed published account to date of criminal investigations into many specific brigades and battalions responsible for large numbers of alleged false positive killings, lays out the now substantial evidence that senior army officers were responsible for many of the killings, and assesses the obstacles that so far have impeded such officers from being held accountable. The report is based on our extensive review of criminal case files, judicial rulings, and data on prosecutors’ investigations into false positives; witness testimony, much of it previously unpublished; and our interviews with more than 40 prosecutors, witnesses, victims’ family members, and lawyers, among others.

Our analysis of the Attorney General’s Office’s work shows that prosecutors have identified more than 180 battalions and other tactical units, attached to 41 brigades, operating under all of the army’s then-seven divisions, which allegedly committed extrajudicial killings between 2002 and 2008. The patterns in these cases strongly suggest that commanders in tactical units and brigades responsible for a significant number of cases at least knew or should have known about the wrongful killings, and therefore may be criminally liable as a matter of command responsibility. This report profiles 11 such brigades and many of the specific tactical units operating under them implicated in the killings.

Some of the commanders of those 11 brigades subsequently rose to the top of the military command. For example, Attorney General’s Office data shows prosecutors are investigating:

At least 44 alleged extrajudicial killings by 4 th Brigade troops during the period retired General Mario Montoya commanded it. He became the army’s top commander in 2006-2008;

Brigade troops during the period retired General Mario Montoya commanded it. He became the army’s top commander in 2006-2008; At least 113 alleged extrajudicial killings by 4 th Brigade troops during the period retired General Óscar González Peña commanded it. He became the army’s top commander in 2008-2010;

Brigade troops during the period retired General Óscar González Peña commanded it. He became the army’s top commander in 2008-2010; At least 28 alleged extrajudicial killings by 4 th Brigade troops during the period General Juan Pablo Rodríguez Barragán commanded it. As the current commander of the armed forces, he is now Colombia’s top military official, and oversees all three military branches, including the army; and

Brigade troops during the period General Juan Pablo Rodríguez Barragán commanded it. As the current commander of the armed forces, he is now Colombia’s top military official, and oversees all three military branches, including the army; and At least 48 alleged extrajudicial killings by 9th Brigade troops during the period General Jaime Lasprilla Villamizar commanded it. He is now the army’s top commander.

Human Rights Watch also identified witness testimony and prosecutors’ files naming three of these, as well as other, generals and colonels who allegedly knew of, or planned, ordered, or otherwise facilitated false positives. Their positions at the time of the crimes included battalion, brigade, and division commanders, as well as one head of the army. Indeed, the apparently widespread and systematic extrajudicial killings by troops attached to virtually all brigades in every single division across Colombia point to the conclusion that the highest levels of the army command at least should have known about the killings, and may have ordered or otherwise actively furthered their commission.

Our research also shows that prosecutors pursuing false positive cases confront serious obstacles, ranging from military authorities’ lack of cooperation with investigations, to threats and attacks on key witnesses. Furthermore, many cases remain in military courts. This undercuts accountability because military justice system personnel have historically failed to investigate the crimes, and continue to lack independence and credibility.

There have also been shortcomings within the Attorney General’s Office, including what some prosecutors describe as overwhelming caseloads. Moreover, cases from the same army unit are generally distributed among different prosecutors, which prevents them from conducting the kind of contextualized and systematic investigations necessary to identify high-ranking perpetrators. Attorney General’s Office officials said they are in the process of adopting measures to remedy these internal problems.

Seven years after the false positives scandal erupted, there is abundant evidence indicating that numerous senior army officers bear responsibility and it is imperative that the government do more to ensure they are held accountable. Important steps include ordering military authorities to cooperate with false positive investigations, assigning sufficient prosecutors to pursue them, protecting witnesses and their families, and making sure that any transitional justice legislation implemented as part of a peace agreement with guerrillas does not hinder accountability for the crimes. Bringing to justice those most responsible for one of the darkest chapters in Colombia’s long war will not be easy, but it is entirely within the government’s control to do so.

Evidence against Individual Commanders

Human Rights Watch reviewed witness testimony and prosecutors’ filings containing allegations that former commanders of tactical units, brigades, divisions, and the army—among other commanding officers—knew of, or planned, ordered, or otherwise facilitated or attempted to facilitate false positives. Most of the officers are under investigation, some are being prosecuted, and three have been convicted. Examples of implicated officers who are now generals include:

A former commander of troops in the 16th Brigade has testified to prosecutors and before a judge that his brigade commander, General Henry William Torres Escalante, ordered, planned, and covered-up false positives. Prosecutors are investigating at least 66 alleged extrajudicial killings by 16th Brigade troops during the period Torres Escalante commanded it.

A senior army officer who commanded forces attached to the 11 th Brigade and has admitted responsibility for false positives told prosecutors that his brigade and division commanders, among other superiors, knew of the crimes. (We reviewed the testimony on the condition of not publishing the names of the witness or implicated officers.)

Brigade and has admitted responsibility for false positives told prosecutors that his brigade and division commanders, among other superiors, knew of the crimes. (We reviewed the testimony on the condition of not publishing the names of the witness or implicated officers.) Several soldiers and officers have provided testimony to prosecutors implicating retired General Óscar González Peña in at least having known about false positives when commander of the 4 th Brigade and later as the head of the Joint Caribbean Command. In 2009, the army’s inspector-general told the US Embassy in Bogotá that González Peña, then the army’s top commander, was trying to block his investigations into false positives, and was one of the senior officers who had been “involved in” or “tacitly condoned” the killings, according to an embassy cable released by Wikileaks.

Brigade and later as the head of the Joint Caribbean Command. In 2009, the army’s inspector-general told the US Embassy in Bogotá that González Peña, then the army’s top commander, was trying to block his investigations into false positives, and was one of the senior officers who had been “involved in” or “tacitly condoned” the killings, according to an embassy cable released by Wikileaks. Retired Lieutenant Colonel Robinson González del Río, who has publicly admitted responsibility for at least 27 false positives, told prosecutors that several generals knew of, authorized, and/or covered-up such crimes by his troops. This includes General Juan Pablo Rodríguez Barragán, then-4 th Brigade commander and, as stated above, now top commander of the armed forces; and retired General Hernando Pérez Molina, then-3 rd Division commander, among others. González del Río’s testimony, publicly described in detail here for the first time, led prosecutors to open investigations into the generals.

Brigade commander and, as stated above, now top commander of the armed forces; and retired General Hernando Pérez Molina, then-3 Division commander, among others. González del Río’s testimony, publicly described in detail here for the first time, led prosecutors to open investigations into the generals. González del Río also told prosecutors that retired General Mario Montoya, the army’s top commander between February 2006 and November 2008, pressured subordinate commanders to increase body counts, punished them for failing to do so, and was the principal “motivator” for false positives. In testimony to prosecutors, another senior army officer who has confessed to false positives blamed the killings on Montoya’s “policy” of demanding combat kills. Similarly, in 2009, the army’s inspector-general told the US Embassy that a main factor behind false positives was Montoya’s “constant pressure for combat kills,” and said that he was among the officers who were “involved in” or “tacitly condoned” the crimes, according to the embassy cable. Prosecutor’s office data shows that extrajudicial executions by soldiers peaked during the three years Montoya commanded the army, with more than 1,100 alleged unlawful killings by state agents in 2007 alone under investigation, the vast majority attributed to army troops. He resigned as top army commander right after the Soacha false positive scandal broke.

Evidence that More Commanders Knew or Should Have Known of the Crimes

Under international law, a superior is criminally liable as a matter of command responsibility when he knew or should have known that subordinates under his effective control were committing a crime, but failed to take the necessary and reasonable steps to prevent or punish the acts. Colombia’s highest courts have issued rulings indicating that command responsibility can be applied to military commanders in cases of grave human rights violations, and prosecutors say they are examining this mode of liability in false positive investigations.

The higher the number of crimes and the more they seem to have resulted from a plan and consistent method, the harder it is to believe that superiors did not know about them. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, for example, recognized that relevant indicia for determining if a superior must have had knowledge of subordinates’ crimes include, among others, the number of illegal acts, scope of the illegal acts, logistics involved, geographical location of the acts, widespread occurrence of the acts, and modus operandi of similar illegal acts. Applying these criteria to the false positive cases, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that in many cases senior commanders must have known about them.

There is mounting evidence that false positives were committed on a large scale by numerous brigades and tactical units across Colombia. Prosecutors are investigating more than 3,700 extrajudicial killings by state agents between 2002 and 2008. Senior Attorney General’s Office officials said the vast majority of these cases are false positives by army troops. During the 2002-2008 period, more than 180 tactical units attached to almost all army brigades, operating under every single division, allegedly committed extrajudicial killings in 27 of Colombia’s 32 departments, according to prosecutor’s office data.

Our analysis of cases across Colombia showed that false positives had similar profiles of victims, modus operandi, and motives: intense pressure to boost body counts, paired with rewards for reported combat kills. The modus operandi entailed significant planning and coordination, ranging from bringing victims to remote locations, to ensuring each case had official documentation purporting it was a lawful combat death.

Human Rights Watch reviewed testimony from army personnel describing how their tactical units and brigades had established systems in place for committing false positives. For example, two former battalion officials told us that during more than a year-long period, they would meet with their battalion commander on a weekly basis to plan false positives. They said they employed a similar method in scores of cases, which included convincing the victims to go to a location where troops were waiting, executing them and placing weapons on them, and the commander rewarding the soldiers with vacations days.

Notably, the former officials said most of the other tactical units attached to their brigade engaged in the same practice, using the same recruiters. “It was one modus operandi, one system,” according to one of them. He said that when later transferred to another brigade located in a different region, he discovered its troops were also committing false positives, and immediately planned two such killings with army personnel from battalions there.

False Positives Required Actions by Commanders

Case files and interviews with witnesses and prosecutors also strongly suggest that the modus operandi in false positive cases required that tactical unit and brigade commanders take a series of actions without which the killings would have been impossible.

In virtually all false positive cases, brigade and/or tactical unit commanders issued official documents that authorized the supposed operations in which the victims were said to have been killed. The documents, known as “orders of operations” and “tactical missions,” provided a legal guise for the extrajudicial killings: without them, killings could not have been reported to have occurred in combat during a legitimate military operation. Other actions by commanders that were essential to the killings range from verbally authorizing troop movements during supposed operations, to signing payments to fake informants, and granting days off and other rewards to soldiers for supposed combat kills, which helped motivate the crimes.

None of these actions are in and of themselves criminal acts. Commanders may contend that, when carrying them out, they were continuously deceived by subordinates, who tricked them into believing they were pressuring for, authorizing, and rewarding legitimate enemy combat kills. But the fact that these actions were essential to the commission of false positives shows there were various stages in the process of committing the crimes in which battalion and brigade commanders acquired knowledge of the supposed combat killing, and had the opportunity to detect it was actually an execution. Moreover, combined with other strong indications that commanders knew or should have known their troops were committing false positives, they appear less like legal actions to generate lawful combat killings, and more like deliberate acts to facilitate false positives.

The Implausible Circumstances of Reported Combat Killings

In all false positive cases, the supposed combat killings were immediately reported up the chain of command to commanders of tactical units, brigades, divisions—and possibly higher—according to prosecutors and witnesses. In many cases, the circumstances of the killings officially reported to commanders should have led them to detect irregularities, and to suspect that the victims might have been unlawfully killed. Human Rights Watch reviewed false positive cases from different regions in which victims were reportedly found with handguns—including some that did not work—rather than typical combat weapons; lightly armed common criminals were reported to have initiated attacks against heavily armed soldiers; and high numbers of combat kills were reported by units not usually dedicated to combat operations, or in areas where guerrillas were not present.

Some officers who have accepted responsibility for false positives have said the irregularities were entirely obvious and should have been obvious to superiors. For example, a former lieutenant in the 16th Brigade testified that “with the rank of a colonel and the experience you could have at this rank it is no secret that the troops... [were] killing innocent people who had nothing to do with the conflict and were reported with weapons that the guerrilla does not use to confront you with.”

Furthermore, the large number of common criminals that were reported as killed in combat should have raised suspicion, given that, unlike guerrilla fighters participating in the conflict, they could only be targeted with lethal force by security forces in a very narrow set of circumstances, such as when it is unavoidable to protect life. The number of common criminals the army reported as killed in military operations grew from 27 in 2004, to 325 in 2007, only to drop to an annual average of 5 since 2009, after the government took measures to stop false positives.

The regularity of the killings means that even if an officer only commanded a battalion, brigade, or division for one year, he would have had many opportunities to detect the implausible circumstances. Those who had multiple command positions between 2002 and 2008, like retired General Montoya and retired General González Peña, would have had multiple years’ worth of cases to notice.

Credible Public Reports of False Positives

Finally, public reports of false positives should have helped put commanders on notice of the killings and prompted them to scrutinize the supposed combat kills being reported to them. As noted by the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights made allegations of false positives in annual reports on Colombia each year between 2004 and 2007. For example, its 2005 report said there had been an increase of executions by army troops and that most victims had been reported as guerrilla combatants killed in action. The report concluded that authorities’ denial of the crimes and failure to sanction the perpetrators “raised the issue of the possible responsibility of senior officials.”

Specific Brigades and Battalions Implicated in False Positives

As noted above, Human Rights Watch’s review of data on Attorney General’s Office investigations suggests that, to date, members of at least 41 brigades and mobile brigades have been implicated in extrajudicial killings committed between 2002 and 2008 – almost all the army brigades in Colombia.

This report highlights detailed information on investigations underway concerning 11 brigades attached to six of the army’s seven divisions at the time (two additional divisions were created in 2009). We chose these 11 because they have been implicated in a significant number of false positive cases and because we obtained additional corroborating information about cases involving those brigades. It is important to note that there are also other brigades, not addressed here, with significant numbers of cases.

The brigades with troops under investigation addressed here are:

The 4 th Brigade (based in Antioquia department), whose troops are being investigated for at least 412 alleged extrajudicial killings between 2002 and 2008;

Brigade (based in Antioquia department), whose troops are being investigated for at least 412 alleged extrajudicial killings between 2002 and 2008; The 7 th Brigade (Meta), for at least 66 such killings between 2002 and 2008;

Brigade (Meta), for at least 66 such killings between 2002 and 2008; The 8 th Brigade (Quindío), for at least 56 between 2003 and 2008;

Brigade (Quindío), for at least 56 between 2003 and 2008; The 9th Brigade (Huila), for at least 119 between 2004 and 2008;

The 10th Brigade (Cesar), for at least 146 between 2004 and 2008;

The 11th Brigade (Córdoba), for at least 214 between 2004 and 2008;

The 12th Mobile Brigade (Meta), for at least 27 between 2005 and 2007;

The 14th Brigade (Antioquia), for at least 51 between 2006 and 2008;

The 15th Mobile Brigade (Norte de Santander), for at least 38 between 2006 and 2008;

The 16th Brigade (Casanare), for at least 113 between 2004 and 2008; and

The 28th Brigade (Vichada), for at least 45 between 2006 and 2008.

Human Rights Watch also analyzed the annual number of killings attributed to the battalions and other tactical units attached to each of the 11 brigades. For example, for the 4th Brigade—a brigade for which prosecutors are investigating more false positive cases than for any other brigade we examined—the breakdown is as follows:

Alleged Extrajudicial Killings by the 4th Brigade Under Investigation

Unit ‘02 ‘03 ‘04 ‘05 ‘06 ‘07 ‘08 Total Pedro Nel Ospina Battalion 0 1 6 7 25 8 0 47 Pedro Justo Berrío Battalion 0 3 6 15 14 5 0 43 Juan de Corral Battalion 0 0 8 9 0 7 0 24 Afeur 5 0 0 8 6 4 3 0 21 Bajes Battalion 4 10 31 21 10 19 0 95 Gaula Antioquia 3 2 0 2 4 7 4 22 Gaula Rural Oriente Antioqueño 0 0 2 5 6 6 0 19 Atanasio Girardot Battalion 3 5 4 9 23 22 5 71 A combination of 4TH Brigade tactical units 0 0 3 1 6 0 0 10 Other tactical units/ unidentified tactical units in 4th Brigade 9 4 6 6 13 14 5 57 A combination of tactical units from 4th Brigade and other brigades (counted only once here) 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 3 Total 4th Brigade 19 25 74 84 105 91 14 412

There are strong reasons to believe that troops belonging to these 11 brigades may be responsible for many more false positives that are not included in the abovementioned statistics. In numerous cases of extrajudicial executions under investigation, prosecutors have not identified and/or internally recorded the specific army unit allegedly responsible. Furthermore, scores—possibly hundreds—of other cases remain with military judges, according to prosecutors.

Obstacles to Accountability

Prosecutors handling false positives face serious obstacles from a range of actors, including army officials, military judges, defense lawyers who employ bogus delay tactics, as well as from parties who threaten and attack key witnesses. Shortcomings within the prosecutor’s office also hinder its progress in the cases.

Prosecutors told Human Rights Watch that military personnel often resist handing over army files that are crucial to their investigations, such as “orders of operations,” and documents certifying payments to informants in false positive cases. When prosecutors send criminal investigators to brigades and battalions to obtain the potential evidence, soldiers sometimes claim the person in charge of the files is not there, or force them to wait for hours before reviewing the documents. In other cases, military personnel have baselessly purported that the information is confidential, and refused to provide it, according to prosecutors.

Another important obstacle is that soldiers who testify against superiors often suffer reprisals, including harassment and stigmatization by senior military officials, and death threats and attacks against them and their families. These abuses dissuade or prevent the witnesses from testifying and send a powerful message to other soldiers that they will be punished if they speak out. Three illustrative examples of abuses against key witnesses and their families include:

On October 27, 2014, Nixón de Jesús Cárcamo was murdered in the 11 th Brigade’s military detention center, where he was being held on false positive charges. Cárcamo had been providing information to prosecutors about his superiors’ alleged role in the killings. Eleven days prior to his death, he told them that “there are rumors that my life is in danger because I’m cooperating with the justice system…. If anything happens to me I declare responsible the people who I’m accusing in these cases.”

Brigade’s military detention center, where he was being held on false positive charges. Cárcamo had been providing information to prosecutors about his superiors’ alleged role in the killings. Eleven days prior to his death, he told them that “there are rumors that my life is in danger because I’m cooperating with the justice system…. If anything happens to me I declare responsible the people who I’m accusing in these cases.” There is compelling evidence that in 2013, unidentified men raped a soldier’s wife in retaliation for his refusal to retract his testimony accusing a colonel of false positives.

Sergeant Carlos Eduardo Mora’s testimony has contributed to the conviction of a lieutenant colonel and numerous other soldiers for false positives. In retaliation, he has endured death threats, and senior army officers have harassed and sought to stigmatize him. He reported that in 2013, army officials attempted to check him in to a psychiatric clinic against his will, apparently trying to discredit him, and that in 2014, a general made statements in front of him and a large group of fellow army counterintelligence personnel strongly insinuating that he was a “traitor.”

The experience of these three key witnesses differs dramatically from that of retired Lieutenant Colonel Robinson González del Río during the time that he refrained from speaking out against superiors after he was arrested for false positives in August 2012. In February 2014, Semana, a leading Colombian weekly newsmagazine, published dozens of legally-ordered audio recordings of González del Río’s cell phone conversations made by the Attorney General’s Office between October 2012 and April 2013. They showed how he spent much of his time outside of the military detention center and appeared to have soldiers at his and his family’s service on a permanent basis. The recordings also indicated that he spoke frequently with army colonels and generals, who appeared to support him in a range of ways, including by providing funds from their institutional budgets, and allowing his defense team to use military cars and lodging. In conversations with an apparent business associate, González del Río also claimed generals were helping him obtain military contracts. Only after Semana published the audio recordings of the conversations did González del Río begin to cooperate with prosecutors and give testimony about generals’ alleged involvement in false positives.

Human Rights Watch reviewed thousands of additional legally-ordered audio recordings of González del Río after he was arrested, which have not yet been made public. They contain many other examples of senior military officers’ apparent support for him. A few of the officers he claimed were doing him favors, or directly spoke with, are generals who he later implicated in false positive cases, or who commanded military units allegedly responsible for many such crimes.

We are not in a position to determine the motives behind army officials’ support for González del Río after his arrest. Regardless of the motive, however, one would expect that other military personnel implicated in false positives, seeing his treatment, would conclude that keeping silent will be rewarded. His privileges were no secret to other military personnel: it must have been clear to other soldiers that he left the military detention center when he pleased, and had soldiers and army vehicles at his disposal; he also explicitly told subordinates and other officers that he could obtain favors from senior officers.

Military Jurisdiction

Moreover, despite repeated rulings of the Constitutional Court and Inter-American Court of Human Rights calling for human rights violations to be exclusively investigated and tried by civilian justice authorities, prosecutors told Human Rights Watch that scores—and possibly hundreds—of false positive cases remain in the military justice system.

There are multiple reasons why the military justice system’s continued handling of many false positives is a major impediment to accountability in these cases. There is compelling evidence that the military justice system played a crucial role in allowing false positives to occur, because it generally failed to take basic steps to investigate the cases when they were under its jurisdiction. Furthermore, witness accounts and interviews with prosecutors indicate that at least some military judges actively helped troops cover-up the crimes, including by instructing them how to make the crime scene appear like combat had occurred.

Human Rights Watch found evidence that in recent years military justice system personnel have continued to lack the independence and credibility necessary for the system to handle human rights violations. For example, between 2008 and 2010, retired Colonel Édgar Emilio Ávila Doria served as the interim director of the military justice system and as its “army coordinator,” a position that acts as a direct advisor to the director. He now has an arrest warrant out against him for false positives by the battalion he commanded between late 2005 and 2007. Audio recordings of González del Río’s conversations cast doubt on the credibility of another senior official who appears to be linked to the office of the military justice system army coordinator. In a December 26, 2012 phone call from the office of the army coordinator to González del Río’s cell phone, a man whom González del Río calls “colonel” appears to offer support for getting his case transferred from civilian to military courts, and expresses hope that he will soon be released from detention.

Human Rights Watch also reviewed González del Río’s phone conversations with a military judge who appeared to be handling cases of reported combat killings by his troops. In one call, the judge discusses what seem to be his efforts to help González del Río obtain permission to temporarily leave his detention center, and says “Take down my number… just in case something comes up, brother, call me because you know I’m available 24 hours [a day.]”

Recordings of González del Río’s conversations also indicate that he and other military officers believed that moving his case to military jurisdiction would ensure him greater leniency. In one recorded call González del Río, presumably confident in his case’s imminent transfer to military courts, told General Jorge Enrique Navarrete that it already had been moved, to which in the call the general can be heard responding: “How awesome! I’m happy, man…. I’m glad… that you’ve solved your problem.” González del Río told the general he expected to be released from detention within a week. (His case ultimately was not moved to military courts and he was not released.)

All of the military justice system’s problems made it particularly concerning that from 2011 to 2015, the Colombian government sought to approve constitutional amendments and other legislation that would have expanded the jurisdiction of military courts over human rights violations, including false positives. To its credit, in April 2015, the government withdrew the most troubling aspects of its latest proposed constitutional change to broaden military jurisdiction. To ensure justice for false positives, it should not pursue similar measures again.

Shortcomings within the Prosecutor’s Office

Many of the prosecutors we interviewed described their caseloads as overwhelming. This is partly due to the fact that in 2012, the Attorney General’s Office removed 12 prosecutors from the Human Rights Unit who had been working on false positive cases.

Moreover, cases are generally not distributed among prosecutors based on the military unit responsible, which impedes them from detecting patterns of crimes that could lead to the identification of high-level perpetrators. For example, 19 alleged extrajudicial killings by the Magdalena Battalion in 2007 appear to be divided among six different prosecutors; and there is one prosecutor in Bogotá handling unlawful killings by 11 tactical units attached to six brigades. There are some important exceptions: prosecutors in Medellín, for instance, have divided cases based on the battalion responsible, and in early 2015, obtained arrest warrants against five colonels who formerly commanded one such unit. Attorney General’s Office officials said they plan to apply this successful model throughout the different prosecutors’ offices that are focused on false positives.

Another concern has been the apparent lack of coordination and effective information sharing between prosecutors investigating the vast majority of false positives and a small group of “delegated prosecutors” who exclusively investigate generals for the crimes. (Generals charged with committing crimes can only be prosecuted at the Supreme Court, in cases brought by prosecutors that the attorney general delegates to try cases before that court, which are referred to here as “delegated prosecutors.”) Several prosecutors said that when they have sent evidence about generals to delegated prosecutors and requested that they open investigations, they have sometimes not contacted them to follow-up.

For example, one prosecutor told Human Rights Watch that after sending evidence to delegated prosecutors, they “don’t come to review the cases; they don’t inspect the cases; they don’t respond; they don’t ask questions….For us it’s demoralizing because we put ourselves on the line and get to the level of the colonels, but nothing happens after that.”

In 2015, the Attorney General’s Office increased the number of prosecutors investigating generals, and designated an official to serve as a point person between them and the prosecutors conducting most false positive investigations into army personnel of other ranks. Both measures should help address the aforementioned concerns.

Colombia’s Obligations and the International Criminal Court

False positives – essentially extrajudicial killings and murder – are serious violations of human rights. They are also serious violations of international humanitarian law applicable in non-international conflicts and, as such, constitute war crimes.

When committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population, murder can constitute a crime against humanity. Extensive evidence outlined in this report indicates that many false positive incidents amount to crimes against humanity. Colombia has obligations under international law to investigate, prosecute, and punish those responsible for serious human rights violations, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.

In 2012, Colombia enacted the Legal Framework for Peace, a constitutional amendment that paves the way for impunity for atrocities by guerrillas, paramilitaries, and the military if a peace agreement is reached with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas. The amendment empowers Congress to limit the scope of prosecutions of atrocities to individuals found “most responsible” and provide statutory immunity to everyone else; exempt war crimes from criminal investigation if they are not determined to have been systematic; and apply “alternative penalties” to all those convicted.

It is imperative that Colombia not implement the Legal Framework for Peace—or any other potential transitional justice laws—in a way that would undercut accountability for false positives. If it does, however, victims could still seek justice at the International Criminal Court (ICC), which may exercise its jurisdiction over crimes against humanity committed in Colombia since November 2002, and war crimes committed there since November 2009. The Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) of the ICC is assessing whether a range of alleged crimes in Colombia fall within its jurisdiction and has concluded that there is a reasonable basis to believe that false positives amount to crimes against humanity. As a court of last resort, these cases would only be admissible before the ICC where national authorities are unwilling or unable genuinely to investigate or prosecute them. The OTP has specifically said with regard to the Legal Framework for Peace that a sentence that is grossly or manifestly inadequate would “vitiate the genuineness” of the proceeding. In other words, it could open the door to an ICC investigation.

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Recommendations

To President Juan Manuel Santos

Make the successful prosecution of false positive cases a key benchmark of your administration’s success.

Order military authorities to fully cooperate with prosecutors’ investigations into false positives, including by promptly providing files requested by them.

Ensure that government officials do not make public statements that call into question the legitimacy of prosecutors’ actions in false positive cases, or stigmatize victims and their representatives.

Do not promote bills to expand military courts’ jurisdiction over human rights cases.

Ensure that military officials do not harass or stigmatize witnesses in false positive cases, and that witnesses, their family members, and victims’ relatives in such cases receive adequate protection when there are credible threats to their security.

Ensure that any future implementing legislation for the Legal Framework for Peace, a constitutional amendment enacted in July 2012, does not exempt from criminal investigation or prosecution—or result in grossly inadequate sentences for—individuals responsible for false positives.

To the Attorney General of Colombia

Conduct swift and thorough investigations into the potential responsibility of former commanders of all brigades and tactical units that carried out a significant number of false positives. Investigations should also examine the potential responsibility of officers who were higher up the chain of command.

Increase the number of prosecutors and investigators in the Human Rights Unit, so they can swiftly and thoroughly pursue false positive cases.

Review the approach to allocating false positive cases among prosecutors, to ensure that patterns and links between crimes attributed to specific tactical units and brigades can be efficiently identified and pursued.

To the United States Government

Enforce human rights conditions on military aid to Colombia, including the requirement that human rights cases be “subject only to civilian jurisdiction” and that the military cooperate with prosecutors in such cases. In light of evidence that many false positives remain in military courts and that military authorities have not fully and promptly cooperated with investigations, the US should suspend the part of military aid that depends on Colombia’s compliance with human rights conditions.

To the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court

Continue close monitoring of proceedings in false positive cases and any future implementation of the Legal Framework for Peace amendment.

Methodology

In researching this report, Human Rights Watch interviewed more than 40 prosecutors, prosecutor’s office officials, victims’ family members and their lawyers, and witnesses, among others. The vast majority of interviews were conducted in Bogotá, Medellín, and Villavicencio between December 2014 and March 2015, though some were also conducted by telephone.

Many interviewees spoke with us on condition that we withhold their names and other identifying information from publication. Details about individuals, as well as interview dates and locations, have been withheld when requested and when Human Rights Watch believed the information could place someone or their job at risk.

Human Rights Watch research drew extensively on Attorney General’s Office statistics, criminal case files, judicial rulings, audio recordings of court proceedings and witness testimony, legally-ordered audio recordings of cell phone conversations of retired Lieutenant Colonel Robinson González del Río made by the Attorney General’s Office, official and non-governmental reports, and news articles, among other forms of evidence.

In this report, the term “false positive” refers to cases of unlawful killings that military personnel staged to look like—and officially reported as—lawful killings in combat of guerrillas, paramilitaries, or criminals. The vast majority of victims were civilians, though in some rare cases, there is evidence that the victims were guerrillas killed outside of combat, such as after they had surrendered.

In this report, the term “tactical unit” refers to units operating directly under army brigades, such as battalions, anti-extortion and kidnapping Gaula units, and “Cavalry Groups.”

The ranks and active or retired statuses of military officers listed in the report refers to the latest ranks and statuses for which Human Rights Watch found information, unless otherwise indicated.

This report focuses on false positives between 2002 and 2008, because such killings dramatically increased in their scale and frequency during the period. However, as noted by the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, there are examples of the cases dating back to the 1980s. There have also been reports of some new incidents after 2008.

All translations from the original Spanish to English are by Human Rights Watch.

I. Command Responsibility for False Positive Killings

There are compelling reasons to believe that numerous senior army officers were involved in or responsible for false positive killings. The next chapter gives several examples of evidence directly implicating specific commanders. This chapter focuses on aspects of the false positive killings suggesting that a much broader swathe of commanders may be legally responsible for them.

Under international law, command responsibility arises when a superior knew or should have known that subordinates under his effective control were committing a crime, but failed to take the necessary and reasonable steps to prevent or punish the acts. Colombia’s highest courts have issued rulings that essentially equate this international doctrine with criminal responsibility by omission, which is codified in the country’s penal code. The rulings indicate that command responsibility can be applied to military commanders in cases of grave human rights violations, and prosecutors say they are examining this mode of liability in their false positive investigations.

There are several reasons to conclude that many commanders of tactical units and brigades—and possibly officers higher up the chain of command—knew or had reason to know about false positives and therefore might bear command responsibility. While the fact that a superior had actual knowledge may be proven through direct evidence, it may also be established through circumstantial evidence, such as the number, type, and scope of illegal acts, time during which the illegal acts occurred, whether the occurrence is widespread, the modus operandi of similar illegal acts, the number and type of troops involved, and the logistics involved.

The “had reason to know” standard requires only general information about the possibility of crimes, not specific knowledge about discrete incidents. Evidence of both types of knowledge in false positive cases includes:

Substantial evidence that false positives were not the work of a small handful of bad actors but were committed by the vast majority of brigades across Colombia over a number of years. The higher the number of killings and the more they appear to follow a systematic pattern of attack, the less likely that superiors did not know about them.

The general modus operandi of false positives required tactical unit and brigade commanders to take a series of actions, such as issuing “orders of operations” and other official documents to authorize operations.

All false positives were officially reported to commanders of tactical units, brigades, and divisions as combat deaths, and the often implausible circumstances of the reported incidents suggests they should have detected irregularities.

Credible reports of false positives were widely publicized starting in 2004, if not earlier, putting commanders on notice of possible crimes.

Human Rights Watch is not aware of any evidence that military commanders took steps to prevent or punish false positives until 2007. That year, the high command of the armed forces and Defense Ministry issued several new directives, including one in November 2007 that accorded priority to demobilizations and arrests over combat kills. It is not clear to what extent, if any, army commanders changed their practices as a result of these measures. The steps certainly were not sufficient to stop false positives: prosecutors are investigating more than 550 alleged extrajudicial killings by state agents in 2008, mostly by army troops. The crimes only started to come to a halt after the government dismissed 27 army officers following the Soacha scandal in late 2008.

While this chapter focuses on officers’ potential command responsibility, much of the evidence discussed here supports the conclusion of the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) of the International Criminal Court (ICC) that there is a reasonable basis to believe false positives were committed “pursuant to a policy adopted at least at the level of certain brigades.” The existence of such a policy would indicate that some commanders at least at the brigade level may not only be responsible for failing to stop the crimes, but also for directly ordering, planning, or otherwise facilitating them.

Large-scale

There is compelling evidence that numerous tactical units and brigades were each individually responsible for false positives on a large scale. Examples include the 11th Brigade, whose troops are under investigation for at least 214 alleged extrajudicial killings between 2004 and 2008, and the Juan José Rondón Battalion, in the 10th Brigade, whose troops are being investigated for at least 60 alleged extrajudicial killings between 2003 and 2008.

The widespread false positives by individual units formed part of one larger—also widespread—pattern of such crimes by army troops across Colombia. The Human Rights Unit of the Attorney General’s Office is investigating more than 3,700 alleged extrajudicial killings by state agents between 2002 and 2008. The vast majority of these cases are false positive-type killings by army members, according to senior Attorney General’s Office officials. The extrajudicial killings by army troops between 2002 and 2008 occurred in 27 of Colombia’s 32 departments and were allegedly committed by more than 180 tactical units attached to almost all the army’s brigades, operating under every single one of its seven divisions at the time.

In 2015, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights reported that the total number of victim of false positives could be as high as 5,000.

Systematic

There is extensive evidence that at a tactical unit, brigade, and national level, army troops committed false positives in a systematic fashion. Cases across the country had similar types of victims and a common modus operandi, which required a high degree of coordination and planning. Soldiers and officers involved in false positives have admitted that their units had established methods for carrying out the killings. They also described two common motives: pressure from superiors to inflate statistics of combat kills and rewards given to soldiers and officers for the killings.

Modus Operandi

The UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, OTP of the ICC, and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, among others, have all described a common modus operandi in false positive cases. The two most basic elements of the modus operandi are that troops would 1) execute victims outside of combat and 2) officially report them as guerrillas, paramilitaries, or criminals killed in action.

In many cases, soldiers or civilian recruiters would lure victims under false pretenses—such as the promise of work—to an agreed upon location where the troops would kill them. In other cases, army members abducted victims from their homes or detained them in public places and transported them to the site of their executions. There were also many incidents in which paramilitary groups provided the troops with the victims.

As described by the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, after killing the victims, “the military, with varying degrees of sophistication, then sets up the scene to make it appear like a lawful combat killing. This can involve: placing weapons in the hands of victims; firing weapons from victims’ hands; changing their clothes to combat fatigues or other clothing associated with guerrillas; and putting combat boots on victims’ feet.” Often, troops would strip the victims’ of their identity papers and other personal effects.

Army personnel would then report the killings up the chain of command, and also often to the press. In many cases, superiors would give the troops vacation time and other rewards, and authorize payments to fake civilian informants that would actually go to the troops or recruiters. Army officers produced a bevy of official documents substantiating the claim that the killing occurred in combat.

Profile of Victims

As found by the OTP of the ICC, false positives “were directed against particular categories of civilians, who resided in remote areas and were considered to belong to a marginalized sector of the population.” These victims included farmers, children, unemployed people, homeless people, people who were dependent upon drugs, people with mental disabilities, community leaders, people with criminal records, petty criminals, demobilized guerrillas or paramilitaries, and in some rare cases, supposed guerrilla collaborators or guerrillas who had been detained or surrendered.

Organizing, Planning, and Logistical Coordination Required for Killings

As evident in the preceding description of the modus operandi in false positive cases, the crimes required significant organizing, planning, and logistical coordination by military officers and soldiers. This included first identifying the victim; detaining him or otherwise recruiting him to go to a remote location; often transporting him in military vehicles between different municipalities or departments; obtaining weapons, camouflage, and other military equipment to put on the victim; and ensuring that each case had official military documents attesting to its purported legality. Military personnel also needed to coordinate to ensure they gave justice authorities a consistent account of the supposed combat kill.

Soldiers involved in false positive have described how their military units had established methods—essentially systems in place—for committing the crimes. For example:

In a November 2014 hearing, prosecutors pressed charges against two former intelligence officials from the Pedro Nel Ospina Battalion (4 th Brigade) for 24 false positives committed between January 2006 and June 2007. In one case, the prosecutor recounted that a man was lured to Antioquia from a nearby city and then executed by soldiers, who put a pistol on him and reported him as killed in combat. The prosecutor then said that one of the defendants, who was the battalion’s intelligence official at the time of the crime, calculated that in 2006 and 2007 “there were 72 victims who were in the same way presented by members of Pedro Nel Ospina Battalion as killed in combat, without any basis in truth as there had never been any combat and [the victims] had been tricked and brought to different locations where they were killed … with the knowledge of the battalion’s commanders” (emphasis added).

Brigade) for 24 false positives committed between January 2006 and June 2007. In one case, the prosecutor recounted that a man was lured to Antioquia from a nearby city and then executed by soldiers, who put a pistol on him and reported him as killed in combat. The prosecutor then said that one of the defendants, who was the battalion’s intelligence official at the time of the crime, calculated that in 2006 and 2007 “there were 72 victims who were presented by members of Pedro Nel Ospina Battalion as killed in combat, without any basis in truth as there had never been any combat and [the victims] had been tricked and brought to different locations where they were killed … with the knowledge of the battalion’s commanders” (emphasis added). Retired Colonel Luis Fernando Borja has confessed to and been convicted of numerous false positives committed when he commanded the Fuerza de Tarea Conjunta in Sucre (11th Brigade). He told prosecutors that when he assumed command of the troops, a method for committing false positives was already in place: “Major Céspedes told me the real mode of illegal combat kills and that the squad commanders already knew what they had to do… [that] there are some soldiers who are in charge of getting the guys or victims, and the weapons to place on the victims.” Borja also said that “everything was organized when I arrived.”

Common Motives: Pressure to Boost Body Counts and Rewards

There is abundant evidence that perpetrators of false positives across Colombia had two principal motives, as noted above: showing “results” in the fight against guerrillas and crime, and being rewarded for supposed combat kills.

Body Counts

Testimony of army personnel who have admitted responsibility for false positives strongly suggests that commanders measured success in terms of reported combat kills, and pressured subordinates to increase them. The pressure appears to have pervaded the army’s chain of command, ranging from at least one head of the army, retired General Mario Montoya, to brigade and battalion commanders, all the way down to the soldiers who committed the killings. There is evidence that superiors threatened to punish subordinates for not producing combat killings to report, organized competitions between military units over the number of reported combat kills, and even gave subordinates required quotas of combat kills.

Several army officers have stated that retired General Montoya pressured troops to increase enemy combat kills when he was head of the army (2006-2008). For example:

Retired Lieutenant Colonel Robinson González del Río, who has admitted responsibility for numerous false positives when commanding tactical units between 2006 and 2008, told prosecutors:

You were evaluated based… on combat kills …. It is a policy that General Mario Montoya implemented.… Every Monday he highlighted the 10 best units in the country. But these units were evaluated by combat kills. I’ll give you an example: if a battalion had 40 demobilized [guerrillas] but just one combat kill, and another battalion had one demobilized [guerrilla] and four combat kills, the one who had four combat kills was winning…. Over the radio… he would ask many units, “How long have you gone without operational results?” [They would respond] “General, yesterday we made two arrests.” [Montoya would respond] “No, no, no, brother, operational results, we are an army at war, here what counts are combat kills”…. Between Wednesday and Sunday the brigade and battalion commanders would enter into a crisis because they knew that on Monday they had to report combat kills. If they didn’t report combat kills, the army commander would reprimand them, threaten to remove them, fire them.

González del Río said the pressure flowed down the chain of command: “The pressure was from the army command, which was General Montoya, and from there down all the commanders of brigades and divisions were in charge of applying the pressure.” (See more on retired General Montoya, including allegation of him pressuring troops to boost body counts, in the section, “Testimony against Army Officers above the Brigade-Level.”)

Soldiers responsible for false positives have also blamed the crimes on pressure within their battalions and brigades to produce combat casualties. For example:

Two former Pedro Nel Ospina Battalion officials charged with false positives cited pressure from their battalion commanders as a common motive behind the crimes. In relation to one killing, the defendant “said he was pressured by Major [José] Zanguña [Duarte] because if they didn’t produce results he could be removed from the army because he was in a trial period,” according to the prosecutor’s office. (In early 2015, Zanguña Duarte, now a colonel, was detained for false positives by the Pedro Nel Ospina Battalion.)

In testimony to prosecutors, a soldier named Nixón de Jesús Cárcamo blamed the false positives he committed while part of the 11 th Brigade on pressure from his commanders to increase body counts: “they told you that you had to give combat casualties and combat casualties, killing was the only thing that was talked about.”

Brigade on pressure from his commanders to increase body counts: “they told you that you had to give combat casualties and combat casualties, killing was the only thing that was talked about.” Edgar Iván Flórez Maestre, a former lieutenant from the Calibío Battalion (14th Brigade), said: “In February 2008 we had a meeting in the COT (Center of Tactical Operations) of the battalion, the new commander of the Battalion Colonel Ramírez … told us: each company commander should give me one combat killing per month, and the second section should give me three dead per month…. [R]ight now the war is measured in liters of blood, [and] the commander who does not have results of deaths each month, will be sanctioned.”

Rewards

The pressure to produce results was complemented by incentives established in military units across Colombia that rewarded combat killings with vacation time, promotions, medals, training courses, and congratulations from superiors, among other prizes. Soldiers have described how these incentives motivated false positives. For example:

A former officer from the Pedro Justo Berrío Battalion (4 th Brigade) said that after his unit committed several false positives in 2005, soldiers got 35 days off. He said “everyone looks for their personal benefit, [soldiers] know that for each case they get some days off, so no one opposed.”

Brigade) said that after his unit committed several false positives in 2005, soldiers got 35 days off. He said “everyone looks for their personal benefit, [soldiers] know that for each case they get some days off, so no one opposed.” A soldier from the Rifles Battalion (11 th Brigade) said the impetus behind his unit’s false positive killing of his brother in April 2007 was that soldiers wanted days off to celebrate Mother’s Day: “Mother’s Day was close and the high-level commands started to get worried because we didn’t have any results to show, or merits for them to give us days [off] to visit our families. So ‘legalizing’ someone began to be discussed. That is, killing someone and then passing them off as a guerrilla to win days off. I wasn’t completely surprised because legalizations are an everyday occurrence.”

(11 Brigade) said the impetus behind his unit’s false positive killing of his brother in April 2007 was that soldiers wanted days off to celebrate Mother’s Day: “Mother’s Day was close and the high-level commands started to get worried because we didn’t have any results to show, or merits for them to give us days [off] to visit our families. So ‘legalizing’ someone began to be discussed. That is, killing someone and then passing them off as a guerrilla to win days off. I wasn’t completely surprised because legalizations are an everyday occurrence.” When asked by prosecutors what benefits he received for false positives, retired Lieutenant Marco Fabián García, the former commander of troops attached to the 65th Counter-Guerrilla Battalion (16th Brigade), responded: “I was a candidate to obtain the medal of public order, I was sent to training in the special forces which is an honor, I did it because that’s what they awarded me with.”

There is evidence that in at least some cases, monetary profit was another incentive for soldiers to commit false positives. Prosecutors and military personnel have described a similar practice in different military units: after the killings, commanders would make official payments from army funds to supposed civilian informants who were reported to have provided information that led to the combat killing. Sometimes, military personnel would take much of the payment from the supposed informant. In others cases, commanders would sign the payment to a person who was unaware that he was being listed as an informant and give all the money to troops. For example:

Retired Colonel Luis Fernando Borja, from the Fuerza de Tarea Conjunta in Sucre (11 th Brigade) testified: “On some occasions for these homicides money was given to the commanders of the patrols. It was money that the State gave on a monthly basis for intelligence. They were all fake payments. They would place a real or fictitious person who never received the money and… [it] was administered under my orders.”

Brigade) testified: “On some occasions for these homicides money was given to the commanders of the patrols. It was money that the State gave on a monthly basis for intelligence. They were all fake payments. They would place a real or fictitious person who never received the money and… [it] was administered under my orders.” · The prosecutor’s office’s formal accusation against retired Lieutenant Colonel Henry Acosta Pardo, the former commander of the Birno Battalion (16th Brigade), for the murders of three workers in July 2007, states that in committing false positives, he “obtain[ed] personal and economic perks, through the form of payments for information.”

False Positives Required Actions by Brigade and Tactical Unit Commanders

Human Rights Watch reviewed criminal case files, witness testimony, and other evidence showing that for troops to commit false positives, the commanders of brigades, battalions, and other tactical units needed to take a series of concrete actions, without which the crimes would not have been possible. This demonstrates that there were various stages in the process of carrying out a false positive in which such commanders acquired knowledge that could have and often should have led them to detect that the supposed combat killing was actually an execution. Where commanders already knew their troops were committing false positives, these actions themselves could be construed as criminal acts in furtherance of a larger criminal plan.

Official Documentation

In virtually all false positive cases, brigade or tactical unit commanders issued “orders of operations.” These are army documents that authorize military operations and direct troops where, how, and against whom to execute them. In many false positive cases, commanders also issued documents called “tactical missions” and “fragmentary” orders of operations, which are grounded in orders of operations and provide more detailed instructions for carrying out specific operations.

Orders of operations and tactical missions were essential to carrying out false positives because they provided the grounds for troops to mobilize to the areas where they committed the killings, and substantiated the claim that the killings occurred during a legally-ordered operation.

Prosecutors have confirmed the key role these documents played in the commission of false positives. For example, in a case by the Pedro Nel Ospina Battalion, the prosecutor said the “order of operations” was issued by the battalion commander and served as “the legal basis for the troops to be present on the scene.” In a false positive case by the 23rd Counter-Guerrilla Battalion (BCG), attached to the 16th Brigade, the prosecutor found that the “tactical mission” signed by the battalion commander was a “well-conceived devic[e] to justify an illegal act: the death of three people.”

Authorization to Move Troops

False positives entailed significant movement by troops to first either detain or recruit the victims, and then execute them in other locations. Testimony by army personnel and other evidence strongly suggest that in many instances, the specific troop movements required the authorization of tactical unit and/or brigade commanders. For example:

A soldier and radio operator who admitted to participating in operations in which the Efraín Rojas Acevedo Battalion (28 th Brigade) committed false positives testified that when carrying out the crimes, the troops could not move without the authorization of then-battalion commander Colonel Óscar Orlando Gómez Cifuentes.

Brigade) committed false positives testified that when carrying out the crimes, the troops could not move without the authorization of then-battalion commander Colonel Óscar Orlando Gómez Cifuentes. Retired Lieutenant Colonel González del Río told prosecutors that when he commanded tactical units attached to the 4th and 8th brigades and his troops conducted operations to commit the killings, their movements required the brigade commanders’ authorization. “I [could] not move a single soldier for an operation without the authorization of the brigade commander,” he said in relation to his time in the 8th Brigade.

As one justice official explained to Human Rights Watch, brigade commanders needed to be informed of the operational movements of the different tactical units under their command in order to ensure they did not unwittingly come across each other in the field.

Authorization of Payments and Rewards

Witness testimony, judicial investigations, and military documents strongly suggest that payments made to informants in false positive cases required the authorization of brigade and battalion commanders. As explained above, these payments sometimes ended up going to the troops responsible for the killings, and thus served as incentives for false positives. Furthermore, the funds also appear to have been used to pay recruiters in at least some cases. Evidence that commanders authorized the payments includes:

On March 17, 2008, the then-commander of the 8 th Brigade, General Emiro Jose Barrios, then-second commander of the brigade, General Jorge Enrique Navarrete Jadeth, and then-commander of the 57 th BCG, Major Josué Linares, all signed a document certifying a 2 million peso (US$1,000) payment to an informant for information that led to “the death in combat of two (2) terrorists.” Prosecutors subsequently proved that the “terrorists” were actually unarmed civilians who had been recruited from a nearby city.

Brigade, General Emiro Jose Barrios, then-second commander of the brigade, General Jorge Enrique Navarrete Jadeth, and then-commander of the 57 BCG, Major Josué Linares, all signed a document certifying a 2 million peso (US$1,000) payment to an informant for information that led to “the death in combat of two (2) terrorists.” Prosecutors subsequently proved that the “terrorists” were actually unarmed civilians who had been recruited from a nearby city. According to prosecutors, the commanders of the 4th Brigade and Pedro Nel Ospina Battalion signed a document authorizing a 1 million peso (US$500) payment to a supposed informant for the April 2006 false positive killing of a man who had been abducted from his home and executed. A former intelligence official from the battalion told prosecutors that whenever the unit committed false positives, the battalion commander would authorize payments to supposed informants.

In addition to authorizing payments to fake informants, battalion and brigade commanders also appear to have been involved in granting rewards such as vacation days and training courses in exchange for supposed combat killings. For example, González del Río told prosecutors that his brigade commander would authorize him to give soldiers vacation days for supposed combat kills. He also said that the head of the army, retired General Montoya, would tell commanders to give soldiers days off for combat kills. Similarly, a man who acted as a guide for an army operation in Meta department in March 2006 during which troops allegedly committed two false positives told prosecutors that shortly after the killings, he heard the battalion commander congratulate soldiers over the radio and tell them they would be rewarded with a trip abroad.

The Implausible Circumstances of Reported Combat Killings

In false positive cases, the supposed combat killings were immediately reported up the chain of command to commanders of tactical units, brigades, divisions—and possibly higher—according to prosecutors and the testimony of army personnel responsible for the crimes. As explained above, commanders also acquired knowledge of the incidents because they authorized relevant troop movements and payments.

There is compelling evidence that in many false positive cases, the circumstances of the killings that were officially reported to commanders should have led them to notice irregularities in the supposed operations and to suspect unlawful killings.

Types of Weapon Reportedly Found on Victims

The weapons troops reported finding on victims often were not the kind that armed groups typically use against the armed forces, such as pistols and revolvers, and guns that did not even function, according to prosecutors and perpetrators’ testimony.

For example:

A former commander of troops attached to the 16th Brigade testified: “with the rank of a colonel, and the experience you could have at this rank it is no secret that the troops... [were] killing innocent people who had nothing to do with the conflict and were reported with weapons that the guerrilla does not use to confront you with.”

A prosecutor’s formal accusation against retired Lieutenant Colonel Henry Acosta Pardo, the former commander of the Birno Battalion (16 th Brigade), for three false positives in July 2007 states: “It’s incredible that experienced criminals, such as those dedicated to drug trafficking, would be carrying obsolete, rusty, deteriorated weapons, such as a pistol and two revolvers…and it’s even more implausible that they would participate in an armed combat, with an UNUSABLE pistol.”

Brigade), for three false positives in July 2007 states: “It’s incredible that experienced criminals, such as those dedicated to drug trafficking, would be carrying obsolete, rusty, deteriorated weapons, such as a pistol and two revolvers…and it’s even more implausible that they would participate in an armed combat, with an UNUSABLE pistol.” The “Suarez report,” a document produced by a high-level military commission temporarily created in October 2008 to conduct an internal investigation into false positive allegations, describes five cases of reported combat kills by the Bomboná Battalion (14th Brigade) in 2007 in which the troops reported having used an “exaggerated” amount of munitions. In one case, troops reported using 16 grenades and 200 cartridges of 5.56 mm ammunition but said they found only one revolver on the supposed enemy combatant killed in action.

In many cases, the fact that the victims were reported as the ones who initiated the attack against heavily armed soldiers should have made it seem particularly unrealistic that victims were found with handguns and other basic arms, rather than rifles and other typical combat weapons. For example, a prosecutor said that in 17 false positive incidents, involving 24 victims, for which two former Pedro Nel Ospina Battalion officials were being charged, the victims were all reported to have attacked the troops. Yet with the exception of one case, the only guns found on the victims were revolvers, pistols, or shotguns.

Location and Function of the Military Unit

In some tactical units, the location where they operated—and their designated function within the army—made it implausible that they would be responsible for high numbers of combat kills. For example:

A former Pedro Nel Ospina Battalion official said it was “strange” that the battalion had the most reported combat kills in the country, even though it was supposed to focus on “controlling area” and engineering projects, rather than combat. As reported by the investigative website La Silla Vacía , the battalion reported 86 combat kills in 2006, despite being “specialized in the construction of public works such as bridges and lights for civilians, not combat operations.”

, the battalion reported 86 combat kills in 2006, despite being “specialized in the construction of public works such as bridges and lights for civilians, not combat operations.” González del Río said one reason it was “easily palpable for a commander to know” about false positives is that even though his troops were operating in an area of Caldas department devoid of armed groups, he still had to report combat kills.

The Suarez report noted that the number of combat kills by the Cacique Pipatón Battalion (14th Brigade) suddenly increased between 2006 and 2008, even though the unit did not operate in a conflict zone and was “exclusively urban and the responsibility of urban areas is the national police.” [63]

Hundreds of Common Criminals Reported As Killed in Military Operations

Within the Colombian security forces, the police, rather than military, carry out basic law enforcement activities, including the pursuit of common criminals. Colombian state agents can only exceptionally target civilians such as common criminals with lethal force in a very narrow set of circumstances, such as when it is necessary to protect life. Nevertheless, in many false positive cases, troops reported the victims to have been common criminals such as extortionists killed in combat. Official statistics show that between 2004 and 2007, the reported number of common criminals killed in operations by the army grew by 1,200 percent, to 325 killings. Notably, in 2007, army troops reported nearly 100 more combat kills of common criminals than of members of the National Liberation Army (ELN), Colombia’s second largest guerrilla group.

Combat Kills Reported by the Army

Year ‘04 ‘05 ‘06 ‘07 ‘08 ‘09 ‘10 ‘11 ‘12 ‘13 ‘14 Criminals 27 44 207 325 112 7 3 5 4 6 0 FARC 303 1252 1647 1752 975 473 437 307 344 258 153 ELN 106 329 298 239 173 34 30 22 33 50 26 BACRIM 155 283 195 629 378 34 30 24 27 13 12 Other Armed Groups/“Drug Trafficking” 9 44 52 38 7 5 0 0 2 1 0

An Illustrative Case

One soldier’s testimony provides a striking example of various implausible circumstances converging in a single incident.

The soldier said his company, which was attached to a counter-guerrilla battalion operating under a mobile brigade, kidnapped five civilians from the town in Guaviare department where it was based and held them on a farm for around two weeks. The day of their execution, a lieutenant who commanded the company sat four of them down at a table on the farm. They had all been dressed in camouflage. He then ordered the troops to fire on them, according to the soldier, who said he was standing roughly 50 meters away. The lieutenant returned to the kitchen, saw their “destroyed faces” and said “oh, son of a bitch we screwed up.” The soldier’s testimony indicates that he believed the lieutenant was worried because all the victims had been shot in the face, which seemed incongruous with the type of combat they planned to report.

The troops then executed the fifth victim and reported to the “command post” that they had entered into combat with 20 guerrillas, and killed five, according to the soldier. The soldier noted that the troops placed damaged weapons on the victims, which was unrealistic because the FARC front operating in the region had good-quality weapons.

The soldier said that later that afternoon, the heads of the battalion, brigade, and the Joint Task Force OMEGA arrived in military helicopters that had come to remove the bodies and immediately rewarded the soldiers: “They brought us chicken, and cigarettes, and congratulated us. They left and the good news was that we got 45 days of vacation.”

According to the soldier, the guerrillas had a minimal presence in the area where the company operated. He said the day after the lieutenant arrived to command the company in late 2004, he convened his troops and told them it “was not doing well in the eyes of the Brigade because of the lack of results.” Within three months, the company reported 10 combat killings, even though it only actually had one real combat with guerrillas during the entire time the lieutenant commanded the company, which produced no casualties. This indicates there were further circumstances that might have raised suspicion among commanders: in an area with minimal guerrilla presence, a new company commander arrived with a message that the brigade was unhappy with the unit’s lack of “results,” and the unit then rapidly increased its number of reported combat kills.

Routine Killings Across a Seven-Year Span

False positives routinely occurred across Colombia over a seven-year span. It was not just one commander who had one opportunity to detect the aforementioned implausible circumstances in which the combat killings were reported. It was hundreds of commanders of tactical units and brigades, who usually had multiple opportunities to detect false positives when commanding military units, often for more than a year at a time. Some commanders who held various command positions between 2002 and 2008 had the chance to detect an even larger number of false positives. Such is the case of retired General Montoya, who started as the commander of the 4th Brigade in 2001 and 2003, headed the First Division and Joint Caribbean Command between 2004 and early 2006, and ended as the top army commander between February 2006 and November 2008. (See more on Montoya in the section “Testimony against Army Officers above the Brigade-Level.”)

It seems improbable that low-ranking soldiers could have repeatedly deceived so many commanders, in so many cases, over such a prolonged period of time.

Credible Public Reports of False Positives

There were credible public reports of false positives at least several years before the Soacha scandal broke in late 2008. As the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) of the International Criminal Court (ICC) noted when discussing the possible “responsibility at higher levels” within the armed forces, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights reported alleged false positives in annual reports on Colombia each year between 2004 and 2007. The High Commissioner’s 2005 report, for example, denounced a rise in allegations of extrajudicial executions by army troops, noting that “Most of these executions have been portrayed by the authorities as guerrilla casualties in the course of combat, after alterations of the crime scene….” The report said certain authorities’ denial of the crimes and failure to sanction the perpetrators “raised the issue of the possible responsibility of senior officials.”

Christian Salazar Volkmann, the High Commissioner’s representative to Colombia between 2009 and 2011, wrote that when the Soacha false positive scandal erupted, “the type of army crimes… was not unknown—neither to the military leadership nor to the Minister of Defense, nor to the President of the country, Alvaro Uribe Vélez.” According to Salazar, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) had repeatedly warned the government and military authorities about the killings since at least 2003, including telling President Uribe about the concerns in 2003 and 2004, but “[a]lthough the alarm bells were ringing, the President apparently chose to believe the denials of the military and ignored the information given to him.” According to Salazar, “no action was taken.”

One example of senior army officers’ apparent knowledge of credible reports of false positives is evident in a May 6, 2006 article and interview with a spokesman from the army’s 7th Division, which oversees several brigades in northern Colombia, including the 4th Brigade. Published in El Tiempo newspaper, the article states that officials from Antioquia department and the UN had denounced 24 possible unlawful killings of individuals who the military had presented as killed in combat in different areas of Antioquia, in some cases after they had been reported missing by their families. The UN and Antioquia authorities raised the issue in a meeting with Francisco Santos, then-vice president of Colombia. The article paraphrased an unidentified spokesperson from the 7th Division as saying “they” (presumably referring to the military authorities within the 7th Division) “know about the complaints from the previous year.” The spokesman is quoted downplaying the allegations: “The investigation will determine if there’s some isolated [case]. Family members have the right to say whatever they want and imagine” (emphasis added). He also said “I’m not worried about the cases I know of.”

A month later, El Tiempo published an article by Sergio Jaramillo, who was an advisor to the defense minister in 2002 and 2003, in which he warned that the army leadership’s “insatiable pressure for combat kills” could be leading to unlawful killings. Jaramillo said that the “statements that not all the 4th Brigade’s combat kills have been men with rifles are believable.”

II. Profiles of Specific Brigades and Commanders Implicated in False Positives

This chapter profiles 11 brigades—attached to six of the army’s seven divisions at the time—in which high numbers of alleged false positive killings point to the possible responsibility of brigade and tactical unit commanders. The numbers of alleged extrajudicial killings we attribute to specific brigades and tactical units are based on our analysis of Attorney General’s Office data. We name some of the specific officers who commanded the brigades at the time of the alleged killings. For several of these officers—as well as some former tactical unit commanders—we also detail credible allegations of their involvement in and/or knowledge of false positive cases drawn from witness testimony and criminal case files.

The brigades profiled here are the 4th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 14th, 16th, and 28th, as well as the 12th and 15th mobile brigades.

This is not meant to be an exhaustive list of brigades or cases: there are other brigades with significant numbers of alleged false positive cases and it is likely that many of the brigades profiled here committed false positives not included in our tallies. The numbers below include only alleged extrajudicial killings for which Human Rights Unit prosecutors have identified and internally recorded the military unit responsible. Prosecutors say there are many cases for which they have not yet done so and that hundreds of other false positive cases are being handled by local prosecutors or the military justice system, not by the Human Rights Unit.

Read in conjunction, the profiles of the different brigades provide further evidence of the systematic and widespread nature of false positive killings in Colombia during the 2002-2008 period. This raises serious questions about whether commanders above the brigade level—ranging from divisional commanders to the head of the army—at least knew or should have known about the crimes, or may have even ordered or actively contributed to their commission. The chapter concludes with testimony pointing to the possible responsibility of some of the higher-level commanders.

4th Brigade

Attached to the 7th Division, the 4th Brigade operates in much of Antioquia, and parts of Caldas and Chocó. The Human Rights Unit is investigating 412 extrajudicial killings allegedly committed between 2002 and 2008 by at least 11 of the brigade’s tactical units.

Alleged Extrajudicial Killings by the 4th Brigade Under Investigation by the Human Rights Unit

Unit ‘02 ‘03 ‘04 ‘05 ‘06 ‘07 ‘08 Total Pedro Nel Ospina Battalion 0 1 6 7 25 8 0 47 Pedro Justo Berrío Battalion 0 3 6 15 14 5 0 43 Juan de Corral Battalion 0 0 8 9 0 7 0 24 Afeur 5 0 0 8 6 4 3 0 21 Bajes Battalion 4 10 31 21 10 19 0 95 Gaula Antioquia 3 2 0 2 4 7 4 22 Gaula Rural Oriente Antioqueño 0 0 2 5 6 6 0 19 Atanasio Girardot Battalion 3 5 4 9 23 22 5 71 A combination of 4TH Brigade tactical units 0 0 3 1 6 0 0 10 Other tactical units/unidentified tactical units in 4th Brigade 9 4 6 6 13 14 5 57 A combination of tactical units from 4th Brigade and other brigades (counted only once here) 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 3 Total 4th Brigade 19 25 74 84 105 91 14 412

Brigade Commanders: Retired General Mario Montoya (12/28/01 -12/15/03, 44 alleged killings); Retired General Óscar González Peña (12/16/03- 7/16/05, 113 alleged killings); Retired General Luis Roberto Pico (7/16/05-10/16/06, 124 alleged killings); General Jorge Ernesto Rodríguez Clavijo (10/17/2006-at least 5/8/07, 79 alleged killings); General Juan Carlos Piza Gaviria (at least part of October and November 2007); General Juan Pablo Rodríguez Barragán (11/13/07 - 11/28/09, 28 alleged killings).

Prosecutors are investigating at least 113 alleged extrajudicial killings committed by 4th Brigade troops during the time retired General González Peña commanded the brigade between 2003 and 2005. Furthermore, two former members of the 4th Brigade accused of false positives from the period told prosecutors that the then-commander of the brigade, González Peña, visited troops who had been detained, and instructed them on what to tell judicial authorities. According to a prosecutor’s office document, soldiers said González Peña “knew what really happened, that is, that there had not been combat with a subversive group, but pressured them to continue telling prosecutors that the clash had occurred.” (See more on González Peña in the section “Testimony against Army Officers above the Brigade-Level.)

Prosecutors are investigating at least 28 alleged extrajudicial killings committed by the 4th Brigade during the time General Rodríguez Barragán commanded it. (He is now the armed forces’ top commander.) In addition, retired Lieutenant Colonel González del Río has provided testimony to prosecutors indicating that Rodríguez Barragán may have known of, authorized, and helped cover-up false positives when he commanded the brigade. González del Río commanded the Gaula Antioquia between December 2007 and August 2008. He said that during that time, his troops repeatedly lured suspected common criminals to locations under the false pretense that they would participate in some type of illicit activity there, such as extortion. The troops would be waiting in the area and shoot and kill them when they arrived. According to González del Río, if the victim did not arrive with some type of gun, the troops would place one on them. He said he planned these operations with the intention of killing—rather than arresting—the victims.

González del Río said that for each operation, he obtained Rodríguez Barragán’s prior approval. He stated that Rodríguez Barragán did not ask for the details of the planned operation, and did not know how the victim would be lured and transported to the area of the fake combat, or that they might place weapons on him. Rather, he said Rodríguez Barragán’s involvement in the planning was to tell him to kill instead of arrest the individuals, who had been described to him as engaging in common criminal activity like extortion. According to González del Río, Rodríguez Barragán would tell him, “Don’t bring me excuses that you weren’t able to [kill them]. You need to produce combat kills.”

Asked whether General Rodríguez Barragán was informed that his troops were going to commit a “false positive” when he authorized the operations, González del Río told prosecutors: “I would explain… look general, it looks like three or four individuals with handguns are about to engage in extortion…. The only thing he would tell you was… ‘don’t [inaudible] because you arrested them or you weren’t capable or they got away. What we need are combat kills, and you have to do combat kills.’” González del Río said he interpreted this as an order.

González del Río said Rodríguez Barragán’s pressure for combat kills drove the killings: “Why were these operations set up? Because… every day [he] was asking for results…. For him [arrests] were not results; for him the results were combat kills.”

González del Río also said that Rodríguez Barragán hired a police investigator to “accommodate the scene” of the reported combat before Attorney General’s Office investigators arrived there to collect evidence. This suggests that Rodríguez Barragán might have tried to cover-up the killings. Moreover, as stated by González del Río, it also indicates that he may have known of the irregularities in the killings: “If the combat kills are so clear and transparent, why does the brigade commander have to hire an official from the judicial police to check the scene?”

At this writing, justice authorities are in the process of verifying González del Río’s testimony, including his claim that the victims were criminals who thought they were going to commit a crime. Even if the victims did falsely believe they would commit a crime, of course, their premeditated killing by soldiers in the circumstances described by González del Río would still amount to an extrajudicial killing, since they were civilians and not combatants in an armed conflict. (González del Río’s subordinates in the Gaula have confirmed the unit would execute victims as soon as they arrived where troops were waiting, without any shootout having occurred.)

González del Río’s testimony led prosecutors to open a preliminary investigation into Rodríguez Barragán for false positives.

Pedro Nel Ospina Battalion

Prosecutors are investigating at least 47 extrajudicial killings allegedly committed by the Pedro Nel Ospina Battalion between 2003 and 2007. There is evidence that the battalion committed many more than 47 false positives, and that it did so in a systematic fashion, with the involvement of the unit’s commanders.

A prosecutor pressing charges against two former battalion officials stated that one of the defendants, who is a retired lieutenant, calculated that when he was the battalion’s intelligence official in 2006 and 2007, battalion troops had committed 72 false positives “with the knowledge of the battalion’s commanders.” The prosecutor said in relation to the 24 false positives for which the two defendants were charged that: “in the account[s] of each and every one of these acts, we have seen how these two individuals, accompanied by members of the Pedro Nel Ospina Battalion, from its highest commanders down to its platoon commanders, would meet… [and] agree that these victims would be handed over in order to kill them and present them as operational results.”

An example is the March 3, 2006 murder of Julio Cesar Castañeda Velásquez in Bello, Antioquia. One of the defendants, who is a sergeant, directly implicated retired Colonel Édgar Emilio Ávila Doria, the battalion’s commander between late 2005 and June 2007, in the case. He said Ávila had induced a soldier to recruit the victim by offering days off, coordinated the killing, and authorized the purchase of the pistol the troops placed on his body. Prosecutors are investigating dozens of alleged false positives committed by Pedro Nel Ospina Battalion troops during the time Ávila commanded the unit. (See more information on Ávila, including the recently issued arrest warrant against him, in the section “The Military Justice System.”)

Jorge Eduardo Sánchez (Bajes) Battalion

The Human Rights Unit is investigating 95 alleged extrajudicial killings by the Bajes Battalion between 2002 and 2007. Justice officials investigating these cases said the unit committed false positive killings on a systematic basis. One prosecutor said that instead of recruiting victims from urban areas, the battalion would simply execute farmers in rural areas where they operated and report them as guerrillas killed in combat.

A former officer and former soldier from the Bajes Battalion told prosecutors that the troops received pressure to boost body counts. The soldier said his company detained and executed two men one day in 2004, and that “we were given five days off for each dead person, because Colonel Barreara (sic) gave five days off for each death[,] we all knew that.” Retired Colonel Juan Carlos Barrera Jurado commanded the Bajes Battalion for at least part of 2004, a year when it allegedly committed 31 extrajudicial killings, and later became the commander of the 14th Brigade between November 2007 and October 2008, a period when that unit allegedly committed at least 12 extrajudicial killings. (See more on Barrera below in the 14th Brigade section).

Pedro Justo Berrío Battalion

The Human Rights Unit is investigating 43 extrajudicial killings allegedly committed by the Pedro Justo Berrío Battalion between 2003 and 2007. An army official formerly attached to the battalion has accused the then-commander of the unit of having ordered three false positive killings in a single incident in 2005. The official told prosecutors that when he reported to the battalion commander that he had captured three supposed members of the guerrillas’ support network (milicianos) in a rural area, the commander told him that he had to “bajarlo.” According to the official, this meant that he had to kill the three, which the troops then did. He said the victims’ bodies were taken to Medellín “in order to show the media that the 4th Brigade had done combat kill[s] in different areas of Antioquia.” The official also said that the troops later received 35 days off. The three victims were farmers, according to a prosecutor.

Group of Urban Anti-Terrorist Special Forces (Afeur) No. 5

The Human Rights Unit is investigating 21 extrajudicial killings allegedly committed by the Afeur No. 5 between 2004 and 2007. A retired non-commissioned officer told prosecutors about seven false positives he participated in or had knowledge of when he belonged to the Afeur No. 5. In one case from mid-2005, he said that a commander of his who ordered the killing had been under pressure from retired General González Peña, then-4th Brigade commander, to show “results.” The non-commissioned officer said: “General González Peña had told [the commander] that he was going to relieve him of his duties because he had not shown any results…. [The commander] called me… [and said] that I had to produce a result for him that night… That night they looked for a guy who supposedly was a criminal but turned out to be an avocado vendor… they brought him up a road and shot him….”

The retired non-commissioned officer said that paramilitaries in Medellín would provide the Afeur No. 5 with victims on a monthly basis. He also told authorities that troops received days off for the killings, and that false positives by the unit were “like a policy because that’s where the commander, soldiers, and I derived our benefits.”

14th Brigade

Based in Puerto Berrío, Antioquia, and attached to the 7th Division, the 14th Brigade has jurisdiction in northeastern Antioquia and the Magdalena Medio region of Antioquia, Boyacá, and Santander. Human Rights Unit prosecutors are investigating 51 extrajudicial killings allegedly committed between 2006 and 2008 by at least four tactical units attached to the 14th Brigade.

Alleged Extrajudicial Killings by the 14th Brigade Under Investigation by the Human Rights Unit

Unit ‘06 ‘07 ‘08 Total Calibío Battalion 0 2 6 8 Bomboná Battalion 2 23 0 25 Mario Serpa Cuesto Battalion 4 6 3 13 Other tactical units/unidentified tactical units in the 14th Brigade 0 4 1 5 Total 14th Brigade 6 35 10 51

Brigade Commanders: General Jorge A. Segura Manonegra (2/06 - 10/31/07, 39 alleged killings); Retired Colonel Juan Carlos Barrera Jurado (10/31/07 - 10/30/08, 12 alleged killings).

Of the 27 officers and soldiers the government dismissed in October 2008 following the military’s internal investigation into false positive allegations, 11 belonged to the 14th Brigade, including its commander at the time, retired Colonel Juan Carlos Barrera Jurado. Edgar Iván Flórez Maestre, a former lieutenant from the Calibío Battalion, attached to the 14th Brigade, alleged that Barrera pressured the troops to boost body counts: “When Colonel Juan Carlos Barrera took the command of the Brigade he said over the radio that all the commanders of the battalion who did not have combat kills or combat in 90 days would be kicked out of the army… the pressure got harder to the point that they would count the days that had gone by without us [engaging in] combat.” Flórez said that Barrera set up a competition over annual combat kills among platoons.

Calibío Battalion

The Human Rights Unit is investigating eight alleged extrajudicial killings committed by the Calibío Battalion in 2007 and the first half of 2008. Soldiers have implicated former battalion commanders in at least having had knowledge of such killings by the unit.

The military’s “Suarez report” details six cases of reported combat killings by the Calibío Battalion between August 2007 and July 2008 in which family and/or community members, among others, claimed the victim had been executed. One such incident is the July 8, 2008 killing of Aicardo Ortiz, a 58-year-old farmer and community leader, in a hamlet in Yondó, Antioquia. The battalion reported that Ortiz was a presumed FARC member and that they shot and killed him after he first fired on them when they were carrying out an operation. They reported finding a revolver, grenade, and radio, among other war material, on him.

By contrast, neighbors claimed that early in the morning soldiers knocked on Ortiz’s door, forced their way into his home, shot him, removed him from his home, and put the weapons on him, according to the Suarez report. Edgar Iván Flórez Maestre, the lieutenant from the Calibío Battalion quoted above, also said troops staged the execution to look like a combat killing. He told the Inspector’s General’s Office that he had been at the scene of Ortiz’s killing, and communicated with the battalion commander, “Colonel Ramírez,” who told him that a sergeant would bring a “package.” Flórez said that the sergeant later arrived with a bag containing uniforms, FARC paraphernalia, and a radio, which troops placed at the scene. (A retired Lieutenant Colonel Wilson Ramírez Cedeño served as the Calibío Battalion commander for at least pa