The Special Jurisdiction for Peace in Colombia announced that it could summon Juan Manuel Santos as a witness.
The Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) in Colombia reported this Monday that it will investigate the alleged responsibility of high-ranking military commanders and State officials not belonging to the public force, in the systematic nature and generalization of the murders and forced disappearances of civilians at the hands of the Army and paramilitary groups in the period 2005-2008.
“We are going to be able to use the call as witnesses, according to the progress of the macrocriminal investigation strategy, we will use the possibility of calling some officials from the time of the national government, including former ministers and senior officials, as witnesses,” said magistrate Oscar Parra.
This forecast includes former presidents Alvaro Uribe Velez (2002-2010) and Juan Manuel Santos (2010-2018), by virtue of the fact that Santos served as Minister of Defense in the period under investigation.
“The JEP does not have jurisdiction to judge former presidents of the Republic. However, that does not prevent that according to the needs and progress of the investigation strategy, it is deemed appropriate to call them, if applicable, as witnessesParra clarified.
Investigation for ‘false positives’
At a press conference, Judge Parra explained that during this period “the highest peak of crimes recorded” took place, “military strategy decisions were made that would have affected the dynamics of victimization” and, furthermore, “after 2005 would have consolidated the criminal pattern of murders and enforced disappearancesmotivated by the pressure of results”.
The JEP may summon those State agents who are not members of the public force who were part of the National Government and who may have had access to information about the commission of crimes to affidavit proceedings, as witnesses.
– Special Jurisdiction for Peace (@JEP_Colombia) July 17, 2023
In his statement, “it is about identifying whether or not there are sufficient bases to determine that members of the public force at the divisional and/or national level had knowledge of the systematic and general nature of the crimes, whether they participated directly or indirectlyby action or omission, in macrocrime policies or patterns and/or if they acted –or not– with due diligence to stop the crimes in a timely manner, having the means to do so”.
“Representative” cases
Parra stressed that given the impossibility of exhaustively considering all the crimes known as ‘false positives’ – which according to official estimates would add at least 6,402 victims of murder or forced disappearance–, the body adopted as a working method the identification of “representative” cases, based on their seriousness, representativeness, differential characteristics of the victims and perpetrators, and availability of evidence.
In turn, Judge Alejandro Ramelli responded: “This order seeks a balance between the little time we have left to achieve our constitutional commitment and give the best possible answers to the victims of the territories that were not prioritized.” pic.twitter.com/mhfZBWbfJU
– Special Jurisdiction for Peace (@JEP_Colombia) July 17, 2023
These are, he insisted, “cases that demonstrate how macrocriminal patterns spread throughout the country and attended to common factors of the national order“.
Specifically, the “macrocriminal patterns” identified in the six sub-cases prioritized by the JEP -Norte de Santander, Antioquia, Costa Caribe, Casanare, Meta and Huila- will be used as a model to determine if “they were replicated in other territories and responded to common factors of national scope”.
Complaints in 7 departments
In this regard, he specified, in this new phase associated with the third of the six cases of the armed conflict that the JEP has been carrying out for five years, they will investigate complaints made by victims in the departments of Arauca, Boyaca, Caqueta, Guainia, Guaviare, Putumayo and Sucre.
As detailed, these areas were chosen in the interest of “expanding territorial representation” and determining with evidence if there was systematicity and generality in the “macrocriminal patterns” that characterized the extrajudicial executions noticed in other processes, in which the concussion of the public force with paramilitary groups.
According to the JEP, judicial process 003 –’false positives’– has resulted in charges for war crimes and crimes against humanity to 59 direct perpetrators of the murder of civilians, who were falsely classified as guerrillas in order to obtain economic benefits and promotions.
Source: RT
