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The AFP news agency interviewed retired colonel Gabriel de Jesús Rincón, who was part of the National Army for 22 years, and today he is convicted of disappearance and murder within the so-called ‘false positives‘.
The officer described and related to AFP the horrors of which several civilians were protagonists, who were presented as Army casualties amid false combats with the guerrillas. “
“I did not kill, but I did predispose for the facts to be committed“, recognizes the retired officer.
(It may interest you: The JEP already previews virtual versions in case of ‘false positives’)
In the midst of a military offensive to pacify a country, the mortuary refrigerators of a Colombian town were replenished, recalls Colonel Rincón, noting that the unidentified bodies of the alleged guerrillas and criminals were taken to a mass grave. But in reality that grave had been filled with civilians.
Between 2006 and 2008 he was the operations officer of Mobile Brigade 15, with jurisdiction in Norte de Santander, bordering Venezuela. At that time, the military fight with the guerrillas was so fierce that the funeral home in the municipality of Ocaña could not cope.
In September 2008, the mayor’s office and the curia, fearful of a health crisis, legally managed ehe transfer of 25 bodies that were in cold rooms to a common excavation in the Las Liscas area.
(Also: Case of identified in Dabeiba, between the JEP and Justice and Peace)
In the process, some ended up being identified as the remains of civilians who had disappeared weeks ago and were wanted far away from there by their families.
Rincón affirms that with the exhumation he knew who his victims were: poor young people who were deceived and taken to Ocaña from Soacha, a town near Bogotá. “I supported some units in giving them some means (…) I speak of supplying them with weapons (…) to make them pass as combat dead“he details.
The senior officer shares for the first time with a media outlet what he told the justices of the peace and the families of the victims, in a process of truth and justice with which he seeks a reduction in sentence.
The military had organized its own ‘body count’, an award-winning body count to show results in the war against the guerrillas and paramilitary drug gangs, which increased with the arrival of Álvaro Uribe to power in 2002.
“I did not report and allowed the units that were there, in the combat area, to do these practices,” acknowledges Rincón. Soldier rewards included medals, rest days, complimentary résumés on the resume, or promotion screenings.
(Also: General (r) Montoya offered excuses to the military for what was said before the JEP)
Isolated cases?
Rincon spent almost ten years in prison. In 2017 He was sentenced to 46 years for the crime of five young people between 20 and 25 years old, who lived in Soacha and were initially reported as “fallen in combat”.
According to his account, two civilians who were acting as recruiters and with whom he had no direct contact, took them by bus to Ocaña with the promise of earning “a quick buck.”
The two men and a sergeant formed the “criminal organization” that acted in this case. Already in Ocaña, the Espada unit dealt with the murders.
“I never came to explain to them (…), the only thing that I said to them: they are going to go out to this operation, they are going to accommodate and deliver some people and you already know what they have to do”
Víctor Gómez was 23 years old when he traveled, deceived, to Ocaña in the company of Jader Palacio and Diego Tamayo. “They got drunk and took them to (…) a false army checkpoint and there the recruiters handed them over (…) The next day they woke up dead“says Carmenza Gómez, mother of Víctor.
All three were featured as part of a criminal gang. “Victor had a shot to the forehead, a coup de grace,” says the 62-year-old woman, who received official protection against threats for “seeking the truth.”
And why don’t you get some guys out of the morgue, wear them in uniform, and report them as results? “
Before arriving at Mobile Brigade 15, in 2006, Rincón remembers being approached by what would later become the army commander, General Mario Montoya, already retired and who also appears before the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), created from the 2016 agreement that led to the disarmament of the FARC guerilla. – “How will you contribute to the war? – How, my general? So he says to me: How many dead is he going to put? I said, but dead from where, I don’t have any operational functionality.
So he, I do not know if in a funny but direct way, said to me:And why don’t you get some guys out of the morgue, wear them in uniform, and report them as results? “. When he was reunited with Montoya, Rincón had already been assigned to the mobile brigade. “Now he will know what war is, now he will contribute to the war,” Montoya, the army chief between 2006 and 2008, said. (…)
Rincón submitted to the JEP, which investigates the worst crimes committed by guerrillas and the military in a conflict with eight million victims including the dead, the disappeared and the displaced.
In 2018, after asking for forgiveness, he temporarily regained his freedom in exchange for telling the truth and repairing his victims. In November, he received state protection after a failed attack when he visited his brother. Her lawyer Tania Parra has also been threatened. (…)
Rincon awaits confrontation with his victims. He wants to tell you about the “instigation and pressure” that ruined so many lives and made him an executioner “for favoring institutional interests.” “It will be very difficult for us to see each other face to face, victim to victimizer“he says. Tears show when the cameras are turned off.
AFP
