Jailed Colombia army colonel names ex-commander general as ‘creator of false positives’

Three different ways to kill

Gonzalez explained that there were at least three types of false positives used by the Colombian Army.

In the first scenario, the military would place informants in criminal networks, and feed them false information to instigate an attempted robbery. Once the gangs reached the sites in question, the military would capture those involve and murder them, often along with the informants.

Another mode of false positives involved using military databases to hunt down demobilized guerrillas.

As part of the demobilization process, the former combatants were required to adhere to a government-led reintegration process. The military would send the individuals directives telling them to arrive at a certain location. Once there, the ex-guerrillas would be murdered and counted as combat kills, according to Gonzalez.

The third alleged method of false positives is the most documented. The military, said Gonzalez, would send recruiters into the poorest areas in major Colombian cities and lure in at-risk youths under the guise of employment. Those taken, usually teenagers, would then be transported to the countryside, where they were executed and dressed in guerrilla uniforms.

The case that originally broke the false positives scandal involved just such a conspiracy. Almost 20 teens from the Soacha slum in Bogota were found dead near the Colombo-Venezuelan border in the northeast of the country, their corpses disguised as guerrilla combatants.

Separate reports indicate that the military also targeted labor activists and community political leaders during the years of false positives, and that the corpses of victims of paramilitary violence were also turned in to security forces and passed off as combat kills.