Approximately 200,000 Unidentified Bodies May Lie Buried in Colombia

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – During the exhumations at a cemetery where forensic doctors are currently working on the identification of 50 victims killed by the military, it was found that a total of 200,000 unidentified bodies have been buried nationwide.

The announcement was made by Claudia García, head of the National Institute of Forensic Medicine. Among them are the corpses of the so-called “False Positives” (i.e. murders attributed to guerrillas for their soldiers’ personal gain) as well as all kinds of missing persons.

The so-called “False Positives” refer to the murders of destitute civilians who soldiers presented as fallen opponents. This enabled the army to fake “good results” in the “fight against terror”, as the soldiers involved collected bonuses.

Due to the limited budget, the Institute of Forensic Medicine has so far only managed to identify about one percent of all anonymous bodies every year. It would, therefore, take approximately 100 years for the complete task.

According to García, the dead lie in both legal and illegal resting places. One of the legal cemeteries is “Las Mercedes” in the district of Dabeiba in the Department of Antiquia. There, the Special Justice for Peace (JEP) last week dug up the first remains of “False Positives” victims, which has caused a great deal of commotion in the country. There are at least 16 other cemeteries with victims of illegal executions nationwide.

The JEP came to Dabeiba as a result of statements from military personnel. The key witness, in this case, is a soldier whose name remains anonymous for security reasons. According to his own testimony, he took part in 20 illegal executions but says that at least 75 victims are said to have been buried in Beiba.

The JEP estimates that there are 50 such corpses. According to the soldier, he had orders to shoot the victims – all young men – in the back of the head with an M60 machine gun. The ammunition was “as big as fingers”, so the faces of victims would be unrecognizable.

The young men were often murdered in high-risk areas to make it difficult for the prosecutor’s office to access the bodies. Then it was up to the military to perform the autopsy themselves.

Soldiers were trained to falsify autopsy records. The mock autopsy took place in a room next to the cemetery. The military also made sure that the holes in the victims’ bodies matched the holes in the fake uniforms they had put on, or that their shoes were on the right foot so that everything appeared credible.

The JEP’s investigations so far have uncovered a “complex cover-up scheme” for these crimes. There is circumstantial evidence that the remains were reburied in Dabeiba.

As the weekly “Semana” reported in June this year, at least a dozen members of the security forces who cooperate with the JEP are facing death threats against themselves and their families. In addition, they have been wiretapped and tailed by the military.

Adriana Arboleda, chairperson of the Organization of Victims of State Terrorism (MOVICE), deplored that there was a “policy of impunity” among the “false positives”. In fact, the authorities have ignored the reports and denunciations of locals and human rights activists regarding torture and killings in the region.

The Ecumenical Commission for Justice and Peace (CIJP), in particular, had drawn attention to the fact that the army in the region had declared women, minors, and FARC defectors as military targets during ex-President Álvaro Uribe’s second term of office (2006-2010).

The number of “false positives” is controversial. According to the prosecutor’s office, there were 2,200 victims between 1988 and 2014, 60 percent of whom were murdered between 2006 and 2008.

A report by ex-police officer Omar Rojas speaks of 10,000 cases between 2002 and 2010, i.e. during Uribe’s two terms in office, who is regarded as the mentor of current president Iván Duque.