Mario, a former member of the army linked to Colombia’s “false positives” scandal, joins forensic work at Neiva’s Central Cemetery on April 30, 2025 — a part of a Particular Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) mandated effort to revive justice and help victims. Photograph: Nathalia Angarita for NPR
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NEIVA, Colombia – As a authorities activity pressure digs up mass graves within the seek for civilians illegally executed throughout Colombia’s guerrilla battle, they’re getting some hands-on assist from the perpetrators of those struggle crimes.
In a primary for Colombia three former military troopers, sporting white protecting fits and armed with trowels and buckets, spent 10 days alongside forensic consultants excavating grime, eradicating bones and bits of clothes, and bagging up the stays of individuals killed in the course of the struggle.
“These had been atrocities that by no means ought to have occurred,” stated one of many troopers throughout a mid-day break within the exhumations at a cemetery within the central Colombian metropolis of Neiva.
The soldier, a former lieutenant colonel, requested to be recognized solely by his first identify, Mario, for concern of reprisals. He admitted that in the course of the mid-2000s troopers below his command shot lifeless 63 civilians and reported them as guerrillas killed in motion.
Mario and different ex-soldiers collaborating within the exhumations have struck a take care of Colombia’s struggle crimes tribunal, The courtroom, which can also be investigating atrocities by the guerrillas, was arrange below a 2016 peace treaty that ended a lot of the preventing.
Accused former combatants who refuse to cooperate resist 20 years behind bars. However those that confess and make reparations – by offering data on how and why the murders occurred and the place the lifeless could also be buried, performing social work, and apologizing to family members of the victims – can keep away from jail. As a substitute, they may obtain sentences of 5 to eight years of what the courtroom calls “restricted liberties” however has but to outline.
The previous troopers started aiding within the exhumations in Neiva final month and can proceed in cemeteries across the nation the place a lot of the victims are considered buried.
Flooded Central Cemetery in Neiva, Huila, Colombia, on April 30, 2025.
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Alejandro Ramelli, president of Jurisdicción Especial para la Paz (JEP – The Particular Jurisdiction for Peace) in his workplace in Bogota, Colombia, on Might 5, 2025.
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“I believe the message is essential as a result of it is the primary time in Colombia that the criminals are in search of the victims within the cemeteries,” stated Decide Alejandro Ramelli Arteaga, President of the struggle crimes tribunal, formally often called the Particular Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP).
Drawing parallels to the Vietnam Battle, Mario says that Colombian officers like himself got here below fierce stress from the highest brass to run up the physique rely. Failure might derail their careers whereas complying might result in promotions, further trip time, and different perks.
However the coverage led to huge abuses as troopers rounded up farmers, unemployed males, and even youngsters. Then, the detainees had been executed, wearing insurgent uniforms, and reported as fight kills with many buried in nameless graves in cemeteries.
“Of their eagerness to point out outcomes, troopers grabbed harmless individuals and killed them,” Mario instructed NPR. Requested about his personal response to the atrocities dedicated by troops he commanded, he replied: “It turned so widespread that it appeared virtually regular.”
A former member of the army chisels open a grave on the Central Cemetery in Neiva, Huila, Colombia, April 30, 2025.
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Mario, a former member of the army participates in forensic actions as a part of the sanctions of the JEP, as a restorative measure with the victims, within the Central Cemetery of Neiva, Huila, Colombia, on April 30, 2025.
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The struggle crimes tribunal discovered that the military illegally killed greater than 6,400 civilians between 2002 and 2008, a interval wherein the U.S.-backed Colombian army carried out huge offensive towards the rebels. The executions, extensively often called “false positives,” , stay an enormous stain on the military’s repute.
“It was actually some of the – if not essentially the most – atrocious crimes dedicated in the course of the armed battle in Colombia,” Juanita Goebertus, a former Colombian congresswoman who took half within the peace negotiations with the guerrillas and now heads the Americas Division of Human Rights Watch, instructed NPR.
Now, former troopers serving to with the exhumations are getting a stark have a look at the injury they’ve finished. In Neiva, they spent as much as 10 hours per day within the tropical solar getting their arms soiled within the cemetery soil as they assisted the forensic consultants. However their efforts additionally function a form of remedy as they attempt to make amends.
After utilizing a hammer and chisel to crack open a crypt holding the stays of a struggle sufferer, one former soldier, who requested to stay nameless, stated: “That is serving to me to get my life collectively.”
Complicating these efforts is the truth that lots of the lifeless had been merely dumped into unexpectedly dug mass graves with no identification. Diego Sevilla, who heads the federal government forensic staff in Neiva, factors to a web site within the cemetery that was thought to carry the stays of six individuals. However his staff discovered 12 skulls which means that at the least 12 persons are buried there.
“The our bodies are all blended up,” Sevilla says.
Yanet Bermúdez, whose son disappeared in 2008 throughout Colombia’s armed battle, wears a shirt that claims, “I’m additionally in search of you and ready for you”, Central Cemetery in Neiva, Huila, on April 30, 2025.
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Yolanda Rocha, whose brother was forcibly disappeared, searches for his stays on the Central Cemetery in Neiva, Huila, Colombia, on April 30, 2025.
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Relations of the victims have been intently monitoring the exhumations hoping for details about their family members. They embody Yolanda Rocha, who stated her 15-year-old brother was one of many “false positives” and could also be buried right here. She talked to among the ex-soldiers, who expressed deep remorse.
“It was very troublesome,” Rocha stated of these encounters. “You need the reality however you it is like opening up an previous wound.”
Comparable exhumations – with assist from ex-soldiers – will quickly begin in different Colombian cemeteries. However after 10 days in Neiva, the forensic staff wrapped up the primary part of its work by holding a ceremony to honor the lifeless.
Sevilla, the staff chief, recited a poem. Others solemnly place flowers atop the luggage of stays. Lastly, Mario, the previous military officer whose males killed 63 civilians, stepped ahead.
“Let’s hope this by no means occurs once more,” he stated, “as a result of the ache this has brought about is immense.”
Former troopers concerned in extrajudicial killings be part of members of Colombia’s peace tribunal (JEP) and the Unit for the Seek for Disappeared Individuals (UBPD) in a symbolic ceremony marking the top of exhumations on the Central Cemetery in Neiva, Huila, on April 30, 2025.
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