The Research Center for Popular Education and the Program for Peace (CINEP/PP) is disputing claims by presidential candidate Juan Manuel Santos that the “false positives” scandal, over the army’s murder of civilians, who were then reported as guerrillas killed in action, has been over for more than a year, according to Colectivo de Abogados.
Santos told media in March that the “issue of false positives was gone,” and that “there has not been a single false positive case since October 2008.”
CINEP/PP said in a report that there were in fact nine known cases of false positives between October 2008 and December 31 2009, seven of which were extraducial killings, while two involved arbitrary arrests.
The report did state, however, that there had certainly been a decrease in false positives cases since October 2008, and that the measures taken by the Ministry of Defense had contributed to the decline.
The organization also praised the work done by NGOs, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Prosecutor General’s Office.
A Caracol Radio report released on Monday implicated the Colombian army in over 2,300 civilan murders in the last 25 years.