A sum of $100.00 and Chinese rice for the entire battalion. That was what they gave the soldier Yeris Andrés Gómez for the first “false positive”” that he executed, as he said this Monday at the recognition hearing for these crimes against humanity held by the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP).
“I come to acknowledge my responsibility for the crimes I committed when I was a member of the National Army being a member of the La Popa Battalion”, began by narrating this retired private soldier, to whom this special court accused of participating in more than 20 events between 2002 and 2007 in which at least 50 people were murdered.
In his account, during the first day of the recognition hearing of this case, held in the city of Valledupar, Gómez recounted how he acted as material author of murders, the first of them of a supposedly demobilized of the guerrilla of the National Liberation Army (ELN).
“I recognize that I was part of a group that became a criminal organization within the Army,” said this ex-military man, who underlined: “I always obeyed orders from my superiors without questioning them or thinking about the damage they were going to cause.
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In this way, he insisted that in several of the murders he committed, he gave the order José Pastor Ruiz Mahecha, one of the three retired colonels charged – together with Publio Hernán Mejía and Juan Carlos Figueroa– in this subcase by the JEP and that they have not accepted the charges of crimes against humanity.
The JEP issued its second indictment at the end of last year -the first was against ten soldiers and one civilian for at least 120 false positives in Catatumbo (border with Venezuela) – in which he accused 15 soldiers who were part of the La Popa Battalion for 127 murders and disappearances of innocent young people to present them as guerrilla casualties in combat.
All accepted the charges and will appear until this Tuesday, except for the three retired colonels, who now face an accusation by the JEP Prosecutor’s Office for an “adversarial process”, in which they could receive sentences of up to 20 years in prison.
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The ex-soldier Gómez was the first to acknowledge his responsibility at the hearing, in which he also spoke of his complicity with the paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) commanded in that area by Rodrigo Tovar, alias “Jorge 40”and the involvement of other officials, including Former Army Commander Mario Montoyaalready the retired generals Justo Eliseo Peña, Óscar Enrique González Peña and Raúl Antonio Arévalo.
“Just as my hands are smeared with blood, they, their soles and their Army officer ranks, are also stained of blood because they were the ones they gave us the reward for each person murdered and legalized by the La Popa Battalion,” said Gómez, who confessed that he joined the Army in 2000 as an infiltrator for the FARC guerrillas.
For killing innocents they gave them “Trips to Cartagena, San Andrés, they gave pistols as prizes, parties and also held meetings with sex workers,” story.
