In the midst of the debate on the Motion of Censorship against Defense Minister Diego Molano, in the House of Representatives, congressmen such as José Jaime Uscátegui, Juan David Vélez, Juan Manuel Daza, Óscar Villamizar and Edward Rodríguezamong others, expressed their support for the head of the security portfolio.
You may be interested in: Motion of censure against Diego Molano: minDefense explains before the Chamber the operations in Putumayo
For the congressmen, “the operation was legitimate and it was not a massacre against the civilian population. An operation to affect the FARC dissidents. They also indicated that the called bazaar was a ‘narco-bazaar’ of illicit activities.”
In his speech, the representative of the José Jaime Uscátegui Democratic Center pointed out “don’t come here and tell me that it was a bazaar, this was a criminal meeting, there is no money for the sidewalk but there is for Buchanans and riflestechnical criminalistics bodies demonstrated that it was an illegitimate operation,” he said.
For his part, representative Juan David Vélez maintained that the operation in the village of El Alto Remanso “was a legitimate military operation against an illegal structure that controls the south of the country and needs to be dismantled by State force (…) No We are talking about a simple operation and our public force has to combat it”.
Meanwhile, congressman Juan Manuel Daza maintained that “a lot has been said here that IHL was not respected. On the contrary, the intervention was legitimate because there was a need to eradicate the terrorist group from the community of Putumayo. The objective was to reduce the control of the structure of the terrorist group.”
In addition, representative Daza pointed out to Mr. Isaías Acosta, one of the victims who spoke in the debate, of having been captured as part of the mobile column of the Farc.
Also read: The Unemployment Committee prepares a demonstration for May 1: the details
In response to Daza, Mr. Isaías Acosta indicated that “it is not that we peasants cannot drink a bottle of Buchanan’s. There we sell it for $120,000 because a collection was made among several and we drank it. We are human beings, we are not guerrillas, we are not drug traffickers, please respect us“.
Soldier Robinson Beleño also took part in this debate, saying “thank God I am alive, I am a peasant and I give you my testimony and I tell you not to allow yourself to be incriminated by the armed groups that take advantage of that condition.”
Finally, the representative Edward Rodríguez in his speech, announced a petition so that the JEP also has a macro case for the victims of the Public Force in the midst of the armed conflict.
You may be interested in: They denounce that Venezuelan soldiers entered Colombia and burned a house in Norte de Santander
“The JEP must work to bring justice, reparation and guarantees of non-repetition to the more than 403,353 soldiers who, in the brave performance of their duty, were victimized by the horrors of the conflict. These cases correspond to specific characteristics that deserve to be treated in a particular macro case understanding the particularity of the uniformed victims and their families”, concluded the Congressman.
