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France 24
France 24
World
Pascale MARIANI

Who gave the order? Investigating Colombia's 'false positives' scandal

REPORTERS © FRANCE 24

The "false positives" scandal is one of the deadliest episodes of the conflict in Colombia. In the 2000s, the Colombian army murdered thousands of innocent civilians, passing them off as guerrillas or criminals in order to increase the "body counts" of military operations. The victims were young men from poor families, lured by false promises of employment. Today, families are still fighting for the truth and for justice. For two years, our Bogota correspondent Pascale Mariani investigated this national scandal by following one mother, whose son was killed in 2008, in her search for justice.

This report tells the tragic story of Doris Tejada. With the help of the collective of the Mothers of False Positives, she is searching for the body of her son, who was shot dead in 2008 at the age of 26. Tejada wants to know the truth and is clinging to the hope of obtaining justice one day.

In 2019, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (known by its Spanish acronym JEP), which emerged from the 2016 peace agreement between the Colombian government and FARC guerrillas, took up the case of the extrajudicial killings. But families continue to push for justice. Their slogan is "who gave the order"? They accuse then President Alvaro Uribe of being the main person responsible. But will the Special Jurisdiction for Peace ever put him in the dock?

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