soldiers before victims and JEP

2023-06-07 07:01:00

The same medals with which they were applauded and glorified within the Army for their supposed good work were the ones that were used now, almost two decades later, to recognize before the victims and before the JEP that they murdered innocent people even when they represented the State that was supposed to protect them.

In front of the relatives of their victims and after listening to the stories of mothers who never stopped waiting for their children, devastated wives and orphaned children, two soldiers admitted to having committed dozens of false positives within their battalions and recognized, once again, that the men they murdered “were not guerrillas, but peasants and humble people.”

They are Major (r) Mauricio Ordóñez Galindo, commander of the Gaula – Valle between 2005 and 2008, and Captain Jorge Enrique Florián Díaz, who served as an officer of that same unit between 2004 and 2006.

Both decided to award the medals that gave them great recognition and that they were awarded for giving good results in the counterinsurgency fight just when they began to kill civilians to present them as guerrillas killed in combat.

“This medal is imposed on members of the armed forces who have demonstrated exceptional service and an unwavering commitment to their country, which is why the dignity of this award does not belong to me,” acknowledged Florián, who also risked saying that “Those of us who had to protect life, opted for death.”

In his wake, Ordónez acknowledged that while he was in the military “we began to build a false narrative of his relatives, they were selected, they were made up, they were presented as if they belonged to a criminal organization, to the guerilla, which was something that at the time we it could generate many merits” and apologized to each of the victims.

Like this, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace had also had a similar event in Medellín. There, Colonel (r) Jaime Humberto Pinzón, former commander of the 10th Infantry Battalion, presented a group of victims with his Distinguished Service Medal and acknowledged that he did not deserve that honor because he was responsible for several false positives.

After both symbolic events, the medals remained in the hands of the JEP and without legal effects, so the three soldiers lost the benefits that these awards granted them.

In response, most of the victims offered their forgiveness and asked to continue telling the truth: “please clear the name of those boys because they were not guerrillas, they were poor and humble boys. I do not hold a grudge against them, in any way, let God judge them,” María Eugenia Martínez, mother of the young Andrés Angola Martínez, who was assassinated in the Valley by members of the Army, told those appearing.

The same medals with which they were applauded and glorified within the Army for their supposed good work were the ones that were used now, almost two decades later, to recognize before the victims and before the JEP that they murdered innocent people even when they represented the State that was supposed to protect them.

In front of the relatives of their victims and after listening to the stories of mothers who never stopped waiting for their children, devastated wives and orphaned children, two soldiers admitted to having committed dozens of false positives within their battalions and recognized, once again, that the men they murdered “were not guerrillas, but peasants and humble people.”

They are Major (r) Mauricio Ordóñez Galindo, commander of the Gaula – Valle between 2005 and 2008, and Captain Jorge Enrique Florián Díaz, who served as an officer of that same unit between 2004 and 2006.

Both decided to award the medals that gave them great recognition and that they were awarded for giving good results in the counterinsurgency fight just when they began to kill civilians to present them as guerrillas killed in combat.

“This medal is imposed on members of the armed forces who have demonstrated exceptional service and an unwavering commitment to their country, which is why the dignity of this award does not belong to me,” acknowledged Florián, who also risked saying that “Those of us who had to protect life, opted for death.”

In his wake, Ordónez acknowledged that while he was in the military “we began to build a false narrative of his relatives, they were selected, they were made up, they were presented as if they belonged to a criminal organization, to the guerilla, which was something that at the time we it could generate many merits” and apologized to each of the victims.

Like this, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace had also had a similar event in Medellín. There, Colonel (r) Jaime Humberto Pinzón, former commander of the 10th Infantry Battalion, presented a group of victims with his Distinguished Service Medal and acknowledged that he did not deserve that honor because he was responsible for several false positives.

After both symbolic events, the medals remained in the hands of the JEP and without legal effects, so the three soldiers lost the benefits that these awards granted them.

In response, most of the victims offered their forgiveness and asked to continue telling the truth: “please clear the name of those boys because they were not guerrillas, they were poor and humble boys. I do not hold a grudge against them, in any way, let God judge them,” María Eugenia Martínez, mother of the young Andrés Angola Martínez, who was assassinated in the Valley by members of the Army, told those appearing.