In December 2006, Salvatore Mancuso, one of the bloodiest protagonists of the Colombian conflict, had his first public version before the Colombian judiciary. He came to the Medellín Courthouse from the Itagüí Maximum Security Prison. He was wearing a striped shirt, a black vest underneath, his handcuffed hands and his inevitable red watch. He spoke for a day, mentioning dead soldiers and some general information that upset the victims. Eventually, that hearing was postponed because Mancuso said he wasn’t feeling well emotionally and needed time to document certain cases.
17 years have passed and it has taken a long time to gather up-to-date information that sheds light on the role of other sectors in the war that has claimed millions of lives. But this time Mancuso has to go further. From a detention center in Georgia, USA, his last chance to enter the Special Justices for Peace (JEP) is at stake if he gains benefits in that transitional justice system and regains, as he said, his “civil and political rights.” would like. . Mancuso will not be able to repeat what is already known.
In the four days leading up to the JEP, “the truth line reached in 18 years of investigation must be crossed,” the jurisdiction said. And he must provide new information about his role as the link between the paramilitary group he leads and the high command of the public armed forces. “Prove that he functionally and materially joined the public authority between 1989 and 2004.”
This Wednesday, an elderly Mancuso, experienced in hearings, dressed in a white shirt and a beige jacket slung over his shoulders, began to talk about the relationship between the paramilitaries and the army and police. The former commander of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, who was extradited to the US by former President Álvaro Uribe in 2009, has already mentioned well-known facts such as his relationship with the late Major Walter Fratini or the alleged desire of politicians like Francisco Santos to create paramilitary blocs.
However, later in the morning he mentioned new names of high-ranking officials, including members of the National Police and National Navy, who not only helped spread paramilitarism but were also involved in extrajudicial executions. “Colonel Raúl Suárez of the police gave us information that called for the killing of some people, such as some indigenous leaders of the Zenúes Mayoral Council in San Andrés de Sotavento. This is how Julio Clemente Polo and Manuel Atencio Suárez were murdered,” he said.
“If we were providing guerrilla casualties in combat in the operations we conducted for the army and they had better weapons, we would trade them for our weapons,” Mancuso said of one of the benefits of the relationship with the public armed forces.
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Mancuso acknowledged the role of the Convivir, a legal civil association protecting citizens that was later armed, in the spread of paramilitarism, something always denounced and denied by many even today. “The convivors were how illegality was given legality. I commanded a special group that included members of the army and police to kill the civilians, whom they called guerrillas.” On the advice of Pedro Juan Moreno when Convivir was founded, Mancuso stated that “the government secretary of the then governor of Antioquia, Álvaro Uribe Vélez, told us how we would get weapons through this convivir.” He added that the paramilitaries were trained directly by members of the security forces.
The candidate to join the JEP spoke of 70 special operations groups made up of public forces and self-defense personnel and said that after Fratini’s death he was the “de facto commander” of a Brigade 11 special operations group. “They gave us lists and then we went and beat the houses and killed them because they told us they were guerrillas.” Subversion commanded and how, as part of those operations, we irregularly accused the peasants of being guerrillas because of the backpack marks on their backs,” Mancuso said as he spoke about the release of two Swedish citizens.
Mancuso is accused of directing 139 massacres in which 800 people were murdered, among many other crimes. The army was involved in several of them, he assured this Wednesday. “For example, the Pichilín massacre. “We met with Major Parra, commander of the Sijín de Sincelejo,” he told a victim audience in Cordoba.
In addition to massacres, they participated in kidnappings and false alarms along with the military. One of the most notable cases was the kidnapping of Leonor Palmera, sister of Ricardo Palmera, leader of the extinct FARC and known by his pseudonym Simón Trinidad. Mancuso assured that the convivir, under his command by General Iván Ramírez Quintero and the police who escorted them, were backed by the army. “There is nothing more revealing than that,” said the former paramilitary leader.
The murders known as false positives, which constitute the greatest disgrace to the Colombian army, also had a place on the first day of the hearing. Mancuso said his armed group had received intelligence from the armed forces, lists of people they needed to kill. Authorities would then present the cases as combat deaths. “José Miguel Narváez (former director of DAS, investigator into the murder of journalist Jaime Garzón) told us that one ideologue did more damage than 100 guerrillas shot dead.” We found these reports to be indisputable truth. And that automatically made people military targets and the death penalty.”
“There were many, Your Honor,” Mancuso replied when JEP Judge Heydi Baldosea asked him about false positives. “Commander Camilo Armando Pérez executed four victims in Catatumbo in 1999: Néstor Campo Sánchez, Alfonso Álvarez, Diomar Barros Vega and an unknown person. They were handed over to Lieutenant Daladier Rivera Jácome and he legalized them as combat casualties.” Mancuso also reported on the involvement of businessmen in the spread of paramilitarism, the purchase of arms and the creation of armed groups. “The people overwhelmed by the guerrillas asked us to form self-defense groups,” he repeated.
Judge María del Pilar Valencia asked Mancuso to provide details of the assassination of leader Kimy Pernía Domicó and other state crimes. Mancuso mentioned the case of Alonso Domicó Jarupia: “It was an indigenous leader that we murdered with information from the army.”
Established as part of the peace accords between the extinct FARC guerrillas and the state, the JEP investigates the crimes of former guerrilla fighters and members of the public armed forces. However, it also grants legal advantages to so-called civilian third parties (financiers, public officials or business people) who were involved in the armed conflict, exploited it and contributed to finding the truth and making reparations.
Mancuso has urged to be included in the JEP and his litmus test began this Wednesday. This Thursday he has to speak specifically about joint operations by paramilitaries and public forces that could affect both active and retired soldiers. And next week he has to provide information on alliances between officials, civilians, paramilitaries and public forces, as well as on the release of information from the counterinsurgency DAS to the paramilitaries. Then the JEP must compare the information provided by Mancuso and determine if he can benefit from the transitional justice.
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