Colombia army killings 'should never have happened'

The Colombian military killed over 6,000 civilians from 2002 to 2008, passing them off as guerrilla fighters to win bonuses, it was revealed Friday.

The South American country's former president, Juan Manuel Santos, made the revelation at a hearing of the truth commission.

Santos, who was defense minister between 2006-2009 and president from 2010-2018, asked forgiveness for the "horror” of the 6,402 deaths.

"That should never have happened, I acknowledge that, and I ask for forgiveness, from the depths of my soul, from all the mothers and their families, who became victims of this horror," Santos said.

How did these atrocities occur?

Colombia has had over 50 years of fighting, with its own military, right- and left-wing guerrillas being at the center of the violence.

Between the years 2002 and 2010, President Alvaro Uribe did all in his power to weaken the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forced of Colombia) guerrillas and bring them to the negotiating table.

Santos said that "the pressure to register kills and the prizes to succeed” led to these "false positives.”

The majority of the victims were poor young men who were lured by soldiers of the army to other parts of Colombia where they were executed and their corpses claimed to be those of FARC fighters.

Santos said that, at first, he thought these stories were rumors. But when the truth was revealed, the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize winner tried to do everything in his power to change the strategy.

How was the genocide revealed?

Santos' efforts to stop the genocide were blocked in his efforts by President Uribe, who wanted to utterly defeat the FARC, a group he saw as "drug dealers and terrorists.”

"I have to say that President Uribe did not want to change this disastrous doctrine he had orchestrated,” revealed Santos.

The truth became clear when a soldier revealed how his 67-year-old father had been executed as a member of FARC.

When Santos was president, he opted for "a more strategic victory” that later brought the FARC to the negotiating table in 2016.

The process led to the creation of the Special Commission for Peace (JEP) in that year.

The JEP is now trying to give closure to thousands who lost family members and bring some reconciliation in view of Colombia's difficult past.

jc/mm (EFE, dpa)