The former head of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) Salvatore Mancuso assured this Tuesday that the Administrative Department of Security (DAS), established a list of military targets that they handed over to the paramilitaries, among whom were the current president, Gustavo Petro, and the foreign minister, Álvaro Leyva.
“The same foreign minister today, Álvaro Leyva, the same president, Gustavo Petro, were part of the military objectives that Mr. José Miguel Narváez (director of Intelligence) gave us,” said Mancuso, who participates virtually on the last day of the contribution hearing. before the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP).
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Mancuso thus referred to a list of alleged military objectives that were handed over to them by state entities: “Objectives were defined at the central level and they were objectives for the Self-Defense Forces,” he said.
on that list “he especially considered those who were going to access positions of power of public, political office” because he believed that “they were part of the (guerrilla) structures” through the guerrilla plan, according to the story, that “at some point, since they could not seize power with weapons, they would do so through the democratic exercise of politics.” .
Thus, for the controversial DAS – which was dismantled precisely because of the espionage practices and assassination orders against political dissidents and the opposition – and some members of the military leadership, “everything that had to do with the left, he considered an enemy of the Colombian nation,” according to Mancuso.
On that list was Petro, who at that time was already serving as an opposition congressman, and also the current foreign minister, who was deeply involved in negotiation processes with the FARC and committed to seeking peace for Colombia.
Narváez, according to what Mancuso declared from the prison where he is being held in the United States, said that “Leyva was a spokesman for the guerrilla, that Leyva Durán was a person who had always defended the interests of the guerrilla, who did This would hurt the country because you couldn’t negotiate with the guerrillas, what you had to do was put an end to the guerrillas”.
Other personalities recorded by the paramilitaries:
Other names also appear on the list, such as the current senators for the ruling Pacto Histórico party, Alirio Uribe (who was part of the human rights organization Colectivo de Abogados José Alvear Restrepo) and Senator Piedad Córdoba.
For the deputy director of the DAS, according to Mancuso, it was a mistake that the AUC released Córdoba after kidnapping her in 1999 because he assured that “Piedad had to be assassinated, that they had to act militarily against her.”
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The name of Narváez, who was deputy director of the DAS in 2005, has come up several times during the appearance of Mancuso, who has linked the actions of the AUC to the mandates and guidelines of the military leadership and of this intelligence agency.
Narváez “was always at our command, just as we were at the DAS for whatever had to do with this fight that we were supposedly waging.”