Six senior officers of the Armed Forces, including several generals, are being investigated by the Attorney General’s Office to establish if they have responsibility in a military operation carried out in March 2022 in the town of Puerto Leguízamo where 11 people died, most of them civilians.
The Public Ministry reported this Thursday that it “was able to establish” through evidence and testimonies that in the military operation carried out in Puerto Leguízamo, Putumayo on March 28, 2022where “11 people lost their lives, the responsibility of six senior officers of the Military Forces could be compromised.”
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For this reason, the disciplinary investigation was sent from the Human Rights delegate to the Disciplinary Investigation Chamber, whose powers include investigating military officers with the rank of generals.
The military operation for which the senior officers are being investigated was carried out, supposedly, to capture one of the leaders of the Segunda Marquetalia of the FARC dissidents, who witnesses said were not in the area when the military raided.
However, Social organizations said on that occasion that it was actually a massacre of indigenous people and that the Army later tried to pass off as guerrillas.
On that occasion, the president of the Putumayo Indigenous Zonal Organization (OZIP), José Homero, told EFE that in the Alto Remanso hamlet “there was an ambush last Monday, March 28, by the National Army, which began shooting at the civilian population”, who was gathered participating in “a village activity”.
After the death of the 11 people, the Colombian Army proceeded to put “boots (…) on the corpses to be able to pass them off as members of the FARC dissidents,” said the indigenous man, who described the incident as a “false positive.” “.
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According to the Army, the target of the operation was Carlos Emilio Loaiza, alias “Bruno”, part of the financial commission of the border command of the Second Marquetalia
The “false positives” came to light in 2008 when it was reported that members of the Army had recruited thousands of young people from poor neighborhoods in Bogotá and other cities with false promises of work and then took them to other parts of the country where they were executed and presented as guerrillas killed in combat to obtain permits and awards from their superiors.