“Absolute ignorance”: a harsh message from the JEP to Tomás Uribe for his statements against the court

After the controversial statements by Tomas Uribe, after he said in La W that he proposes to reduce the Special Jurisdiction of Peace (JEP) by 30% and / or replace it with “a questionnaire”, the president of the institution, Eduardo Cifuentes, In an interview for the same media outlet, he responded and described this initiative as absolute ignorance.

“Absolute ignorance. Absolute ignorance added to a desire for absolute impunity, because that is not the way it is investigated in a state of law. It means a disregard for Colombian justice, it means a lack of knowledge of the institutions ”, he sentenced when consulted by W Radio.

To clarify to the son of former president Alvaro Uribe, the importance of the JEP, Cifuentes reminded him that internationally, the institution’s work has been highlighted and recognized as an engine of aid to victims of conflict and former guerrillas. And it has even been spoken of as a model of restitution of rights through which it has helped to fulfill the Peace Process.

In addition, he stressed that Joe Biden’s government gave a boost to the work of the JEP in the advances related to false positives.

“This support that we receive from the United States government is also added to that of the United Nations system, that of European governments and that of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. The JEP is complying with the country, not only is there a deep interest of Colombians to put an end to impunity, but also of governments and systems, ”he said.

The United States Government, led by Joe Biden, issued the report “2020 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices”, which tells how the human rights of people are protected in each country. country of the world.

Within this document a special chapter was included for Colombia, in which it is ensured that in the South American country there are still problems protecting its citizens. Likewise, the US administration He praised the work being carried out by the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP).

Within the framework of the armed conflict, one of the first points mentioned in the report is extrajudicial executions, also called ‘false positives’. This type of crime includes all the murders of civilians perpetrated by the military who were later presented as guerrillas killed in combat, presumably to earn rewards and promotions.

The ‘false positives’ are one of the darkest chapters of the Colombian armed conflict, involving some 1,500 soldiers who deceived civilians. And the number of victims is alarming, because according to the latest data revealed by the JEP, on February 18, at least 6,402 civilians were killed and later presented as guerrillas.

Faced with the investigative work of the justice mechanism, the US Government assured that these have been effective.

“The JEP continued to take effective measures to hold the perpetrators of serious human rights violations responsible in a manner consistent with international law. This included activities to advance Case 003, focused on extrajudicial executions or “false positives” committed by the First, Second, Fourth and Seventh Divisions of the Army. As of August 31, the JEP reported that it had received 250 “voluntary versions” in the case of the alleged perpetrators who relate their versions of the events that occurred during the conflict ”, the report highlighted.

Tomás Uribe’s statements:

In an interview with La W, Tomás Uribe said that the alternative to the JEP should be an online form. “I believe that justice must be separated. We must first speak of the justice that affects the ordinary citizen. (…) Justice does not operate for that citizen because it releases the criminal. This justice must be supported and strengthened, the justice of the ordinary citizen ”.

“You have to look at it with pragmatism, not with ideology. The JEP costs 330,000 million pesos a year. In 15 years, that’s 4 and a half billion. In other words, with what the JEP costs, the school feeding of a million and a half children is financed. What does the JEP do in practice? Listen to some ex-guerrillas and former paramilitaries. If they confess, they are given symbolic penalties. I think that it is more practical to give total amnesty to those guerrillas, who demobilized for the most part in good faith, and that in an online form they confess their crimes and we save 330,000 million a year, “Uribe said for the radio medium.

In the same interview, about the extrajudicial executions called ‘false positives’, the son of former President Uribe, who was president of Colombia between 2002 and 2010, claimed that his father’s ‘Democratic Security’ was what “Corrected” the tendency.