WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.520 Okay, so let's unpack this term, false positive. 00:00:03.680 --> 00:00:07.000 Right. If you walk into a doctor's office. or 00:00:07.000 --> 00:00:08.599 you're running some kind of statistical model, 00:00:08.839 --> 00:00:11.660 a false positive is usually just an annoyance. 00:00:11.759 --> 00:00:14.320 Yeah, it's a glitch. Exactly. It's a test telling 00:00:14.320 --> 00:00:15.980 you that you have a condition when you're actually 00:00:15.980 --> 00:00:19.280 perfectly healthy. It's a data error. But today 00:00:19.280 --> 00:00:22.879 we are looking at a moment in history where that 00:00:22.879 --> 00:00:28.120 sterile clinical term was used to cover up something 00:00:28.120 --> 00:00:32.579 absolutely horrific. It really is. It's one of 00:00:32.579 --> 00:00:34.439 the most chilling euphemisms in modern history, 00:00:34.500 --> 00:00:36.679 I think. Because we aren't talking about lab 00:00:36.679 --> 00:00:39.340 results or broken algorithms here. No. In Colombia, 00:00:39.479 --> 00:00:42.759 specifically between 2002 and 2010, false positive 00:00:42.759 --> 00:00:45.579 became the label for a systematic practice where 00:00:45.579 --> 00:00:48.100 the state military murdered civilians. Civilians. 00:00:48.320 --> 00:00:50.179 Yeah, civilians. And then they dress them up 00:00:50.179 --> 00:00:52.479 to look like enemy combatants just to boost their 00:00:52.479 --> 00:00:54.420 statistics. And that is exactly the mission for 00:00:54.420 --> 00:00:56.359 this deep dive. We're going to look at the false 00:00:56.359 --> 00:00:59.119 positive scandal in Colombia. And for you listening, 00:00:59.320 --> 00:01:01.479 we're drawing our information today from reports 00:01:01.479 --> 00:01:03.880 by the Special Jurisdiction for Peace. Which 00:01:03.880 --> 00:01:06.980 is known as the... JEP. Right. The JEP, as well 00:01:06.980 --> 00:01:09.299 as United Nations investigations, Human Rights 00:01:09.299 --> 00:01:13.340 Watch and Wikipedia's historical records. But 00:01:13.340 --> 00:01:16.359 we're not just reciting history here. We really 00:01:16.359 --> 00:01:18.400 need to understand the psychology behind this. 00:01:18.540 --> 00:01:21.579 Like, how does a system designed to protect citizens 00:01:21.579 --> 00:01:25.549 end up incentivizing their execution? To understand 00:01:25.549 --> 00:01:27.269 the gravity of this, we really have to start 00:01:27.269 --> 00:01:29.489 with the scale of it. For a long time, early 00:01:29.489 --> 00:01:32.370 investigations, they hovered around a figure 00:01:32.370 --> 00:01:35.269 of about 3 ,000 victims. Which is already massive. 00:01:35.650 --> 00:01:38.209 A staggering number of lives. But the JEP, that 00:01:38.209 --> 00:01:40.170 Transitional Justice Court established after 00:01:40.170 --> 00:01:42.269 the peace treaty with the FARC, they released 00:01:42.269 --> 00:01:45.930 a report in February 2021 that completely shattered 00:01:45.930 --> 00:01:49.569 that understanding. Yeah. They documented 6 ,402 00:01:49.569 --> 00:01:53.989 victims between 2002 and 2008 alone. 6 ,402. 00:01:54.170 --> 00:01:55.959 Yeah. I just want to pause on that because that 00:01:55.959 --> 00:01:57.879 is hard to even wrap your head around. It is. 00:01:57.980 --> 00:02:00.099 That's more than the capacity of some concert 00:02:00.099 --> 00:02:02.459 venues. And I've even seen some studies in the 00:02:02.459 --> 00:02:05.000 sources that suggest the real number could be 00:02:05.000 --> 00:02:07.299 as high as 10 ,000. Right. That's not a glitch. 00:02:07.540 --> 00:02:10.120 That's a catastrophe. It's a complete humanitarian 00:02:10.120 --> 00:02:12.840 catastrophe. And what we are really exploring 00:02:12.840 --> 00:02:15.840 here, the core theme, is the danger of metrics 00:02:15.840 --> 00:02:19.439 in war. There's this concept in economics called 00:02:19.439 --> 00:02:21.919 Goodhart's Law. Right. It states that when a 00:02:21.919 --> 00:02:24.650 measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good 00:02:24.650 --> 00:02:27.729 measure. Like if you measure a call center solely 00:02:27.729 --> 00:02:29.729 by how many calls they take, the workers will 00:02:29.729 --> 00:02:31.610 just hang up on people to keep their numbers 00:02:31.610 --> 00:02:34.770 up? Exactly. Now apply that exact logic to warfare. 00:02:35.030 --> 00:02:37.849 When you measure success solely by body counts 00:02:37.849 --> 00:02:40.810 and you attach rewards to those numbers, you 00:02:40.810 --> 00:02:43.789 create an incredibly perverse incentive structure. 00:02:43.990 --> 00:02:47.270 You essentially gamify death. You do. The military 00:02:47.270 --> 00:02:49.610 wasn't measuring territory controlled or civilians 00:02:49.610 --> 00:02:53.120 safe. They were measuring liters of blood. Effectively. 00:02:53.240 --> 00:02:56.360 And that specific choice of metric turned a defense 00:02:56.360 --> 00:02:59.520 force into a predation force. So let's trace 00:02:59.520 --> 00:03:01.300 how this unraveled, because for years these were 00:03:01.300 --> 00:03:03.099 just scattered reports. You had grieving families, 00:03:03.240 --> 00:03:05.180 mostly very poor families that no one listened 00:03:05.180 --> 00:03:08.240 to. But then came the Soacha case in 2008. This 00:03:08.240 --> 00:03:09.759 seems to be the thread that pulled the whole 00:03:09.759 --> 00:03:12.080 sweater apart. Walk us through that. The Soacha 00:03:12.080 --> 00:03:15.319 case is absolutely the catalyst. It made the 00:03:15.319 --> 00:03:17.800 pattern impossible for the public and the media 00:03:17.800 --> 00:03:21.120 to ignore. Soacha is a municipality right near 00:03:21.120 --> 00:03:23.479 Bogota, the capital. Okay. It's a working class 00:03:23.479 --> 00:03:26.360 area. It often houses people who've been displaced 00:03:26.360 --> 00:03:28.960 by violence in other parts of the country. And 00:03:28.960 --> 00:03:32.740 in 2008, 22 men from this area just vanished. 00:03:32.759 --> 00:03:35.080 Just disappeared. And these weren't combatants, 00:03:35.080 --> 00:03:37.259 right? Not at all. These were young men. Some 00:03:37.259 --> 00:03:39.060 were construction workers. Some were unemployed. 00:03:39.439 --> 00:03:41.759 Some even had cognitive disabilities. They were 00:03:41.759 --> 00:03:43.560 highly vulnerable. So what happened to them? 00:03:43.879 --> 00:03:47.759 Well, recruiters, who were often civilians working 00:03:47.759 --> 00:03:50.080 in cahoots with the military. Yeah. would come 00:03:50.080 --> 00:03:52.300 into these neighborhoods and they promised jobs. 00:03:52.460 --> 00:03:54.300 They'd say, hey, I work for you on a farm or 00:03:54.300 --> 00:03:56.560 have a construction gig. So these guys thought 00:03:56.560 --> 00:03:57.979 they were going to earn money to support their 00:03:57.979 --> 00:04:00.520 families. They get in a truck or a bus. And they 00:04:00.520 --> 00:04:03.840 vanish. But then a few days later, their bodies 00:04:03.840 --> 00:04:07.199 turn up hundreds of miles away in Oconia, in 00:04:07.199 --> 00:04:09.020 the Norte de Santander department. Which is a 00:04:09.020 --> 00:04:12.520 huge distance. A massive distance. And suddenly, 00:04:12.599 --> 00:04:15.120 these young men from Sohocha are being reported 00:04:15.120 --> 00:04:18.319 by the military as highly dangerous guerrilla 00:04:18.319 --> 00:04:21.420 commanders who are killed in fierce combat. The 00:04:21.420 --> 00:04:23.759 geography alone makes no sense. Why would you 00:04:23.759 --> 00:04:25.759 take them all the way to Ocaña? To break the 00:04:25.759 --> 00:04:28.920 link. Think about it. If you kill a kid in Sohocha 00:04:28.920 --> 00:04:32.000 and dump the body in Sohocha, the neighbors recognize 00:04:32.000 --> 00:04:34.120 him immediately. They'll say, hey, that's Juan, 00:04:34.220 --> 00:04:36.220 the baker's son. He's not a guerrilla. Right. 00:04:36.339 --> 00:04:39.319 But if you move him 400 miles away... He's just 00:04:39.319 --> 00:04:41.620 an anonymous body in a war zone. It's so much 00:04:41.620 --> 00:04:44.019 easier to fake the narrative. This is where the 00:04:44.019 --> 00:04:46.360 script became visible to investigators later 00:04:46.360 --> 00:04:48.779 on, because reading the sources, it wasn't random 00:04:48.779 --> 00:04:51.540 at all. It was like a production line. Precisely. 00:04:51.540 --> 00:04:54.300 The investigations revealed a very distinct pattern. 00:04:54.639 --> 00:04:57.680 Step one was recruit the victim, usually someone 00:04:57.680 --> 00:04:59.519 whose disappearance might not trigger a massive 00:04:59.519 --> 00:05:02.839 media outcry immediately. Step two, transport 00:05:02.839 --> 00:05:05.220 them to a remote location. And then step three 00:05:05.220 --> 00:05:07.699 is the execution. By military members, usually 00:05:07.699 --> 00:05:10.339 very soon after arrival. And then step four is 00:05:10.339 --> 00:05:13.699 the scene manipulation. Scene manipulation, which 00:05:13.699 --> 00:05:15.399 is a very polite way of saying they dress the 00:05:15.399 --> 00:05:17.500 stage. Exactly. They put weapons in their hands. 00:05:17.620 --> 00:05:20.379 Often these were old, non -functioning guns kept 00:05:20.379 --> 00:05:22.220 specifically for this purpose. They dress them 00:05:22.220 --> 00:05:25.509 in camouflage. Yeah. And then step five, the 00:05:25.509 --> 00:05:28.310 paperwork. They filed official reports claiming 00:05:28.310 --> 00:05:31.730 these were FARC or ELN fighters neutralized in 00:05:31.730 --> 00:05:34.189 battle. There is one detail from the source material 00:05:34.189 --> 00:05:36.550 that really stuck with me. It just shows the 00:05:36.550 --> 00:05:39.050 incredibly transactional nature of this whole 00:05:39.050 --> 00:05:41.870 thing. A recruiter actually testified that he 00:05:41.870 --> 00:05:45.449 received roughly $500 from the military for each 00:05:45.449 --> 00:05:48.430 man he delivered to be killed. That's the commodification 00:05:48.430 --> 00:05:50.649 of life I was referring to earlier. Five hundred 00:05:50.649 --> 00:05:52.790 dollars. That was the market price for a positive 00:05:52.790 --> 00:05:54.730 result. But hold on. How does this happen on 00:05:54.730 --> 00:05:56.569 a systemic level? I mean, I can understand. Well, 00:05:56.689 --> 00:05:59.449 not understand, but I can imagine a bad apple 00:05:59.449 --> 00:06:02.230 soldier looting a body or making a terrible mistake 00:06:02.230 --> 00:06:04.810 in the heat of battle. But thousands of deaths. 00:06:04.930 --> 00:06:07.970 Yeah. That requires a system that requires a 00:06:07.970 --> 00:06:10.790 culture that explicitly allows it. You have to 00:06:10.790 --> 00:06:12.870 look at the political and policy context of the 00:06:12.870 --> 00:06:15.959 time to understand the why. This was occurring 00:06:15.959 --> 00:06:18.519 largely during the presidency of Alvaro Uribe 00:06:18.519 --> 00:06:21.439 Velez. And you have to remember the atmosphere 00:06:21.439 --> 00:06:23.860 in Colombia in the early 2000s. It was incredibly 00:06:23.860 --> 00:06:26.920 tense. Right. The country felt like it was on 00:06:26.920 --> 00:06:29.839 the brink of being a failed state. Kidnappings 00:06:29.839 --> 00:06:32.899 were rampant. The FARC was controlling huge swabs 00:06:32.899 --> 00:06:35.699 of territory. People were terrified. So the public 00:06:35.699 --> 00:06:38.500 was absolutely desperate for safety. Desperate. 00:06:38.600 --> 00:06:41.259 Uribe came in with a flagship policy called democratic 00:06:41.259 --> 00:06:44.240 security. It was a very iron fist approach. The 00:06:44.240 --> 00:06:46.420 promise was to retake the country from the guerrillas. 00:06:46.540 --> 00:06:48.879 And because the public wanted safety so badly, 00:06:49.040 --> 00:06:51.339 there was immense overwhelming pressure on the 00:06:51.339 --> 00:06:54.839 military to show results. Tangible, visible results. 00:06:55.139 --> 00:06:57.579 And in this context, results meant bodies. Yes. 00:06:57.699 --> 00:06:59.779 And there's a specific document that experts 00:06:59.779 --> 00:07:02.540 point to. It's Ministerial Directive No. 29, 00:07:02.800 --> 00:07:05.639 signed in 2005 by the defense minister at the 00:07:05.639 --> 00:07:08.879 time, Camilo Ospina Bernal. This directive is 00:07:08.879 --> 00:07:12.019 crucial. Why? What did it actually do? It detailed 00:07:12.019 --> 00:07:14.259 a specific scheme of benefits and rewards for 00:07:14.259 --> 00:07:16.980 combat kills. Wait, pause for a second. Are you 00:07:16.980 --> 00:07:19.759 saying there was an actual menu of rewards? Like 00:07:19.759 --> 00:07:22.279 official paperwork saying, kill this many people, 00:07:22.319 --> 00:07:25.180 get a prize? Essentially, yes. It formalized 00:07:25.180 --> 00:07:28.100 the incentives. If a unit produced combat kills, 00:07:28.420 --> 00:07:31.420 the soldiers could get promotions, medals, special 00:07:31.420 --> 00:07:34.459 training courses abroad, and crucially, vacations. 00:07:34.680 --> 00:07:37.939 Vacations. So, kill a civilian, go to the beach. 00:07:38.220 --> 00:07:40.759 That is the grim reality of it. Now, the directive 00:07:40.759 --> 00:07:43.079 didn't explicitly say, go kill civilians, of 00:07:43.079 --> 00:07:46.079 course. It said, we will reward you for every 00:07:46.079 --> 00:07:48.860 enemy you neutralize. But when you combine that 00:07:48.860 --> 00:07:50.720 intense pressure from the top to produce numbers 00:07:50.720 --> 00:07:54.199 with the promise of tangible rewards, you create 00:07:54.199 --> 00:07:56.519 a market for dead bodies. Because finding actual 00:07:56.519 --> 00:07:59.839 gorillas is hard. Very hard. Finding and fighting 00:07:59.839 --> 00:08:02.220 gorillas in the jungle is dangerous, grueling 00:08:02.220 --> 00:08:04.459 work. So if you couldn't find one, you created 00:08:04.459 --> 00:08:06.199 one. It creates a situation where the soldier 00:08:06.199 --> 00:08:08.180 who plays by the rules and patrols for a week 00:08:08.180 --> 00:08:10.339 without firing a shot is seen as a failure by 00:08:10.339 --> 00:08:12.379 his commanders, while the soldier who murders 00:08:12.379 --> 00:08:14.779 an innocent civilian is a hero who gets a week 00:08:14.779 --> 00:08:18.689 off. Exactly. It completely erases the line between 00:08:18.689 --> 00:08:21.529 a civilian and a combatant because the statistic 00:08:21.529 --> 00:08:23.569 is the only thing that matters to your career 00:08:23.569 --> 00:08:26.389 progression. The body count became the currency 00:08:26.389 --> 00:08:28.910 of the military. And that leads us to the evidence 00:08:28.910 --> 00:08:31.389 because eventually the cracks in the story got 00:08:31.389 --> 00:08:35.259 too big to ignore. In June 2009, the U .N. special 00:08:35.259 --> 00:08:38.500 rapporteur Philip Alston conducted a massive 00:08:38.500 --> 00:08:41.200 investigation. Yes. And the details he found, 00:08:41.240 --> 00:08:43.960 they absolutely destroy any idea that these were 00:08:43.960 --> 00:08:46.899 legitimate combat situations. Alston's work was 00:08:46.899 --> 00:08:49.259 pivotal. He looked at the forensic evidence and 00:08:49.259 --> 00:08:51.519 it was incredibly sloppy. The cover -ups were 00:08:51.519 --> 00:08:54.200 almost arrogant in how poorly they were done. 00:08:54.340 --> 00:08:56.399 The detail that haunts me the most is the boots. 00:08:56.559 --> 00:08:58.980 Alston noted that victims were wearing jungle 00:08:58.980 --> 00:09:01.139 boots that were brand new. Right. Just think 00:09:01.139 --> 00:09:03.279 about the logic there. You're supposed to believe 00:09:03.279 --> 00:09:05.399 this hardened gorilla has been living and fighting 00:09:05.399 --> 00:09:08.039 in the Colombian jungle for months, trekking 00:09:08.039 --> 00:09:10.840 through mud and rain. But his boots are pristine. 00:09:11.059 --> 00:09:14.320 No scuffs, no mud. And worse, the sizing. The 00:09:14.320 --> 00:09:16.419 reports mention victims found wearing boots that 00:09:16.419 --> 00:09:19.000 were three or four sizes too big for them. Imagine 00:09:19.000 --> 00:09:22.039 the sloppiness required to put size 10 boots 00:09:22.039 --> 00:09:24.919 on a size 7 foot and think, yeah, this looks 00:09:24.919 --> 00:09:27.460 convincing. It shows a total disregard for... 00:09:27.659 --> 00:09:29.679 the victim's humanity. They weren't even seen 00:09:29.679 --> 00:09:31.879 as people anymore. They were just props. Alston 00:09:31.879 --> 00:09:34.539 also found left -handed men clutching guns in 00:09:34.539 --> 00:09:36.580 their right hands. Yeah. And many of them were 00:09:36.580 --> 00:09:38.960 killed with a single precise shot through the 00:09:38.960 --> 00:09:41.460 back of the neck. That's not a chaotic jungle 00:09:41.460 --> 00:09:45.360 firefight. That's an execution. Exactly. And 00:09:45.360 --> 00:09:48.200 Alston's conclusion was very careful. But very 00:09:48.200 --> 00:09:50.539 damning. He said he found no evidence that this 00:09:50.539 --> 00:09:52.940 was official government policy, as in he didn't 00:09:52.940 --> 00:09:55.139 find a memo from the president saying kill civilians. 00:09:55.159 --> 00:09:58.220 Right. However, he also explicitly stated the 00:09:58.220 --> 00:10:00.700 bad apples theory. The idea that this was just 00:10:00.700 --> 00:10:03.379 a few rogue soldiers acting alone was equally 00:10:03.379 --> 00:10:05.980 unsustainable because it was happening in Antioquia, 00:10:05.980 --> 00:10:09.000 Arauca, Meta, Norte de Santander. It was systemic. 00:10:09.100 --> 00:10:11.500 It was happening everywhere. And inside that 00:10:11.500 --> 00:10:14.139 massive system, there were actually people who 00:10:14.139 --> 00:10:16.980 tried to say no. We really have to talk about 00:10:16.980 --> 00:10:19.220 the whistleblowers because the cost of truth 00:10:19.220 --> 00:10:22.879 here was incredibly high. This wasn't just violence 00:10:22.879 --> 00:10:25.200 against civilians. It was violence against the 00:10:25.200 --> 00:10:27.820 military's own conscience. The internal pressure 00:10:27.820 --> 00:10:31.100 to conform was suffocating. If you didn't produce 00:10:31.100 --> 00:10:33.899 bodies alongside your unit, you were suspected 00:10:33.899 --> 00:10:37.080 of being soft or worse, a guerrilla sympathizer. 00:10:37.789 --> 00:10:40.289 We have records of a colonel who eventually received 00:10:40.289 --> 00:10:43.230 a 21 -year sentence. Oh, wow. He admitted to 00:10:43.230 --> 00:10:45.250 his involvement in killing two peasants, but 00:10:45.250 --> 00:10:47.509 he also admitted his unit had carried out 57 00:10:47.509 --> 00:10:51.110 similar murders. And he was even recorded extorting 00:10:51.110 --> 00:10:53.429 other army members to keep them from testifying. 00:10:53.570 --> 00:10:55.590 But then you have someone like Corporal Raul 00:10:55.590 --> 00:10:58.700 Antonio Carvajal Londoño. And this story, it 00:10:58.700 --> 00:11:01.120 just breaks your heart. It really does. In 2006, 00:11:01.419 --> 00:11:03.500 he called his father, Don Raul. He's terrified. 00:11:03.779 --> 00:11:05.519 He told his dad that he was actively refusing 00:11:05.519 --> 00:11:08.019 to execute two innocent young men just to label 00:11:08.019 --> 00:11:10.460 them as insurgents. He drew a line in the sand. 00:11:10.899 --> 00:11:14.580 He refused to do it. And days later, he was dead. 00:11:15.480 --> 00:11:18.080 The official story from the military was that 00:11:18.080 --> 00:11:20.720 he died in combat or by suicide, but the family 00:11:20.720 --> 00:11:23.179 never accepted that. They firmly believed he 00:11:23.179 --> 00:11:25.580 was murdered by his own unit for refusing to 00:11:25.580 --> 00:11:28.480 participate in the crimes. And his father, Don 00:11:28.480 --> 00:11:31.720 Raul Carvajal, became this incredible, tragic 00:11:31.720 --> 00:11:34.600 symbol of resistance. If you looked up photos 00:11:34.600 --> 00:11:37.200 of protests in Colombia from that time, you'd 00:11:37.200 --> 00:11:40.029 see him everywhere. He spent 15 years traveling 00:11:40.029 --> 00:11:42.250 the country. He drove this truck with his son's 00:11:42.250 --> 00:11:45.029 body, well, the coffin, and the whole story plastered 00:11:45.029 --> 00:11:47.690 on the side, just demanding justice. And he did 00:11:47.690 --> 00:11:50.190 that right up until he died of COVID -19 in 2021. 00:11:50.590 --> 00:11:53.049 He was a constant, visible reminder that the 00:11:53.049 --> 00:11:55.769 system aggressively protected itself. Which brings 00:11:55.769 --> 00:11:58.210 us to the political fallout of all this. Because 00:11:58.210 --> 00:12:00.409 when the scandal first broke, specifically after 00:12:00.409 --> 00:12:02.649 the Soacha case, the reaction from leadership 00:12:02.649 --> 00:12:04.710 wasn't introspection. No, it was pure denial. 00:12:04.950 --> 00:12:07.200 Total denial. Juan Manuel Santos was the defense 00:12:07.200 --> 00:12:09.639 minister at the time, and he later became president. 00:12:10.000 --> 00:12:13.720 And Alvaro Uribe was president. Initially, they 00:12:13.720 --> 00:12:16.320 claimed these were just isolated incidents. They 00:12:16.320 --> 00:12:18.740 even suggested these were false claims made specifically 00:12:18.740 --> 00:12:21.159 to stain the honor of the military. There was 00:12:21.159 --> 00:12:24.259 a very famous, very controversial line where 00:12:24.259 --> 00:12:26.840 Uribe suggested the young men from Soacha weren't 00:12:26.840 --> 00:12:29.019 gathering coffee, implying they were actually 00:12:29.019 --> 00:12:31.279 criminals up to no good. Blaming the victims. 00:12:31.559 --> 00:12:34.679 Exactly. That narrative only started to shift. 00:12:35.100 --> 00:12:37.659 when the evidence, like the pristine boots, like 00:12:37.659 --> 00:12:40.080 the testimonies from the mothers, became totally 00:12:40.080 --> 00:12:44.039 overwhelming. After Soacha, Santos fired 27 officers, 00:12:44.200 --> 00:12:46.360 including three generals. And the army commander, 00:12:46.620 --> 00:12:49.000 General Mario Montoya, he resigned in November 00:12:49.000 --> 00:12:52.039 2008, right? He did. But even then, for a long 00:12:52.039 --> 00:12:54.159 time, the official line was still rogue elements. 00:12:54.419 --> 00:12:56.580 They refused to admit the structure itself was 00:12:56.580 --> 00:12:58.740 rotten. It took a really long time for a formal 00:12:58.740 --> 00:13:01.600 apology. It wasn't until 2021 that Juan Manuel 00:13:01.600 --> 00:13:03.679 Santos, acting as a former president at that 00:13:03.679 --> 00:13:05.980 point, issued a heartfelt apology to the victims' 00:13:06.120 --> 00:13:08.899 families. He admitted he didn't believe the reports 00:13:08.899 --> 00:13:11.159 at first, and he apologized for his late response. 00:13:11.519 --> 00:13:14.539 And we also can't ignore the role of international 00:13:14.539 --> 00:13:17.870 pressure in forcing that reckoning. Human Rights 00:13:17.870 --> 00:13:20.490 Watch released a major report in 2015 called 00:13:20.490 --> 00:13:23.690 On Their Watch, and they implicated the top brass. 00:13:23.909 --> 00:13:25.769 Oh, specifically. They named General Juan Pablo 00:13:25.769 --> 00:13:28.669 Rodriguez and General Jaime Lasbrilla, who were 00:13:28.669 --> 00:13:30.509 leading the armed forces at the time the report 00:13:30.509 --> 00:13:32.889 came out. The report pointed out that they had 00:13:32.889 --> 00:13:35.269 headed units during the absolute peak of the 00:13:35.269 --> 00:13:37.850 killings. This pressure eventually led to more 00:13:37.850 --> 00:13:41.110 dismissals in 2016. So you have these mothers 00:13:41.110 --> 00:13:43.759 screaming for truth. You have whistleblowers 00:13:43.759 --> 00:13:46.460 dying for it. And the standard court system was 00:13:46.460 --> 00:13:50.200 just too slow or honestly too biased to handle 00:13:50.200 --> 00:13:52.720 the scale of this. And this pressure cooker is 00:13:52.720 --> 00:13:55.320 what eventually forced the creation of the JEP. 00:13:55.519 --> 00:13:57.720 Yes. Can you explain for the listener exactly 00:13:57.720 --> 00:14:00.320 what the JEP is and why it's so different from 00:14:00.320 --> 00:14:02.659 a normal court? The JEP, the Special Jurisdiction 00:14:02.659 --> 00:14:05.399 for Peace, is a transitional justice court. It 00:14:05.399 --> 00:14:07.620 was born out of the 2016 peace treaty with the 00:14:07.620 --> 00:14:10.299 FARC. Its priority is fundamentally different 00:14:10.299 --> 00:14:13.059 from a regular criminal court. In a normal court, 00:14:13.220 --> 00:14:15.980 the goal is often just punishment. Lock them 00:14:15.980 --> 00:14:20.460 up. In the JEP, the priority is truth and restorative 00:14:20.460 --> 00:14:23.100 justice. It's unique because it invites actors, 00:14:23.179 --> 00:14:25.860 guerrillas, and military alike to come forward 00:14:25.860 --> 00:14:29.279 and confess. If they tell the full truth and 00:14:29.279 --> 00:14:31.399 acknowledge their crimes, they can receive lighter 00:14:31.399 --> 00:14:34.120 restorative sentences. But if they lie or hold 00:14:34.120 --> 00:14:36.620 back and are found guilty, they go to regular 00:14:36.620 --> 00:14:39.559 prison for decades. So it's a tradeoff. We give 00:14:39.559 --> 00:14:41.980 you leniency, but you have to give us the absolute 00:14:41.980 --> 00:14:44.519 truth. Exactly. And that's exactly where that 00:14:44.519 --> 00:14:48.659 massive number 6 ,400. came from. The JEP has 00:14:48.659 --> 00:14:51.659 access to data and inside testimonies that regular 00:14:51.659 --> 00:14:53.919 courts just didn't have. And they've been aggressive 00:14:53.919 --> 00:14:55.799 with it. They actually charged General Mario 00:14:55.799 --> 00:14:58.899 Montoya Uribe with war crimes and crimes against 00:14:58.899 --> 00:15:01.220 humanity. And he is the highest ranking official 00:15:01.220 --> 00:15:03.580 charged, right? Yes, he is. The charges are brutal. 00:15:04.090 --> 00:15:06.190 lying about combat kills, pressuring soldiers, 00:15:06.350 --> 00:15:08.649 using violent language to incite violence. The 00:15:08.649 --> 00:15:11.090 JEP basically accuses him and others of creating 00:15:11.090 --> 00:15:13.409 the exact environment where these crimes flourished. 00:15:13.570 --> 00:15:15.789 Now, reading through the sources, there's also 00:15:15.789 --> 00:15:18.730 this ongoing legal tug -of -war between civilian 00:15:18.730 --> 00:15:22.149 courts and military courts. Why does that matter 00:15:22.149 --> 00:15:25.370 so much? It matters entirely because of impunity. 00:15:26.330 --> 00:15:28.730 Historically, if a soldier commits a crime and 00:15:28.730 --> 00:15:31.309 is tried in a military court, the judges are 00:15:31.309 --> 00:15:33.690 other military members. Right. The sentences 00:15:33.690 --> 00:15:36.690 tend to be significantly lighter, or the cases 00:15:36.690 --> 00:15:39.690 just mysteriously get buried to protect the institution. 00:15:40.769 --> 00:15:42.850 Human rights groups have always thought tooth 00:15:42.850 --> 00:15:45.750 and nail to keep these false positive cases in 00:15:45.750 --> 00:15:48.230 civilian courts. But the defense lawyers try 00:15:48.230 --> 00:15:50.269 to move them back to the military courts. Always. 00:15:50.590 --> 00:15:53.169 There was a law passed in 2013 that tried to 00:15:53.169 --> 00:15:55.889 regulate this, stating clearly that extrajudicial 00:15:55.889 --> 00:15:57.889 executions must stay in civilian jurisdiction. 00:15:58.789 --> 00:16:01.110 But defense teams often argue that the deaths 00:16:01.110 --> 00:16:03.789 were homicides related to active service. They're 00:16:03.789 --> 00:16:05.230 always trying to find loopholes to get their 00:16:05.230 --> 00:16:07.250 clients back into the military justice system 00:16:07.250 --> 00:16:09.169 where they know they might find more sympathy. 00:16:09.350 --> 00:16:11.629 It sounds like a constant, exhausting battle 00:16:11.629 --> 00:16:13.870 just to keep the truth from being buried under 00:16:13.870 --> 00:16:16.289 bureaucracy again. It is. And that's why the 00:16:16.289 --> 00:16:19.740 JEP's work is so absolutely critical. It's forcing 00:16:19.740 --> 00:16:22.399 a public confrontation with the past that statistics 00:16:22.399 --> 00:16:24.899 and official versions tried to hide for a decade. 00:16:25.159 --> 00:16:27.480 It's forcing these generals to look the mothers 00:16:27.480 --> 00:16:29.860 in the eye and admit that their sons were not 00:16:29.860 --> 00:16:32.600 combatants. When we look back at all of this, 00:16:32.639 --> 00:16:36.200 we have 6 ,402 lives at a minimum completely 00:16:36.200 --> 00:16:39.399 erased. We have families destroyed. And we have 00:16:39.399 --> 00:16:42.000 a military that, for a time, functioned almost 00:16:42.000 --> 00:16:44.360 as a mercenary force against its own people, 00:16:44.519 --> 00:16:47.480 getting paid by the state per body. It's a total 00:16:47.480 --> 00:16:50.100 distortion of reality. The false positives scandal 00:16:50.100 --> 00:16:52.639 isn't just about a failure of command. It's about 00:16:52.639 --> 00:16:54.360 what happens when you build a bureaucracy of 00:16:54.360 --> 00:16:57.740 success based entirely on violent metrics. They 00:16:57.740 --> 00:16:59.700 needed to show they were winning the war. So 00:16:59.700 --> 00:17:01.519 they literally manually... manufactured a reality 00:17:01.519 --> 00:17:04.079 where they were winning at the cost of innocent 00:17:04.079 --> 00:17:06.880 civilian lives. It makes you look at every metric 00:17:06.880 --> 00:17:09.400 differently. Honestly, whether it's police quotas, 00:17:09.460 --> 00:17:11.839 corporate targets, or even hospital wait times, 00:17:12.000 --> 00:17:14.440 as soon as a metric becomes a target, it ceases 00:17:14.440 --> 00:17:16.660 to be a good measure. That's the core takeaway 00:17:16.660 --> 00:17:19.380 here. And if I can leave you listening with one 00:17:19.380 --> 00:17:23.039 final thought to mull over. We often think of 00:17:23.039 --> 00:17:25.319 the military's job as protecting the population 00:17:25.319 --> 00:17:28.200 in order to win a war. Right. But in this case, 00:17:28.220 --> 00:17:30.619 the metric for winning was simply the number 00:17:30.619 --> 00:17:34.359 of dead bodies. So here is the question. If the 00:17:34.359 --> 00:17:37.180 metric for victory is the body count, is it ever 00:17:37.180 --> 00:17:39.740 possible for a military to actually protect the 00:17:39.740 --> 00:17:42.400 population? Or does the population inevitably 00:17:42.400 --> 00:17:45.539 become just another resource raw material to 00:17:45.539 --> 00:17:48.900 be used to win? That is a deeply terrifying thought 00:17:48.900 --> 00:17:50.900 and definitely something we should probably all 00:17:50.900 --> 00:17:53.140 keep in mind when we look at how we measure success, 00:17:53.319 --> 00:17:55.180 even in areas far removed from the battlefield. 00:17:55.660 --> 00:17:57.640 Thank you for joining us on this deep dive. Thank 00:17:57.640 --> 00:17:59.079 you for having me. We'll see you next time.