Former Colombian paramilitary chief Salvatore Mancuso testifies about his crimes and points to the State

The four days of declarations by Salvatore Mancuso, former leader of the strongest paramilitary group in the Colombian conflict -the extinct United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia- before the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) have produced numerous accusations against different structures of the Colombian State and members of the political leadership of that country for the alleged links that they maintained for years with the armed group that he himself led together with Carlos Castaño.

The declaration of a person like Mancuso before the JEP was considered of vital importance because it was a fundamental piece that was part of the worst moment of the armed conflict, between the final years of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st. The organization to which he belonged, and led, the AUC, emerged under the pretext of combating the growing power of the guerrillas in this country -especially the FARC- but it was also responsible for tens of thousands of deaths, many of them innocent, just as he showed the truth commission report of the conflict in 2022.

In fact, Mancuso, as a former leader of the organization, is accused of being behind more than 70,000 homicides between 1995 and 2005. The former paramilitary chief appeared virtually because his legal situation is still unknown after serving a prison sentence in United States for drug trafficking. Waiting is whether Mancuso continues in that country, returns to Colombia, where justice claims him, or is deported to Italy, where he himself has requested to be sent.

In recent times, Mancuso has shown himself in favor of collaborating with the clarification of some of the most tragic events in the history of Colombia and has given his will to participate in the interrogations of the JEP, an organization created to investigate and prosecute crimes. of the FARC after the 2016 peace agreement but which accepts the testimonies of third parties who are directly involved in the Colombian armed conflict, such as Mancuso.

It is from this context that some statements come from that have struck various structures of the Colombian State and that coincide with some of the suspicions that have been around in recent decades in Colombia regarding the links maintained between the State and the paramilitaries.

Mancuso accuses the Army of collusion with the paramilitaries

Mancuso revealed to magistrate Pedro Díaz that several massacres against civilians attributed to paramilitaries in the 1990s were planned in coordination with the Colombian Army.

He mentioned the massacre of La Granja and El Aro, Antioquia, in 1996 and 1997, stating: “There was prior preparation for more than a year before the operation. I personally met with General Manosalva (…) There was coordination with the troops on the ground, colonels, majors, captains, and there was a movement of troops from Urabá, Córdoba, the Antioquian lower Cauca region, and all these troops mobilized to arrive up there”.

Mancuso also revealed some macabre practices that the AUC carried out in coordination with the Army. He explained that the paramilitaries dumped the bodies of some 200 of their victims on the Venezuelan side of the border after the “crematory oven” in which hundreds of people disappeared was destroyed.

“Then a different practice began that was to throw all the victims into Venezuelan territory. Some to the side of the river (Táchira) so that the river would take them and leave them on the side of Venezuela, and others in which some members of the Self-Defense Forces entered to Venezuela to leave them in pits,” said the former paramilitary chief.

These disappearances were ordered by “the public force,” Mancuso confessed. “This has broader depths because there was also coordination with the military and public forces on the Venezuelan side for this type of operation,” he added.

Financing of politicians by the AUC

Mancuso assured that the AUC supported the campaigns of the now former presidents Álvaro Uribe and Andrés Pastrana, as well as the former presidential candidate of the Liberal Party, Horacio Serpa.

“There was aid in elections to presidential candidate Horacio Serpa, to President Pastrana himself (1998-2002) and to Uribe (2002-2010),” said the former paramilitary chief.

Serpa, who was a three-time candidate for the Presidency for the Liberal Party, died in October 2020 at the age of 77, after suffering from cancer for several years.

After the statement, former President Pastrana, of the Conservative Party, wrote on social networks that he demanded “the cowardly murderer of Salvatore Mancuso” to show evidence of this alleged support.

Mancuso also stated that his paramilitary organization supported candidacies of politicians seeking to reach the Colombian Congress and various regional leaders from departments such as Córdoba.

“In 2002, the Self-Defense Forces intervened directly in the elections to Congress,” Mancuso said.

For his part, former President Iván Duque assured that what Mancuso said is retaliation against the government that extradited him to the United States in 2008.

Among those pointed out by Mancuso is also Francisco Santos, vice president of Colombia during the period of Álvaro Uribe and cousin of former president Juan Manuel Santos. In his appearance, Mancuso pointed to Francisco Santos as the promoter of the creation of the Convivir, a paramilitary group that served as the genesis of the AUC.

Link with the secret services and persecution of opponents

Salvatore Mancuso assured this Tuesday that the Administrative Department of Security (DAS), the extinct Colombian secret police, maintained relations with the AUC and gave it targets for assassination. Among them, the current president, Gustavo Petro, who at that time was already serving as an opposition congressman, 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 (Deputy Director of Intelligence) gave us,” Mancuso said.

Narváez said that “Leyva was a spokesperson for the guerrilla, he was a person who had always defended the interests of the guerrilla, who was hurting the country with this because you could not negotiate with the guerrillas, what was left to the guerrillas was finish them,” Mancuso said.

According to the former paramilitary chief, the orders came from the state.

“At the central level, objectives were defined and they were objectives for the Self-Defense Forces,” he said.

These murders were aimed at removing political opponents and “everything to do with the left” from power.

In that list “he especially considered those who were going to access positions of power in public, political office” because he believed that “they were part of the (guerrilla) structures” that “at some point, when power could not be seized with arms, they would do for the democratic exercise of politics,” Mancuso explained.

The controversial DAS was dismantled in 2011 for its espionage practices and assassination orders against political dissidents and the opposition.

Mancuso now has 30 days to provide the evidence that certifies that everything he has reported is valid, after the JEP carries out the due process of investigation. In the event that he can provide this evidence, the former paramilitary chief would become a appearing party of the JEP to provide truth to the cases that the institution handles to clarify the Colombian armed conflict.

With local media and EFE