1

POLICING THE PAST AND CLARIFYING THE TRUTH: THE CONTRIBUTIONS

MADE BY THE ASSOCIATION MOTHERS OF FALSE POSITIVES OF SOACHA
AND BOGOTÁ1 (MAFAPO)

Daniel Raúl López Puentes2

1. Understanding the Victims Contemporary Situation in Colombia

After more than sixty years of conflict the Republic of Colombia finally reached an

agreement with one of the oldest guerilla groups in the world, the FARC, the negotiating

process widely known as the Habana Dialogues ended in 2016 with the signing of the 2016

Final Peace Agreement (AFTCP)3 between the government led by the peace Nobel prize

winner and former president Juan Manuel Santos and the high-rank leaders of the mentioned

guerrilla, and although the Accords were voted negative by the population in the ratification

referendum of October 2016 (Melo 2017), they achieved its final form and acceptance in later

November of the same year.

The 2016 Final Peace Agreement was consolidated through an agenda built upon the

acceptance of the negotiating parts, it included six main points dialogued in a chronological

order: Integral Agrarian Development, Political and Civil Participation (of ex-guerrilla

members in politics and civil society), End of Conflict, Illicit Drugs, Agreements upon the

Victims of the Conflict, and Implementation, Verification and Agreements Endorsement

(AFTCP 2016). It must be remarked the fact that this agenda encompassed the ‘maximalist

proposal’ of Palacios (2000), who affirmed that any peace negotiations must differentiate

between the agenda for peace and the agenda for the dialogues while having the acceptance of

civil society, as it happened with the 2016 Final Agreement.

1
Original Name: Madres de Falsos Positivos de Soacha y Bogotá.
2
Student of the Master Dynamics of Cooperation, Conflicts and Negotiation in International Relations and
Diplomacy at Universidad Alfonso X El Sabio (Spain).
3
The Official Designation of the Accords is: “Acuerdo General para la Terminación del Conflicto y la
Construcción de una Paz Estable y Duradera en Colombia”
 2

The agenda for peace can be understood as those topics or negotiating points which are

oriented towards the achievement of consensus that enables the creation of institutional basis

towards reconciliation between victims and perpetrators (Palacios 2000), considering this it is

feasible to state that the fifth point of the 2016 Accords, Agreements upon the Victims of the

Conflict is the main element of the agenda for peace embedded into the agreements, more

importantly is the fact that in order to formulate the provisions contained on it, representatives

of the Victims of the Colombian conflict were an active part of the Habana Dialogues.

The involvement of Victims with the peace process and the post-conflict era has led to the

quantitative identification of victims and the qualitative categorization of the criminal and

illegal conducts4 they were subject to. According to the National Network of Information (RNI

2021) and the Victims Single Register (RUV 2021), until January the 31st there are 9,106,309

recognized as victims of the Colombian conflict since the first of January of 1985, of them

1,060,463 were victims of Homicide and 184,870 of Enforced Disappearance, criminal

conducts directly related with the ‘false positives’ cases which will be explained later in the

present work.

2. Victims Participation in the 2016 Final Peace Agreement of Colombia

The Victims participation within the Colombian Peace Process was done not only because

of the mentioned maximalist proposal, their inclusion was founded in the respect of the rights

of Victims of Conflict, which range from the international law, provisions and declarations

which are well described by the Colombian Commission of Jurists (2007) book, alongside the

existing 2011 Victims Law (2011) of Colombia that was proposed and encouraged by the same

4
The criminal and illegal conducts that have affected the victims of the Colombian Conflict are classified as:
Enforced Disappearance, Disposal of Goods and Properties, Kidnapping, Torture, Abandon or Forced Land
Cession, Forced Displacement, Terrorist Attacks, Threatening, Child Recruitment, Landmines, Crimes against
freedom and sexual integrity, Homicide, Personal and Physical Injury, Personal and Psychological Injury,
Confinement and a special category Others (Red Nacional de Información, 2020)
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government which later decided to negotiate. However, as Brett (2017) demonstrates there is

“no international instrument that compiles the fundamental right” to which Victims are entitled

to: the right to Truth, Justice, Reparation and Guarantees for no Repetition or Revictimization.

It is only through various national and international mechanisms that this indispensable right

is granted.

The officially called Victims and Land Restitution Law (or Victims Law, Ley 148 2011),

represented a point of inflexion within the Colombian conflict, this law recognized the

existence of an armed conflict in the country a fact that was denied by previous administrations

as analyzed by Amnesty International (2012) this recognition made possible to apply and use

the international humanitarian law in Colombia, a major change that opened the door for

Victims to step up.

The Victims Law also provided a definition of who is consider as a victim for the local

justice, for instance, “any person that individually or collectively has been harmed or injured

(physically and psychologically) as a result of any action since the 1st of January of 1985 which

is considered as an infraction towards the International Humanitarian Law or serious and

manifested violations to the Human Rights occurred within the armed intern conflict context”

(Ley 1148 2011).

Moreover, the Victims Law created a “complete system to protect, assist, help and integrally

repair the victims of conflict”, classified the already described condemnable criminal conducts,

and provided a differential approach based on “age, gender, ethnicity or disability” oriented to

recognize the graveness of the effects of conflict (Unidad de Victimas 2013). Nonetheless,

academics such as Cortés Martínez (2013) have criticized the Victims Law as in the moment it

was promulged it seemed much more as a “post-conflict law rather than a law for conflict” and

interestingly it did not recognize the paramilitary groups as direct perpetrators of conflict but
 4

as “criminal bands” (BACRIM) related to ‘common crimes’, this opened the door - in the

author’s words – “for impunity”, a vision shared by Amnesty International (2012) too.

Nevertheless, the Victims Law and the political will of parties served as a platform to

impulse the aforementioned participation of Victims in the Habana Dialogues, it was a

consensual proposal made by the Government and the FARC through a joint declaration made

back in June of 2014 before starting the negotiations around the fifth point of the agenda, this

statement allowed the presence of a Victims delegation with the parties which had the

opportunity to ‘present its proposals and expectations about the peace-building and the Victims

rights’, alongside the creation of a series of National Victims Forums and the creation of a

Historic Commission for Conflict that would work jointly with the existent mechanisms

designed to achieve the clarifying of the truth about conflict (Gobierno Nacional de Colombia

& FARC in Comisión Intereclesial de Justicia y Paz 2014).

From an academic perspective it is relevant to highlight the role of truth commissions and

its inclusion in the Colombian process, as Langer (2017) studied after comparing cases in

Africa and Asia-Pacific, this spaces allow to “establish new national histories written from the

perspective of victims” that have had no major impact in reforming States and context in which

they operate. For Nuzov & Freeman (2018), truth commissions serve to a certain extent to

“seek political and social acknowledgment of truths that were formerly denied”, something that

must be reinforced through the support of local law and political will.

Furthermore, Brahm (2009) does a useful categorization of truth commissions based of the

work of Freeman (2006 in Brahm 2009, 12), for the author, there are “event-specific, thematic,

institutional and sociohistorical oriented” commissions, considering this sort of classification

it is possible to affirm that the mechanisms for victims and truth created in the Habana

Dialogues were integral in the sense that they can be framed under all the categories proposed
 5

by Brahm (2009). Nonetheless there is a distinguish to be made, the fact that from theory the

mechanisms are ideal it does not mean that in practice they operate as good as planned, however

the participation of Victims and the creation of truth commissions within the Colombian

process is widely recognized as a major step towards the establishment of a transitional justice

system.

The whole delegation of Victims that made presence in the Habana Dialogues was

composed by 36 women and 24 men ranging from the 19 to 78 years of age, from 25 (out of

32) departments of the country, that were victims of all the aforementioned criminal and illegal

conducts (categorized by the RNI and the RUV) perpetrated by paramilitaries, the FARC, the

State and other actors of conflict (Brett, 2017). There were five delegations participating in the

process, the first one traveled to Cuba in August 2014, the rest took part in September, October,

November and December of that same year.

As a result of the negotiations between the parties and the inclusion of victims, the 2016

Final Agreement in its fifth point, it was created the Comprehensive System of Truth Justice

Reparation and Non-Repetition5 (SIVJRNR), which according to the Special Jurisdiction for

Peace (JEP 2019) is composed by, “i. The Truth, Coexistence and Non-Reptition Commission,

ii. The Special Jurisdiction for Peace, iii. The Unit for the Search for Persons Presumed

Disappeared, and all the measurements required to the integral reparation [of victims] the

peace-building and the guarantee of no-repetition” which uses a “territorial, differential and

gender” approach and is thought to work in a coordinated and jointly way.

Nonetheless, the SIVJRNR has been object of criticisms, polemics and has raised many

issues that are sensitive for victims and the Colombian society, especially within the adepts of

the former president Álvaro Uribe Vélez.

5
Original Name: Sistema Integral de Verdad, Justicia, Reparación y No Repetición - SIVJRNR.
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3. The Role of the MAFAPO in the 2016 Agreements and the Post-conflict

As a result of the conformation of the Victims Delegations, the victims association known

as Madres de Falsos Positivos de Soacha y Bogotá (MAFAPO) was represented in the first

group that traveled to the Habana Dialogues by Luz Marina Bernal, who in 2014 was one of

the leaders of the association and made visible the cause for which MAFAPO stands for.

However, in order to understand the cause, it is relevant to clarify what a “false positive” is,

according to the Historical Memory Group (CNMH) in its general report about the Colombian

conflict titled Basta Ya! Colombia: memories of war and Dignity (CNHM 2016), this conduct

is described as,

“[T]he forced disappearance of youngsters from marginal social classes who were illegally

executed by members of the Security Forces in regions far from their places of residence and

later presented as guerrilleros killed in combat” (CNMH 2016, 164)

The 19 sons of the women belonging to the MAFAPO suddenly disappeared between

January and August of 2008, only after months of searching with limited resources it was

announced that the youngsters were found in remote places of Colombia buried in mass graves

(CNMH 2018). This phenomena which occurred mainly during the two presidential terms of

Álvaro Uribe Vélez (2002 – 2006 & 2006 – 2010) was a direct consequence of the national

policy known as ‘Democratic Security’, which was oriented towards the use of all the military

capacities available to confront and eradicate guerrilla groups from the country.

Nonetheless as Pachón (2009) noted, when the scandal was portrayed in media, members

of the national military forces confessed there were payments of “around 300 to 400 dollars”

to human traffickers who would bring the youngsters who later would be presented as FARC

guerrilleros killed in combat, the author remarks that even back in 2009 international human

rights organizations and the international community were already concerned about this
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enforced disappearances and extrajudicial homicides, which are, in fact, crimes against the

humanity.

Within this context, the mothers of these youngsters became as well direct victims of the

Colombian conflict and decided to create the Madres de Falsos Positivos de Soacha y Bogotá

(MAFAPO) victims association in order to obtain truth, justice, reparation and the guarantee of

no repetition, a right they are entitled to as stated previously in the present work. Moreover,

the MAFAPO has affirmed that they look not only to the fulfillment of their rights as victims

but to “achieve reconciliation as a method to grant pardon without forgetting what happened”

(CNMH 2015), something they have done through their participation in the Habana Dialogues

in 2014 and currently in the hearings convoked by the Special Jurisdiction for Peace tribunal

and the other mechanisms of the mentioned Comprehensive System of Truth Justice Reparation

and Non-Repetition (SIVJRNR).

From the academic perspective, the participation of MAFAPO in the SIVJRNR is highly

relevant as it enables the peace and post-conflict processes to become engendered, by passing

through the four following stages formulated by Ramsbotham, Miall, & Woodhouse (2016),

“i. Making women visible and agents of change in conflict resolution, ii. Removing male bias

in conflict resolution (…), iii. Rethinking conflict resolution theory [to give it a gender

approach, and] iv. Incorporating gender into conflict resolution policy-making and practice”.

The MAFAPO is actively working in the stages two and four, as a result of their work,

which is entirely done by women and with their own resources, the association has been able

to become a “platform for interlocution to keep alive the conversation about the false positives

and the multiple obstacles to reach the establishment of truth” (CNHM 2018) through multiple

events, the sharing of their experience as direct victims of the conflict, the participation in

media, and even the involvement in cultural activities such as the painting of murals in which
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are depicted the faces of the commanders that, according to the JEP investigations, were in

charge of the military units that committed the false positives (MOVICE 2019), a situation that

has become highly controversial within the country and that has turn its attention towards the

clarifying of truth.

Much more importantly, and directly related to reconciliation in order to achieve conflict

resolution, is the active engagement of MAFAPO with the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, in

which they have presented their testimonies leading in 2018 to the aperture of what is known

as the “Case 003: about illegitimate deaths presented as combat casualties by State agents”,

which has accredited 397 victims of the case, convoked public hearings in which both victims

and victimizers were present and the latter asked for pardon to the MAFAPO and other victims,

alongside leading to the identification of other mass graves (JEP 2021a).

Ultimately this led to the establishment by the JEP, that to the present year there are around

6.402 victims of the “false positives macrocriminal conduct” and not 2.248 as it was believed,

with most of the cases happening between 2002 and 2010 in 10 specific territories, meaning

that “the 78% of the historical victimization” occurred during this period (JEP 2021b), still the

total number of victims is yet to be clarified.

Within this context the role of the MAFAPO women has acquired maximum relevance,

according to Johan Galtung’s (1998, 77-100) 3R Theory, ‘reconciliation is the sum of closing

plus healing’ meaning that closing is the ‘definitive cease of hostilities’ (or in this case is the

happening of ‘false positives’), and healing is understood as the rehabilitation of victims, which

in the presented MAFAPO case is done through the participation in the Special Jurisdiction for

Peace which has eventually allow to begin with the reconciliation process and the fulfillment

of the right to Truth, Justice, Reparation and No Repetition that Colombian victims are entitled

to.
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