Debate in Colombia Over De la Espriella Being Pictured Among Those Killed in Combat
The new Government of Colombia’s offensive against illegal armed groups has left several casualties in combat. In his new style of showing results, President Abelardo de la Espriella has been making appearances alongside the bodies of those killed by the authorities. In the long history of the Colombian conflict, this practice is not unusual in military protocols, but it is unusual for a head of state to appear alongside corpses.
Voices against this recent practice had already been raised sporadically in the country, especially among citizens and some opinion leaders. At the same time, other sectors enthusiastically welcome the president’s participation in these staged scenes because they constitute forceful messages to those who persist in remaining outside the law.
For them, De la Espriella is fulfilling his campaign promises and is also carrying out the threats he has made against criminals, which immediately generates a sense of security that the country had been demanding in the face of the growth and expansion of armed groups.
“Armed groups are cruel and do not respect minimum rules of humanity”
This Sunday, September 6, Ombudswoman Iris Marin spoke out, referring to the moment when the president walked among bodies in white body bags of people killed in Operation ‘Azarias’, in Guaviare, in which, according to the official report, 23 members of the structures of alias ‘Ivan Mordisco’ were reportedly killed, among them some commanders of that armed structure and two minors.
“Our country has spent decades facing different cycles of armed conflicts and organized crime,” Marin recalled in a video disseminated by the entity responsible for the protection and promotion of human rights. “However, I do not remember having seen a president walking among the dead and feeling proud of those deaths.”
The official acknowledges that the numerous armed groups involved in the conflict and criminal activity “are cruel, do not respect the most basic rules of humanity, boast of ruthlessness and power,” but she also assures that the State and the Government “cannot allow themselves to be drawn into a competition to demonstrate who can be more cruel. They cannot compete with armed groups over who produces more fear, who humiliates the adversary more or who turns death into a demonstration of power.”
In her communication, Marin acknowledged that the State has the duty to protect the population and to confront, within the Constitution and International Humanitarian Law (IHL), the armed groups responsible for serious human rights violations. “This reflection does not disregard that duty nor does it, by itself, question the legitimate operations of the public force,” she said, and explained that she is referring to something different: “The way in which the State exercises power and communicates its results.”
Dead people must be respected and treated with dignity
Although the Constitution establishes that the right to life is a fundamental right of immediate application that cannot be suspended during states of emergency, and is inviolable in nature and no one may be arbitrarily deprived of their life, the Ombudswoman assures that the right to life is not absolute.
“The legal system admits certain restrictive interpretations and applications of the right to life, such as when it concerns legitimate self-defense as grounds for excluding criminal liability for homicide; or the authorization to kill combatants in situations of armed conflict, in accordance with International Humanitarian Law,” she explained.
For Marin, the possibility of carrying out military actions in which people may lose their lives is possible, in many cases necessary, perhaps indispensable, but they are not desirable. “Although the killing of a person responsible for the most heinous crimes may be legal, the protection of the right to life continues to have a preferential place in our legal system,” she said, and recalled that IHL establishes that even in war there are limits, and that the dead must be respected and treated with dignity.
“Colombia knows that history all too well,” Marin continued. “For decades, different armed actors have used bodies, humiliation and fear to send messages of domination and terror. That language […] cannot become the language of the State. […] The images and words of those who represent public power matter. Therefore, we should not normalize the bodies of dead people becoming part of the staging of a public statement, nor death becoming a way of displaying authority.”
Ideas similar to those of Marin were also expressed by opposition politicians, basically under the umbrella idea that “a dead person still has dignity, even if he was our enemy,” expressed by representative of the Historical Pact Maria Fernanda Carrascal.
Meanwhile, on social media and in spaces for opinion, the president’s followers justify his way of presenting results against crime because they consider it a clear message of firmness against crime. They feel that it is a display of the authority that had been lost and of justice in response to the abominable crimes committed by those who were killed.