International
Colombian State offers public apology for false positives in Bogota and Soacha
October 4 |
The act of public apology for the extrajudicial executions of which young residents of Bogota, capital of Colombia, and the municipality of Soacha, in Cundinamarca, were victims, took place this Tuesday in Bogota’s Plaza de Bolivar.
The Minister of National Defense Iván Velásquez indicated that after a meeting held in the afternoon with the mothers of the victims, each one of them referred to what happened to their children.
On behalf of the State, Velásquez appeared before the international community to apologize for the crimes that have been called false positives, true extrajudicial executions, and stressed the need for truth.
“Today, committed to truth and justice, we present ourselves before the victims, before the Colombian society, we present ourselves before the community to say sorry, this should never have happened and it cannot happen again”, he assured.
The Minister of National Defense also emphasized that despite tonight’s public act, “we still need to know the truth of what has been happening in the country for so many decades, in order to achieve guarantees of non-repetition. Only the truth can restore to achieve the forgiveness we need”.
For his part, Colombian President Gustavo Petro acknowledged that it is not an easy journey, because it is paradoxical that after making accusations for years, in the name of the State, he has to ask for forgiveness.
In this sense, he stressed that the flow of history makes that societies are built from their own mistakes to learn to be human.
“In what is specifically human and not animal, we have learned to kill the other, for power, for greed. We have developed a history of power, profoundly more barbaric than that developed by certain animal species”, he said.
The head of state alluded to the history of genocides in the world, and acknowledged that Colombian history began with the genocides of the Spaniards, then those that were evident in the republican life of the nineteenth century and later, those that were carried out in the name of the homeland or ideas that ended up defending greed.
In this sense, he stressed the need to retake the historical memory, to avoid that extrajudicial executions such as those of the young people whose mothers the State asked for forgiveness from happening again.
“You are the mothers of the homeland. The mothers they wanted to silence. The mothers whom greed wanted to see silenced, who were a joke, who were mocked. That is why they transformed the words, so that people would think they were crazy,” he stressed.
In this regard, the dignitary pointed out that this greed and desire for power killed those 6,402 young people, it was not the bullets, but it is an act that remains in the history of the Army.
“Here they killed to concentrate wealth, to keep the land. Here they killed to keep the oil. Here they killed to keep the cocaine profits, for greed, and they are willing to kill more,” he denounced.
The president urged to take a space for reflection, which passes first of all because the truth is known and to take up the initiatives of other peoples of the world to prevent the continuation of the killings within societies.
“Colombians are us, a collective. We have to rebuild ourselves on the basis of the truth, that is why I thank the Special Justice for Peace that they wanted to conclude their work in such a way. We have to tell those magistrates to work more, because more and more truth is needed, without fear”, he emphasized.
In this sense, the president asked them to discover the truth, because they have the support of both the soldiers and the current government, so that life may flow after so much death in the South American country, for the sake of reconciliation.
He explained that the concept of social forgiveness, which he issued during his campaign, can help to rebuild the country, as has happened in Spain, Germany, France and even the United States.
Likewise, he indicated that the truth also needs the Prosecutor’s Office to carry out investigations in the context of the current corruption regime, as a legacy of five decades of drug trafficking that propitiated the arrival to power of criminals in Colombia who, out of greed, have become genocidal.
International
Pope Francis meets former Gaza hostages
Pope Francis met on Thursday at the Vatican with 16 Israelis who had been held hostage in Gaza for months by the Islamist group Hamas, according to the official Vatican news website.
The group consisted of ten women, four men, and two children, as reported by the same source. Several of the former hostages showed the Argentine pontiff banners or photos of their loved ones who remain in captivity.
Francis had previously met with the families of hostages in April this year and November 2023, but this was the first time he had met with individuals who had personally endured captivity.
Since the conflict between Israel and Hamas began, the pope has repeatedly called for the immediate release of Israeli hostages, while also condemning the suffering of the Palestinian population.
The war erupted on October 7, 2023, when Islamist militants attacked southern Israel, killing 1,206 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping 251, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures that include hostages who died in captivity.
Of the kidnapped, 97 are still being held in Gaza, but the Israeli military estimates that 34 of them have died.
The military offensive launched by Israel in response has killed at least 43,736 people in the Gaza Strip, mostly civilians, according to data from the Ministry of Health in the Hamas-governed territory.
International
Israeli airstrikes on Damascus kill 15 and injure 16, including women and children
Israeli forces carried out airstrikes on residential buildings in the Syrian capital, Damascus, and its surroundings on Thursday, resulting in at least 15 deaths and 16 injuries, according to Syria’s Ministry of Defense and state television.
The ministry stated that around 3:20 p.m. local time (12:20 GMT), the Israeli military launched an aerial attack from the direction of the occupied Golan Heights, targeting several residential buildings in the Mazzeh neighborhood in western Damascus and the Qudsaya suburb to the northwest of the capital.
The airstrikes “resulted in the death of 15 people and injuries to 16 others, including women and children,” based on initial estimates, in addition to significant damage to private property and civilian buildings, the ministry added.
Meanwhile, state television reported Israeli airstrikes on three buildings in Mazzeh and another on a building in an educational complex located in a residential area of Qudsaya.
Following the strikes, loud explosions were heard throughout the city, and thick plumes of smoke could be seen rising from the targeted locations. Ambulances and emergency services rushed to the scene to attend to the victims.
International
Drug trafficker dies after boat collision with Guardia Civil Vessel in Sanlúca
Three people were on the boat that collided with a Guardia Civil vessel around midnight at the mouth of the Guadalquivir River in Sanlúcar de Barrameda, near the Andalusian city of Cádiz, a spokesperson for the Civil Guard reported.
Two officers sustained “contusions,” the spokesperson explained.
The drug traffickers managed to bring the boat to shore, where one of them was “abandoned” severely injured. The other two fled.
The Civil Guard officers attempted to resuscitate the victim before transporting him to Sanlúcar de Barrameda, but he ultimately died early in the morning.
The other two suspects took advantage of the officers’ absence while they were taking the victim and returned to set their boat on fire.
The collision occurred very close to the site of another accident on September 1, where a drug trafficker died following a Guardia Civil pursuit.
The suspects’ boat traveled “400 meters” before crashing head-on and “at full speed” into the riverbank, where a hundred bundles of hashish were found.
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