Ombudsman Office confirms seven minors killed in military bombing in Guaviare

This Saturday morning begins with sad news for Colombia. The Office of the Ombudsman, which is in charge of forensic medicine and human rights protection, confirmed what was previously only a possibility. This week, seven minors were killed in a military bombing in the jungle sector of Guaviare. The facility’s director, Iris Marin, said they were victims of forced conscription. This information confirms that President Gustavo Petro, who resumed airstrikes on illegal collective camps that had been suspended when he took office in 2022, violated several principles of international humanitarian law (IHL), according to experts, and ordered a use of force modeled on operations carried out by his predecessor, right-wing ex-president Iván Duque, and strongly criticized by the current president and his left-wing allies.

After the news was confirmed, the president justified his decision by claiming that Ivan Mordisco’s rebel men may have ambushed 20 young soldiers on the front lines several kilometers away. “Perhaps the criticism they will make of me today is because I ambushed the soldiers. I took the risk to save their lives. It is easy to paint the map red, but it is difficult to recognize the risk of regaining territory,” Petro wrote in Trill. “Of course, the death of a person, especially a minor, is unfortunate,” he added.

This week, the military carried out two airstrikes against the headquarters of the so-called FARC dissident group under the command of Gregorio Vera (better known by his alias). Ivan MordiscoThe first incident occurred in Arauca, near Venezuela, and the second in Guaviare. In the second, subsequent ground operations led the military to find four minors who had survived the attack, raising concerns that some were among the 19 killed by the bomb. Petro and Defense Minister Retired General Pedro Sánchez both reacted and thought it was a possibility, but Marin made it clear it was a reality.

“Conscripted children and adolescents should not be affected by military operations. The mere fact that they are found in the camps of illegal armed groups and have lost their civilian status and become combatants, that is, combatants with continuous combat capabilities, does not create the possibility of an attack,” Marin said in a statement that also pointed to the use of minors by Moldisco as war shields.

Speaking at a police ceremony on Thursday, the president declared that there was “always a risk” in bombings and that “minors could be harmed” if the intelligence operation fails. “That’s a big risk that only the president can take. There’s no official that can take that. I’m the one who makes the decision.” Meanwhile, the minister went further, saying in a statement to the media this Friday: “Those who are involved in hostilities lose all protection, without any distinction. It is not the age that kills, but the weapon itself” in a statement to the media this Friday. These are in stark contrast to the positions that Petro, as a senator opposed to Duque, condemned when he said that the deaths of minors in airstrikes were a “war crime” and the “killing of children.”

Experts interviewed by this newspaper before learning of Marin’s announcement did not hesitate to classify any death of a minor as a violation of IHL, a set of conflict rules that Colombia has accepted as an international obligation. These rules force states to apply principles such as distinction (separation between armed agents and civilians) and proportionality (threats must be responded to with similar uses of force), which may have been violated in this case. Moreover, underage fighters tend to be victims of forced recruitment or tricked into joining illegal groups in Colombia, which have been constantly growing and strengthening over the years.

While airstrikes are an example of state power, they also point to the need to resort to more combat strategies against regular forces concentrated in barracks and clearly identified as combatants, rather than the more imitative, less hierarchical, criminal organizations prevalent in Colombia today, often living in populated areas rather than armed bases.

Petro has found itself in an unpleasant situation after seven boys, girls and teenagers were confirmed dead in the Guaviare bombing. In agreement with experts and human rights organizations including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the United Nations, he repeatedly strongly criticized the 20 US air raids on suspected drug smuggling vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean that killed 80 people, calling them “extrajudicial killings” and a “violation of international law.” So far, neither the president nor his ministers have explained what intelligence information was needed to carry out the attack or what precautions were taken to ensure that there were no minors who could become victims of the bomb.