The head of the Colombian Army, General Nicacio Martínez, has been released from his post after starring in a year full of controversy. President Iván Duque announced yesterday the change in an unexpected press conference at the Casa de Nariño, where he was surrounded by the military dome. “We had a deep conversation where we recognized his great service to the country and we have made the decision to leave the Army’s command. He has expressed to me his family motives, which I have welcomed with gratitude, ”said the president announcing the replacement of Martinez, General Eduardo Zapateiro.
General Martínez leaves at the end of a week in which six people were killed, including two environmentalists and social leaders in different regions of Colombia and in the midst of a critical security situation in the country. Its management lasted exactly one year and was marked by a permanent storm. His name remained in the headlines of the media and in the debates of the Colombian congress for a controversial directive that required duplicating results and for his participation as second in command of a brigade reported by the murder of civilians between October 2004 and January 2006.
In May, the Army command ordered its troops to double the amount of casualties and captures in the fighting. The directive was strongly criticized even by high-ranking officials, who saw in the initiative a return to a period where the scandals of false positives multiplied, the extrajudicial executions of civilians who were presented as casualties in combat.
The controversy forced Martinez to withdraw the directive and also denied his participation in the case of false positives that occurred 15 years ago, a fact revealed by EL PAÍS last June. The general said then that his role in the brigade was reduced to administrative tasks. At that time he was second commander and chief of the General Staff of that group. The Prosecutor’s Office considers that 23 of 283 alleged extrajudicial executions in the departments of La Guajira and Cesar date back to that stage. Despite these questions, President Duque kept him in office and the Senate promoted him to general of four suns right in the middle of the controversy
Criticisms of the Army intensified when the murder was heard by soldiers of Dimar Torres, a former FARC combatant. Magazine Week proved that it was a homicide. This fact revived again the ghost of extrajudicial executions. The Prosecutor’s Office estimates that the armed forces perpetrated at least 2,248 murders between 1998 and 2014.
The military dome was once again targeted by public opinion when the bombing of the FARC dissidents was made public in November, and where seven children aged between 12 and 17 died. Senator Roy Barreras, of the party of former President Juan Manuel Santos, then denounced that the then Defense Minister Guillermo Botero, tried to hide those deaths to the country. Days after the fact, Botero resigned from office. Barreras also denounced the case of Flower Trumpet, which is now investigating the Prosecutor’s Office, as a false positive. “I showed that he was shot in the back when he tried to take refuge in his grandmother’s house,” Barreras said.
The departure of General Martínez is also in the midst of a crisis of popularity of the administration that Iván Duque, which is around 70 percent disapproval and announcements of changes in his cabinet. In replacement of Nicacio Martínez comes General Eduardo Zapateiro, who has been director of the Army Cadet School, of the José María Córdova School; Commander of the Colombia Battalion in Sinai and the Joint Special Operations Command.
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