The war is measured in liters of blood - FIDH

civilians in combat as aggravated homicide, 32 (i.e. homicide as understood in ordinary lawwith aggravating circumstances), others do so as homicide against a protected person (i.e., as aviolation of international humanitarian law or war crime).Some believe that it should be prosecuted as aggravated homicide because, in practice, whatwas done had nothing to do with actual combat. They argue that not every homicide committedin a country in conflict is a war crime, just as not all criminal activity carried out by membersof the army is a war crime. Others, however, claim that these are war crimes because those whocommit them have taken advantage of the armed conflict to kill innocent civilians, and this hasbeen fostered by a system of benefits and rewards, caused by pressure for results and supportedby internal documents of the army, and by the respective orders of operations.Without taking sides in this debate, it should be stressed that whatever determination is made,these deeds should be tried by the ordinary courts and not by military criminal courts, as will beseen later in this report. Apart from the discussion about the qualification of these acts as warcrimes or violation of international humanitarian law within the domestic legal system, we repeatthat the same facts may qualify simultaneously as war crimes and crimes against humanity. Ourinvestigations enable us to state that the false positives constitute crimes against humanity (as itwill be seen in the next section) and must be prosecuted as such by the Colombian legal system,or otherwise, by the ICC”.2. False positives: crimes against humanityWe find the definition of crimes against humanity in article 7 of the Rome Statute, which statesthat it “means any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematicattack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack: a) Murder […] (i)Enforced disappearance of persons...”As a state party to the Rome Statute, Colombia is obligated to prosecute criminally suchpunishable conduct. It is obvious, however, that Colombia has not introduced legislation tospecifically incorporate this definition of a crime into domestic law. Nevertheless, it shouldbe noted that the Constitutional Court has recognized that the Rome Statute forms part of theconstitutional corpus 33 , confirming that Colombia is obligated to criminalize the behavioursdefined in this international legal instrument. The extrajudicial executions carried out by the32. Aggravating circumstances as set forth in Colombian criminal law, are as follows (article 104 of the Criminal Code):1. In the person of the ascendant or descendant, spouse, partner or permanent companion, brother, person adopting or adopted,or relative up to the second degree of affinity.2. To prepare, facilitate or consummate other punishable conduct; to hide it, safeguard its product or impunity,for oneself or for one’s accomplices.3. By means of any of the behaviours set forth in chapter II of title XII and in chapter I of title XIII of book two of this code.4. By price, promise of reward, zeal for profit, or for another base or trivial reason.5. Utilizing the activity of one who is not subject to blame.6. With excessive cruelty.7. Placing the victim in a situation of helplessness or inferiority or taking advantage of such situation.8. For terrorist purposes or in the course of terrorist activities.9. Against an internationally protected person, other than those specified in title II of this book, and diplomatic representatives,in accordance with treaties and international conventions ratified by Colombia.10. If committed against a person who is or has been a public servant, journalist, justice of the peace, labour union, political orreligious leader for that reason.33. Constitutional Court of Colombia, Ruling C-488, 2009, Judge Rapporteur Jorge Iván Palacio Palacio.12 / Colombia. The war is measured in litres of blood