**Due to emergency security concerns, Sergeant Mora will not present during this panel**
The Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) cordially invites you to our webinar:
Afro-Colombian Sergeant Carlos Eduardo Mora of Colombia’s 15th Mobile Brigade of Ocaña observed inconsistencies in the combat deaths that members of his battalion were reporting in their counterinsurgency statistics. In 2008, Mora denounced his colleagues for killing civilians and later passing them as enemy combats. These extrajudicial killings were widespread throughout the country and became nationally known—and erroneously termed as “false positives”—when a scandal involving 19 murdered young men from the southwestern Bogotá neighborhood of Soacha was undercovered.
Mora has suffered greatly for his role as a whistleblower, having faced multiple types of retaliation like public humiliation and death threats. His security situation became so serious that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights issued a resolution in 2013 urging the Colombian state to protect Mora and his family.
In February, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (Jurisdicción Especial para la Paz, JEP)—Colombia’s transitional justice tribunal devised in the 2016 peace accord—revealed that the Colombian armed forces committed at least 6,402 extrajudicial killings between 2002 and 2008. In light of these disturbing revelations, WOLA’s Director for the Andes Gimena Sánchez-Garzoli will moderate a panel to discuss the role of individuals like Sergeant Mora and hear from two human rights and U.S. military aid experts. Alberto Yepes, Coordinator for the Human Rights Observatory of the Colombia-Europe-United States Coordination (Coordinación Colombia-Europa-Estados Unidos, CCEU) coalition, will discuss the implications of the JEP’s recent order on extrajudicial killings. Adam Isacson, WOLA’s Director for Defense Oversight, will discuss U.S. funding to Colombia’s armed forces and what actions can be taken to guarantee justice in these horrific cases.
Event Details:
Thursday, March 18, 2021
4:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. EDT (Washington D.C.)
3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. (Bogotá, Colombia)
Panelists:
Alberto Yepes
Coordinator for the Human Rights Observatory
Colombia-Europe-United States Coordination (CCEEU)
Adam Isacson
Director for Defense Oversight
WOLA
Moderator:
Gimena Sánchez-Garzoli
Director for the Andes
WOLA
Simultaneous interpretation between English and Spanish will be available.