A former strongman has wrapped up testimony before Colombia’s Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) tribunal this week, offering a harrowing look into paramilitary assassination programs orchestrated during the country’s decades-long internal conflict.
Salvatore Mancuso, who used the nom de guerre “Triple Zero,” was one of the primary leaders of paramilitary forces in the country in the late ’90s and early 2000s.
As the erstwhile commander of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), a coalition of rightwing paramilitary groups, Mancuso described the murder and forced disappearances of political activists and other individuals seen as sympathetic to left-wing groups and causes.
His testimony also corroborated longstanding accusations that paramilitary groups planned their attacks in direct coordination with the Colombian government, as well as the private sector.
Observers were split over the revelations from Mancuso’s testimony—and how much they would help advance JEP’s mission to investigate the crimes and abuses committed over Colombia’s nearly six-decade-long internal conflict.
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