Child Soldiers

We cannot cover up or turn a blind eye to our history. In Colombia, minors have been exploited to commit crimes and other offenses linked to our political violence. From the assassinations in the late 80s and early 90s to military operations, training schools, and torture centers, the participation of children and adolescents has been documented.

“Sorry, I did it for money, for my family,” said the minor who fired three shots at presidential candidate Miguel Uribe, whose health prognosis remains uncertain. While violence in politics has been a constant in our country, the attack on the senator revives memories of 35 years ago when, on the eve of the 1990 elections, three presidential candidates were murdered.

Andrés Arturo Gutiérrez and Byron Velázquez are two names that go unnoticed by the public unless their history is contextualized. Gutiérrez was the hitman who shot at Bernardo Jaramillo Ossa, a presidential candidate for the Unión Patriótica, at the El Dorado Airport in Bogotá on March 22, 1990. Velázquez was involved in the assassination of Minister Rodrigo Lara Bonilla and belonged to the gang Los Priscos, a network of hitmen serving the Medellín Cartel. At the time of the events, both were minors.

Like Gutiérrez and Velázquez, dozens of minors have been used by organized crime, guerrillas, paramilitary groups, and even state agents to achieve their political or military objectives. In 1989, when drug trafficking was at its height, Pablo Escobar formed a group of youths from the poorer neighborhoods of Medellín known as Los Suizos. They were either of low income or homeless and willing to die after committing crimes in suicide missions.

In the book 1989, journalist María Elvira Samper describes in chronological order the violent events that shook Colombia during one of the bloodiest years in the nation’s history. In some instances, minors and adolescents were involved. The car bomb against the DAS headquarters on December 6, 1989, and the bomb suitcase on the Avianca flight that covered the Bogotá-Cali route on November 27, 1989—actions carried out by the Medellín Cartel—are examples of this.

In the 90s, the use of adolescents in criminal actions was also common. The gang La Terraza, led by Diego Murillo Bejarano Don Berna, had minors among its hitmen, motorcyclists, and spies. In the book Las Vueltas de la Oficina de Envigado, by Juan Diego Restrepo, social and community leaders have reported the recruitment of minors in the neighborhoods of Medellín by demobilized members of the Cacique Nutibara Bloc to serve criminal bands.

The Public Force also exploited minors and exercised violence against them. In the report It Is Not a Minor Issue from the Truth Commission, testimonies are collected from girls, boys, and adolescents who were used as informants and infiltrators in insurgent groups; others were recruited as minors, used as human couriers to deliver encrypted messages, and hundreds who fled guerrilla ranks were interrogated without respect for their rights.

“It was the guy from the pot; I say who it was, let me give you the numbers,” was another remark made by the minor who shot at Senator Miguel Uribe. Although the authorities are still far from clarifying the motives behind the attack and those responsible, the characterization of the minor’s family, economic, and social environment once again highlights that vulnerability and precarious living conditions remain fodder for criminals to exploit adolescents.

It seems that a phrase captured by Alonso Salazar from a young man in a Medellín hitman gang has become immortalized in our country: “It doesn’t matter if you die; after all, one wasn’t born to be a seed. But to die instantly, so you don’t have to feel so much misery and loneliness.”

It will be up to the authorities to ensure the minor’s safety; it cannot happen, as in other past events, that the material author ends up being murdered. Beyond the legal debate regarding the culpability or lack of culpability of the minor, Colombia deserves to know what happened, who ordered it, and what the reasons were behind this reprehensible and condemnable attack.