Reckoning with the Past in Colombia

Published May 27, 2025 at 4:28 PM EDT

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Mario, a former member of the military implicated in the "false positives" who is under the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), participates in forensic activities as part of the sanctions of the JEP, as a restorative measure with the victims, in the Central Cemetery of Neiva, Huila, Colombia, on April 30, 2025.

Colombians suffered through a decades-long guerilla war in which hundreds of thousands died. According to the country's truth commission, approximately 80% of those killed were civilians. Now some former army soldiers accused of atrocities during the war are trying to make amends. They are helping to locate and exhume the remains of innocent civilians executed by the Colombian military. We go to one of the sites.