Colombia’s transitional justice system, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), has charged 10 former members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) with alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. The charges were filed on Tuesday and cover conduct between 1996 and 2016.
The tribunal said the accused were responsible for torture, murder and forced displacement against five Indigenous groups in southeast Colombia. The FARC, once the country’s largest rebel group, has been at the centre of the country’s long-running efforts to deal with its civil conflict.
Commanders allegedly ordered landmines on Indigenous land
JEP magistrate Catalina Diaz said the case was about giving redress to communities that had long been ignored. “Today we are delivering justice to the most forgotten peoples of a segregated Colombia,” she said.
Diaz explained that FARC commanders had instructed subordinates to lay landmines on Indigenous territory. The accused were also said to have damaged ecosystems that the tribes depended on to survive. “These people have had their basic right to exist compromised,” Diaz added.
The indictment is the latest step in Colombia’s attempt to confront the abuses and violence of a civil conflict that stretched across more than half a century. That conflict produced severe rights violations on many sides.
A conflict marked by clashes and a heavy death toll
Since the 1960s, left-wing rebels, government security forces, criminal networks and government-aligned right-wing paramilitaries have fought over territory and influence over the country’s power structure. Indigenous communities and activists continue to face violent attacks, and the fighting has added to a steadily rising death toll.
A 2022 report from Colombia’s Truth Commission found that 450,664 people were killed between 1985 and 2018 as a result of the conflict. The same report recorded another 121,768 people who were forcibly disappeared.
Indigenous activists and community leaders welcomed the JEP’s decision on Tuesday. They saw it as official recognition that their communities had been deliberately targeted. Yhon Jairo Figueroa, a leader of the Koreguaje people, said the state had finally acknowledged that armed groups did more than kill individuals. “But they attempted to kill the knowledge, the language, the territory.”
Former commanders and senators among those charged
Three of the accused are former members of the FARC’s last secretariat, the group’s top leadership. That leadership reached a peace agreement with the government in 2016, which included the disarmament of its fighters.
Critics of the deal and its implementation argue that many people responsible for abuses have avoided accountability. Some fighters who rejected the agreement have since formed splinter groups that continue to take part in the conflict. The 2016 deal also gave the former rebels 10 seats in Colombia’s Congress to represent the FARC’s political interests.
One of the suspects charged on Tuesday was Julian Gallo, who served eight years as a senator under that arrangement. The JEP can only impose non-prison penalties. Last year, it sentenced seven ex-FARC members accused of kidnapping to eight years of reparations, including clearing landmines and helping to locate missing people. Separately, the tribunal ordered former military personnel to carry out reparation work over the killing and disappearance of civilians who were recorded as rebels in government files, a scandal known as the “false positives” affair.
Critics, however, warn that the tribunal’s existence is under threat. Colombia’s newly inaugurated far-right president, Abelardo de la Espriella, has been criticised for his stance toward the body. Allies of de la Espriella have proposed a cut of nearly 17 percent to the JEP’s funding for fiscal year 2027, and Congress is set to weigh the reduction this month. Before taking office in August, de la Espriella worked as a defence lawyer, in some cases representing right-wing paramilitaries. He has criticised the JEP for issuing what he considers lenient sentences.
