Colombia peace tribunal charges ex-FARC members with anti-Indigenous crimes

The former rebels are accused of abuses such as torture, murder and the displacement of Indigenous leaders during Colombia’s civil conflict.

Colombia’s transitional justice system, established to address crimes committed during the country’s decades-long civil conflict, has indicted several former members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), formerly the country’s largest rebel group.

The Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), the transitional justice tribunal, said that the accused had carried out crimes of torture, murder and forced displacement against five Indigenous groups in southeast Colombia.

She explained that FARC commanders had ordered subordinates to plant landmines on Indigenous territory and ruin ecosystems the tribes relied on for survival.

The indictment is the latest example of Colombia’s efforts to reckon with the abuses and violence of a civil conflict that lasted for more than half a century, resulting in severe rights abuses.

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. An additional 121,768 people were forcibly disappeared.

“For the first time, the Colombian state recognises that [armed groups] did not just kill individuals,” said Yhon Jairo Figueroa, a leader of the Koreguaje tribe. “But they attempted to kill the knowledge, the language, the territory.”

Critics of the deal and its implementation say that many of those responsible for abuses have escaped accountability. Some FARC fighters who refused to accept the agreement have since formed splinter groups that continue to fight in the conflict.

One of the suspects indicted Tuesday was Julian Gallo, who served eight years as a senator under that deal.

Separately, JEP also sentenced former military members to reparation work for their involvement in the killing and disappearances of civilians, who were then tallied as rebels in government records. Those systemic misrepresentations became known as the “false positives” scandal.