Colombian FARC rebel leaders must do eight years’ reparation work for kidnappings

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By Julia Symmes Cobb

BOGOTA (Reuters) – A special Colombian court created under a 2016 peace deal on Thursday gave seven former rebel leaders from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia a maximum sentence of eight years’ reparations work for their role in kidnappings for ransom.

The FARC secretariat members’ sentences were the first individual punishments by the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, which is trying leaders from both the rebels and the military over war crimes and crimes against humanity.

“For more than five decades, the past governed our present. Today, we break that cycle,” JEP president Alejandro Ramelli told journalists before the decision was read.

Those sentenced were the FARC’s former top leader Rodrigo Londono, known as Timochenko, and other secretariat members Pablo Catatumbo, Pastor Alape, Milton de Jesus Toncel, Jaime Alberto Parra, Julian Gallo Cubillos and Rodrigo Granda.

Reparations sentences must include victim participation and can range from building roads and planting trees to assisting the removal of landmines and the search for disappeared people.

Magistrate Camilo Suarez read a summary of the 663-page sentence, flanked by four other judges, after acknowledging the more than 4,000 kidnapping victims who participated in the case.

“This sentence does not erase the suffering. But it is an act of recognition, it is the voice that recognizes to Colombian society and the world that what happened was unjustifiable and inhumane,” Suarez said.

During the hearing, the men accepted responsibility for the policy and for not controlling treatment of captives by their subordinates. More than 400 other former rebels also gave testimony about the practice, the court said.

The FARC, 13,000 members of which demobilized under the peace deal, practiced kidnapping for ransom for decades, targeting civilians, soldiers and even presidential candidates.

The kidnappings were used to raise funds as well as exert political pressure.

TENS OF THOUSANDS KIDNAPPED

The FARC’s political successor, the Comunes political party, said on X that its commitment to peace and victims’ dignity had been proven.

“The final secretariat of the FARC-EP has honored their word and will continue to do so, with contributions to truth and actions of reparations,” it said.

Two of the men – Catatumbo and Gallo – are serving senators in seats temporarily granted to Comunes under the peace deal.

A truth commission set up as part of the peace deal said 50,770 people were documented as kidnapped between 1990 and 2018, with the real figure probably closer to 80,000.

The FARC committed most kidnappings, 40%, the commission said, with right-wing paramilitary groups and the National Liberation Army (ELN) rebels also taking people.

Many victims were further mistreated, including through sexual abuse, forced work and being chained to trees. Most were ransomed or rescued, but 2,000 never came home and are now considered disappeared.

Most FARC members were given amnesty in the peace deal, but leaders are required to participate in the JEP’s investigations to determine potential responsibility for crimes.

Those who tell the whole truth about their actions can be sentenced to reparations work for between five and eight years, while those whom the JEP finds did not fully commit to the process can be given regular jail terms of 20 years.

Some former combatants have already begun to participate in reparations, working alongside former soldiers, which will be counted toward whatever sentences they may face.

The JEP is investigating war crimes through eleven cases, including ones focused on sexual violence and child recruitment.

On Thursday the court will issue its first individual sentences for ex-soldiers involved in so-called “false positives” when civilians were killed and reported as rebels, earning army members benefits like promotions and time off.

The half-century conflict killed at least 450,000 people.

(Reporting by Julia Symmes Cobb; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)