Sexual abuse and rape. Permanent ill-treatment. Psychological torture through false executions. Redemption collection for corpses. Plagiarism without discrimination, even from pregnant women and children. Forced labor Murders and disappearances.
These crimes against humanity against the victims of the FARC were documented by JEP in the extended file of case 001, which for the first time brought eight former members of the leadership to justice for the transitional justice for the thousands of kidnappings committed by that guerrilla for more than two decades.
With a historical document that collects testimonies of victims and demobilized persons, investigations of the Prosecutor’s Office and Justice and Peace and reports of NGOs, JEP marks the beginning of trials against the highest officials of that armed organization who submitted to its jurisdiction and respected peace.
(Further: A trip to hell: when the FARC committed political suicide)
Magistrates rebuilt how non-discrimination abduction was a strategy ordered from the highest levels of the FARC as “part of a policy that has transformed human beings into things whose value does not lie in human dignity, but in the value of the exchange for the money they had and could report to the organization.”
Although the former commanders claimed in their defense that the statutes of that guerrilla group prohibited non-discriminatory “detention” (sic) and ill-treatment of captives, dozens of cases referred to by JEP in its 322-page report show otherwise. Thus, say the magistrates, “the central organization (the secretariat and the mixed chiefs of staff) focused on controlling expenditures, requesting budgets and detailed reports of expenditures and punishing those who mismanaged money and stole it, not disciplining those who they mistreated the captives or made “mistakes” in choosing the victims.
JEP calculations of the number of people abducted by the FARC reach 21,396 since the 1980s. (the highest ever achieved by a Colombian authority). Of these, 1,860 are reported victims of enforced disappearance and another 627 are killed.
(In context: Kidnapping: one by one, the crimes attributed to 8 former FARC leaders)
What the Special Justice for Peace says is that the order on all fronts was the same, no matter how resources were obtained for the secretariat. “The Chamber established, based on the contrast of sources, that the front commander made decisions on the selection of the victim and decisions on the treatment of abductees, as well as decisions on the choice of guardians, negotiating releases and the outcome of captivity.”
He added: “The FARC operation gave these commanders great discretion in these matters, as the interest of the organization at the central level was in the money and not in the way it was obtained.”
According to the document, several fronts used to “negotiate” the abductees for ordinary criminals, and the “fee” was between 10 and 15 percent of the ransom obtained.
Raúl Medina Agudelo, former head of the front line, emphasized: “The secretariat never said to kidnap 10 people, but instead told me: we must achieve the set goal.
The refusal to pay the ransom led to only one result: death, which in any case was “consulted at higher levels.” But information on the final disposition of the body and subsequent contacts with families remained in the hands of local chiefs. This has given rise to new crimes.
“Another particularly serious way identified by the Chamber for this block (the Oriental) is the taxation for the corpse,” the document says. (…) related to the collection of the payment for the recovery of the body of his kidnapped and deceased relative in captivity “. This happened to the family of Rafael Moreno, who was asked for 199.510 million pesos for the body.
(You may be interested in: Bertulfo Álvarez, a former member of the FARC secretariat, has died)
The file collects guerrilla abuse and abuse complaints: “Of the 1,480 incidents reported by accredited victims, 38 explicitly include sexual violence, with and without carnal access.”
Even former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt reported to JEP that “she was the victim of touching and obscene gestures that were not punished, but celebrated by commanders.” He was also the victim of “blows to the head, buttocks and fists in different parts of the body.” Other hostages reported that, in order to terrorize them, the guerrillas forged fake executions.
The members of the secretariat and the General Staff are designated by JEP as the most responsible for the crimes committed by the men under their command.
Was it kidnapping or hostage-taking?
There has been controversy following the decision of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) to change the name of case 01, which went from being called “Illegal Detention of People by the FARC” to “Taking Hostages and Other Serious Deprivations of Liberty.”
The decision, as explained by the judiciary of that jurisdiction, was given by the establishment of the legal deadline for the crime of abduction in the light of international criminal law. However, some voices expressed rejection.
“JEP cannot downplay the seriousness of what the FARC was abducted, now calling it ‘hostage-taking and deprivation of liberty,’ which is unheard of when serious human dignity violations have taken place,” he wrote on Twitter senator of the Democratic Center María del Rosario Guerra.
For her part, Senator Paloma Valencia said: “Although it is included as a crime against humanity, I do not like the name. There were extortionate kidnappings, with which the FARC made over 5 billion dollars in family resources “.
EL TIEMPO consulted with expert lawyers on the subject, who agreed that, contrary to criticism, the name “hostage-taking” increases the gravity of these events. For Juana Acosta, a professor of international law at the University of La Sabana, the facts that are analyzed refer to the serious deprivation of liberty, which in national law has traditionally been classified as kidnapping. However, he explains, when these behaviors include certain contextual elements, such as systematic and / or generalized, or are related to armed conflict, “they can and should be classified, not as national crimes, but as international, criminal offenses. Humanity hurts. “
According to the lawyer, given the seriousness of these crimes, if they are not investigated by the states themselves, they could be investigated by the International Criminal Court and could activate the exercise of universal jurisdiction by states other than Colombia.
Similarly, Juan Felipe García, director of the philosophy and history of law department in La Javeriana, said that naming case 01 hostage-taking instead of kidnapping “is not a reduction, but rather broadens the spectrum of conduct.”
Faced with the name of this crime in the Justice and Peace system, for which the paramilitaries were demobilized, García said that the jurisdiction “had the limitation of the limitation of its accusations to the language of the Colombian legal system”, for this reason the term of abduction. “One of the lessons learned is that the JEP must have competence so that the legal framework is extended. And it has been extended to the language of international criminal law, “said Garcia.
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