Sexual abuse and rape. Permanent bad treatment. Psychological torture through false executions. Collecting ransom for corpses. Random plagiarism, even from pregnant women and children. Forced Labor Murders and disappearances.
These crimes against humanity against the victims of the Farc were documented by the JEP in the extensive file of Case 001, which first called on eight former members of the leadership to respond to the transitional justice system for the thousands of kidnappings carried out by those guerrillas. committed for more than two decades.
With a historic document gathering testimonials from victims and demobilized persons, investigations by the Public Prosecution Service and Justice and Peace, and reports from NGOs, the JEP marks the beginning of the trials against the highest officials of that armed organization who are under its jurisdiction subjected and they met peace.
(Further: A Journey to Hell: When the FARC Committed Political Suicide)
The magistrates reconstructed how the random kidnapping was a strategy ordered by the highest levels of the Farc as “part of a policy that turned people into things whose value was not in human dignity, but in the value of exchange for the money they had and which they could report to the organization.”
While the ex-commanders have assured in their defense that the statutes of that guerrilla group prohibit arbitrary “retentions” (sic) and mistreatment of prisoners, dozens of cases cited by the JEP in its 322-page report. So, say the magistrates, “ the central organization (the secretariat and joint chiefs of staff) focused on controlling spending, asking for budgets and detailed spending reports, and punishing those who mismanaged money and stole it, not in discipline. those who maltreated prisoners or made “mistakes” in the selection of victims. ”
The JEP calculations of the number of people kidnapped by the Farc has been at 21,396 since the 1980s. (the highest ever made by a Colombian authority). Of these, 1,860 have been reported as victims of enforced disappearance and a further 627 as murdered.
(In context: Kidnapping: One by one, crimes are attributed to 8 former FARC leaders)
What the Special Justice of the Peace says is that the task that all fronts had, anyway, was to obtain resources for the secretariat. “The Chamber determined, on the basis of the contrast of the sources, that the front commander made the decisions regarding the selection of the victim and the decisions regarding the treatment of the abducted persons, as well as the decisions regarding the selection of the people they would receive. goods. guarding, negotiating the release and the outcome of imprisonment ”.
And he adds, “The operation of the Farc gave these commanders great discretion in these matters, since the importance of the organization at the central level was in the money and not the way it was obtained.”
According to the document, abducted people were ‘negotiated’ on various fronts for common criminals, and the ‘fee’ was between 10 and 15 percent of the ransom received.
Raúl Medina Agudelo, a former head of the front line, said: “The secretariat never said to kidnap ten people, but instead it told me, you have to achieve the target set.”
The refusal to pay the ransom resulted in only one result: death, which in any case was “consulted at higher levels.” But information about the final destination of the body and subsequent contacts with the families remained in the hands of local chiefs. This led to new crimes.
“Another particularly serious modality set by the Chamber for this block (the Oriental) is the charge for the body,” the document says. (…) involved collecting the payment to get the body of his kidnapped and deceased relative. in captivity. ”That happened to the family of Rafael Moreno, who were asked 199.510 million pesos for the body.
(You may be interested in: Bertulfo Álvarez, former member of the FARC Secretariat, has passed away)
The file contains complaints of assault and abuse committed by guerrillas: “Of the 1,480 events reported by accredited victims, 38 contained explicit sexual assaults, with and without carnal access.”
Even former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt told the JEP that “she was the victim of touching and obscene gestures that were not punished but celebrated by the commanders.” She was also a victim “of blows to the head, with the calves of guns and fists on various parts of her body.” Other hostages reported that the guerrillas faked false executions to terrorize them.
Members of the Secretariat and General Staff are designated by the JEP as those most responsible for the crimes committed by the men under their command.
Was it kidnapping or hostage taking?
Controversy has arisen after the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) decision to change the name of case 01 from the title ‘Illegal detention of people by the Farc’ to ‘Taking hostages and other serious hardships of freedom ‘went. .
The decision, as interpreted by the magistracy of that jurisdiction, was made to establish the legal term for the crime of kidnapping in the light of international criminal law. However, some voices expressed their rejection.
“The JEP cannot downplay the seriousness of the Farc’s kidnapping and now call it ‘hostage taking and deprivation of liberty’, which is unheard of, as serious violations of human dignity took place,” he wrote on her Twitter. the Senator of the Democratic Center María del Rosario Guerra.
Senator Paloma Valencia said for her part, “Although it has been listed as a crime against humanity, I don’t like the name. They were racketeering kidnappings, earning the Farc more than $ 5 billion in family resources ”.
EL TIEMPO consulted with expert lawyers on the subject, who agreed that, contrary to criticism, the name “hostage taking” adds to the seriousness of these events. According to Juana Acosta, Professor of International Law at the University of La Sabana, the facts being analyzed refer to grave deprivation of liberty, traditionally classified under national law as kidnappings. However, he explains that when these behaviors include certain elements of the context, such as being systematic and / or generalized, or related to the armed conflict, “ they can and should be classified not as national crimes, but as international, war-related crimes. and criminal crimes. It harms humanity ”.
According to the lawyer, given the seriousness of these crimes, these crimes could be investigated by the International Criminal Court if not investigated by the states themselves and trigger the exercise of universal jurisdiction by states other than Colombia.
Along the same lines, Juan Felipe García, director of La Javeriana’s Philosophy and Legal History Department, assured that calling Case 01 instead of kidnapping “is not a reduction, but rather broadens the spectrum of behavior.”
Faced with the designation of this crime in the Justice and Peace system, for which the paramilitaries were demobilized, García assured that that jurisdiction was ‘limited to defining her allegations to the language of the Colombian legal system’, hence the term of kidnapping. “One of the lessons learned is that the JEP needed to be given competence to expand the legal framework. And it was extended to the language of international criminal law, ”said García.
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