Amid the crisis it is facing due to the decision by the government of Abelardo de la Espriella to impose a major budget cut, the Truth Recognition Chamber of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) attributed responsibility to 10 former commanders of the Southern and Eastern blocs of the former FARC for crimes committed against Indigenous peoples and territories in the Colombian Amazon and Orinoquia regions.
The decision was announced on Oct. 12, within the framework of the Day of Ethnic and Cultural Diversity of the Colombian Nation, as part of the Amazon and Orinoquia Subcase of Case 09, which investigates non-amnestiable crimes committed against ethnic peoples and territories during the conflict. The investigation concluded that these crimes directly affected the Nukak Baka, Korebaju or Koreguaje, Siona or Zio Bain, Hitnu and Jiw Indigenous peoples, as well as their territories, located in the Amazon and Orinoquia regions.
With this decision, which emphasizes that the harm extended to the collective dimension of these communities, affecting their ways of life, spirituality and relationship with the environment, the 10 participants identified as the highest-ranking individuals responsible for these crimes are called upon to publicly acknowledge their responsibility before the victims, the justice system, the special Indigenous jurisdiction and the country.
Names and aliases of the 10 individuals responsible for the crimes
Following an extensive process of judicial corroboration, the Truth Recognition Chamber found sufficient grounds to attribute responsibility for these serious crimes to 10 members of the Southern and Eastern blocs of the FARC. None of them had been investigated by the ordinary justice system for the events addressed in this decision.
The chamber called on three members of the last FARC Secretariat to acknowledge their responsibility, but in their capacity as former members of the senior command structures of the Southern and Eastern blocs: Milton de Jesus Toncel Arredondo (‘Joaquin Gomez’), Jaime Alberto Parra Rodriguez (‘El Medico’) and Julian Gallo Cubillos (‘Carlos Antonio Lozada’).
It also called on Elmer Caviedes (‘Albeiro Cordoba’), a former member of the Eastern Bloc’s senior command, as well as members of the Southern Bloc’s senior command Fabián Ramirez Cabrera (‘Fabian Ramirez’), Floresmiro Burbano (‘Martin Corena’), Dario Lee Diaz (‘Robledo’) and Luis Enrique Montes (‘Euclides Bermudez’).
Likewise, it called on members of the senior command of Front 48, attached to the Southern Bloc of the FARC, Gustavo Cuellar Pajoy (‘Manuel Politico’) and Liberman Imbachi Chilito (‘Norbey Ramirez’), to acknowledge their responsibility.
The JEP attributed responsibility to the participants as indirect co-perpetrators through organized power structures and, in the case of some of them, command responsibility for acts of torture. This included failing to exercise effective control over their subordinates and failing to prevent, stop or punish crimes perpetrated by the structures under their command.
According to the JEP, the crimes attributed to the 10 former FARC commanders constitute crimes against humanity, including extermination, murder, enforced disappearance, forcible transfer, torture and persecution, as well as war crimes related to killings, forced displacement, the use of antipersonnel mines and damage to the natural environment.
Two patterns and four forms of criminal activity
These acts were committed through two macro-criminal patterns. The first involved using their armed presence to exercise social and territorial control over five Indigenous peoples, harming their forms of self-government and worldviews. The purpose of this conduct was to restrict efforts to defend and claim the collective and individual rights of Indigenous peoples, as the guerrilla organization considered them contrary to its strategic, political and military interests.
For this reason, the JEP’s decision includes crimes against the physical, cultural, spiritual and territorial survival of these peoples, directly related to the destruction of the ancestral, sacred and collective territories of ethnic communities. These crimes were carried out through two forms of criminal activity. The first involved accusing Indigenous governors, chiefs, knowledge keepers, traditional healers, teachers or ethno-educators, as well as Indigenous community leaders who opposed FARC interests, of collaborating with the enemy.
As a result, they became victims of targeted killings, massacres, torture, persecution, enforced disappearances and forced displacement. The second form involved the elimination or expulsion from their territories of Indigenous people accused of being collaborators, informants or allies of enemy groups. This also led to so-called ‘executions’ that resulted in killings, enforced disappearances and forced displacement.
The second macro-criminal pattern involved crimes committed against Indigenous peoples in the context of hostilities. Conduct, attacks and actions carried out amid the armed confrontation profoundly affected the physical, cultural, spiritual and territorial integrity of Indigenous peoples in the Amazon and Orinoquia regions, also through two forms of criminal activity.
The first was the use of antipersonnel mines by structures belonging to the Southern and Eastern blocs in territories inhabited and traversed by Indigenous communities. These mines caused deaths, permanent injuries, confinement, displacement and restrictions on activities essential to their subsistence, such as fishing and hunting.
This also affected mobility within their ancestral territories. These harms had particularly serious consequences for communities whose survival depends on their close relationship with their territories and ecosystems.
The second form within this pattern consisted of bombings and attacks that disproportionately affected Indigenous peoples living in areas where the FARC had influence, as well as their territories. These actions had direct consequences for the environment and the communities’ ways of life. Among these events, investigators documented pipeline bombings that caused oil spills and fires, contaminating rivers and destroying the natural environment and sacred sites belonging to these communities.
The investigation focused on events that occurred between 1996 and 2016 in the territories of the Amazon and Orinoquia regions, using a model based on corroborating sources. One of the sources considered was reports produced by Indigenous peoples’ own organizations, including their safeguard and life plans. Reports from human rights organizations, the Office of the Ombudsman and the Truth Commission were also analyzed.
Likewise, case files from the ordinary justice system and the Office of the Attorney General were analyzed. The investigation also examined the collective and individual voluntary statements of participants from the Southern and Eastern blocs of the FARC, as well as observations made by victims and the Public Ministry regarding statements by former members of the defunct guerrilla organization.
Through this corroboration of sources, the JEP established that 598 of the victimization incidents recorded against Indigenous peoples corresponded to events attributed to the Southern Bloc and 536 to the Eastern Bloc. A total of 1,134 victimization incidents against these Indigenous peoples were recorded.