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.
A group of 10 ex-rebels were charged on Tuesday with alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity between 1996 and 2016.
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.
“Today we are delivering justice to the most forgotten peoples of a segregated Colombia,” JEP magistrate Catalina Diaz said.
She explained that FARC commanders had ordered subordinates to plant landmines on Indigenous territory and ruin ecosystems the tribes relied on for survival.
“These people have had their basic right to exist compromised,” Diaz added.
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.
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