Bogotá (EFE).- The Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) of Colombia announced this Friday the first indictments against middle managers of the extinct FARC, accusing 10 ex-guerrillas of war crimes and crimes against humanity for being the most responsible for kidnapping and crimes derivatives in the center of the country.
These accusations occur in macro case 01, which studies the kidnappings by the guerrilla movement and for which the entire last leadership of the guerrilla has already been accused.
It is the first of seven regional accusations and mainly concerns the Central Joint Command (CCC), which operated in the departments of Tolima, Huila and Quindío (central-southern Colombia).
Crimes against humanity and the horror of war
The ten defendants are charged with “war crimes of hostage-taking, homicide, attacks on personal dignity, cruel and inhuman treatment and crimes against humanity of other serious deprivations of liberty such as murder, forced disappearance, slavery, violence sexual violence, torture and other inhumane acts”, indicated the JEP.
They are former members of the CCC Luis Eduardo Rayo, known as “Marlon”; Enoc Capera Trujillo, “Giovanni”; Jhon Jairo Oliveros Grisales, “Armando Pipas”; Nelson Antonio Jimenez Gantiva, “Gonzalo”; Edgar Ramírez Medina, “Onofre Camargo”; Víctor Hugo Silva, “Erick” or “El Chivo”; Raúl Agudelo Medina, “Olivo Saldaña”, and Wilson Ramírez Guzmán, known as “Teófilo”.
In addition, Álvaro Henner López, known as “JJ” or “Jhon Jairo Paz Guevara”, and Gustavo Bocanegra Ortegón, “Donald”, were accused of being most responsible for kidnappings in the center of the country, although they did not command the CCC.
“The JEP determined that they are most responsible for their leadership and that they held command over the six fronts, three columns and three companies, in addition to the Financial Commissions Manuelita Sáenz and Political René González,” said the magistrate of the JEP in a press conference. JEP Juliet Lemaitre.
These people were in charge of “materializing” the policies drawn up by the FARC Secretariat regarding the kidnapping, which served to finance the former guerrillas, force the exchange of imprisoned guerrillas and as territorial control, according to the JEP, created by the 2016 peace agreement.
The FARC and its CCC
The CCC once had 1,180 members, but it was the smallest regional structure of the FARC and carried out, proportionally, the fewest cases of kidnappings.
Of the 5,219 registered kidnapping victims, 111 correspond to this structure, that is, 2%, but the JEP considers that the CCC “played an important role in the way in which the extinct guerrilla adopted the policy of financing itself through the kidnappings”.
Its importance lies in the fact that the Manuelita Sáenz Financial Commission was integrated into the CCC, which “created a complex financing system through extortion ‘payrolls’ focused on sectors of the region” such as rice, coffee, oil or taxes. to beer and gasoline, explained the magistrate.
“Thus, in the absence of other sources of financing, it was through extortion and kidnapping that they sought to finance the troops, military operations, and send a fee to the Secretariat,” Lemaitre alleged.
Seek peace with justice
The JEP was created to judge collective crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the Colombian armed conflict with the FARC, for this reason it offers non-restrictive sentences in exchange for the defendants providing the truth and restorative sentences with the victims.
For this reason, the defendants must now acknowledge their responsibility for these crimes in the next 30 days, and then participate in hearings to provide “full, detailed, and exhaustive truth, and to make reparations to the victims.”
Once the JEP and the victims consider that they have provided that truth, they may receive their own sanction and if they do not, they will be sent to the accusation chamber of the Jurisdiction and could face a trial and be subject to prison sentences of up to 20 years in prison. .