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Colombia's peace tribunal charges 10 former FARC members over crimes against Indigenous peoples
Those charged include former senator Julian Gallo and three members of the rebels' last secretariat. The tribunal faces a proposed budget cut from allies of the new president.
Key points
- The Special Jurisdiction for Peace charged 10 former FARC members with war crimes and crimes against humanity.
- The charges cover torture, murder and forced displacement of five Indigenous groups in southeast Colombia from 1996 to 2016.
- Allies of President Abelardo de la Espriella have proposed cutting the tribunal's 2027 budget by nearly 17%.
Colombia’s transitional justice tribunal on Tuesday charged 10 former members of the FARC guerrilla group with war crimes and crimes against humanity committed against Indigenous peoples during the country’s long civil conflict.
The Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), set up under the 2016 peace deal, accused them of torture, murder and forced displacement of five Indigenous groups in southeast Colombia between 1996 and 2016. It said commanders ordered fighters to plant landmines on Indigenous land and to damage the ecosystems the communities depended on.
Those charged include Julian Gallo, who served eight years as a senator under the peace agreement, and three members of the FARC’s last secretariat.
“Today we are delivering justice to the most forgotten peoples of a segregated Colombia,” said JEP magistrate Catalina Diaz. “These people have had their basic right to exist compromised.”
“They attempted to kill the knowledge”
Yhon Jairo Figueroa, a leader of the Koreguaje people, said the case went beyond individual killings. “For the first time, the Colombian state recognises that [armed groups] did not just kill individuals,” he said. “But they attempted to kill the knowledge, the language, the territory.”
Rebels, state forces, right-wing paramilitaries and criminal networks have fought in Colombia since the 1960s. A 2022 Truth Commission report counted 450,664 people killed between 1985 and 2018 and 121,768 forcibly disappeared. Indigenous communities and activists still face violent attacks.
A court under pressure
The JEP can only hand down non-prison penalties. In September 2025 it sentenced seven former FARC leaders to eight years of reparation work, including clearing landmines and helping find missing people, for kidnapping. It has given former soldiers similar sentences over the “false positives” scandal, in which civilians were killed and recorded as rebels.
President Abelardo de la Espriella, a far-right former defence lawyer who took office in August, has criticised the tribunal for lenient sentences. His allies have proposed cutting its 2027 budget by nearly 17%, and Congress is due to consider the cut this month.