Guerrillas Dispense Their Own Brand of Justice in Colombia

A local rancher had tried for weeks to collect a $500 debt owed him for some cattle when the buyer knocked on his door late one night, anxious to pay the money.

Puzzled at the haste after so much delay, the rancher investigated and learned that his foreman had mentioned the debt to the guerrillas who control San Vicente del Caguan and four other jungle counties in this “no-fire” zone in southern Colombia. The rebels had called the debtor down to their headquarters and told him to pay up in two days or face a $500 fine on top of the money he owed.

That’s guerrilla justice: quick, crude and effective.

The no-fire zone--an area ceded to rebel control by the government in November as a prelude to peace talks--has provided a window onto the insurgents’ idea of how to run a justice system for civilians.

Now the recent announcement by the nation’s oldest and largest rebel movement that one of its own field commanders is being held in the no-fire zone and will be tried in the slayings of three Americans has placed a spotlight on the insurgents’ equivalent of military courts.

Americans Were Visiting Remote Area

The rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, have accused the commander of kidnapping and killing Ingrid Washinawatok, Laheenae Gay and Terence Freitas, who were found slain last month. The Americans had been visiting the U’wa Indians in a remote region of northeastern Colombia. Colombian intelligence alleges that the decision to kill them was made by higher-ranking commanders, and the government has issued an arrest warrant for German Bricenos, whose brother is on the seven-member rebel command council.

Human rights activists, who have criticized the military courts of the Colombian armed forces for failing to thoroughly investigate and punish crimes against civilians, worry that the guerrillas will be just as lax.

How the FARC conducts the commander’s trial, as the rebels continue to administer the no-fire zone, is expected to shape the international and domestic perception of an insurgent force that the U.S. government has labeled narco-terrorists.

Clearly, neither Colombian nor American authorities will be satisfied with any FARC trial. U.S. officials have demanded that the rebels turn over the accused.

“So-called revolutionary justice is just terrorist justice,” said a U.S. official who, like the rancher and many others interviewed, asked not to be identified.

“The FARC justice system is not credible,” said Augusto Ramirez Ocampo, a Colombian diplomat who was an advisor for peace talks in three Central American nations and is now playing a similar role at home. “They are going to have to do better than that.”

Still, diplomats and Colombians acknowledged privately that authorities can do little at present to arrest and prosecute a suspect in the slayings, although an elite armed forces unit was sent into the jungle early this month to search for a top commander blamed for the killings.

“The history of the FARC is that they have kidnapped people and managed to murder people with little criminal prosecution,” said the U.S. official. But he added: “The U.S. government does not forget these things. Even if it takes years, we still go after people who kidnap, torture and kill Americans.”

An Opportunity for Rebels to Shape Their Image

Meanwhile, representatives of the Colombian peace movement predict that attitudes toward the rebels will be shaped by how they proceed.

“This is an opportunity for them to conduct an exercise in justice in front of the whole world,” said Camilo Gonzalez Pozo, director of the Institute for the Study of Development and Peace in Bogota. “If they will not turn [the suspect] in, they must have an open process that permits international observers and show their intention of taking responsibility by offering compensation to the families of the victims.”

Public trials and compensation are not usually components of FARC justice.

The insurgent group has clearly defined statutes governing all aspects of a rebel’s life, said Commander Jairo, the guerrilla representative here. A rebel accused of violating that code is brought up on charges by the FARC high command, he said. Between 50 and 100 members of the accused person’s own front, the basic guerrilla unit, will judge him at an assembly.

The most serious crimes--being a traitor or infiltrator--usually bring the death penalty, according to Jairo. “We must eliminate the enemy wherever we find him,” he said.

Normally, however, discipline is aimed at educating more than punishing, he said. For example, a person caught with alcohol when or where it has been prohibited by the group will be told to write two pages explaining the problems that drinking causes and will be assigned to clean roads as punishment.

Harming or killing civilians can result in a month or two of performing community service, such as cleaning barns, Jairo said. The offender also might be told to fill a notebook with observations about the possible repercussions of such actions.

Rebel trials have not been opened to outsiders, and the FARC has given no indication that it will hold a public trial for the officer accused of killing the Americans. But there are no precedents for predicting what the rebels might do.

After all, the FARC has never before publicly acknowledged any responsibility for killing civilians--much less expressed regrets, as a spokesman did in this case.

“This has been a blow for them,” said Ramirez Ocampo, the diplomat.

The slayings of the Americans came at a time when peace talks have been stalled by the rebels’ demands that the government control the illegal private armies that routinely massacre suspected guerrilla sympathizers. If the Americans were slain without the knowledge of higher insurgent officials, as the rebels say, that raises questions about how much control the FARC negotiators have over the estimated 15,000 guerrillas across this country.

The killings also undercut the image of responsible citizenship that the FARC has been cultivating here since the army pulled out of the no-fire zone as part of an agreement between the rebels and the Colombian government to create a climate for peace talks. The no-fire agreement has been extended once and is set to expire May 7.

City hall still functions here, but police, prosecutors and judges have left. The streets are patrolled by 60 civilian police--half chosen by the mayor, half by the rebels--armed with two days of training and billy clubs. Rebels walk through the streets dressed in fatigues and carrying machine guns.

Jairo and his counterparts in rural areas administer civilian justice. Prisoners are held for a day or two in jail before being turned over to the guerrillas.

“We call the families to come visit them and convince them that they have made a mistake,” said Jairo, sitting under a poster of the late Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara in an office in the Culture Center where he receives visitors. “We mostly have domestic violence cases.”

Slayings Drop Dramatically

Local authorities and townspeople agree that slayings have dropped dramatically under the FARC and that a sense of civic duty has grown. The rebels also have vaccinated residents against yellow fever, a constant menace in jungle communities, and have begun to pave the streets, relying on donations and volunteer efforts.

Checkpoints at the three highways leading into town are almost friendly. The signs read: “Welcome to San Vicente, FARC-EP Roadblock,” with the EP referring to People’s Army, a suffix that the rebels tagged onto the organization’s name in the 1980s.

“The only one complaining about the no-fire zone is the undertaker,” joked one resident.

That is not completely true. Some Colombians inside and outside the no-fire zone are growing increasingly uncomfortable with guerrilla justice, which they say underscores the absence of the government in this area.

“People are afraid of expressing their opinions,” said one resident, speaking English and glancing around to be sure he was not overheard. “We are living in a Marxist-Leninist state.”

Noemi Sanin, leader of Colombia Yes, a movement for peaceful change that grew out of her unsuccessful 1998 presidential campaign, worries that the no-fire zone has given the Colombian government an excuse to avoid its responsibilities, even in a high-profile case such as the killings of the Americans.

“The Colombian state has the responsibility to pursue the guilty,” she said. “We cannot delegate justice to the FARC.”