Colombia’s largest rebel group, the FARC, has surrendered the identities of some 1,500 members who are not part of the Marxist group’s guerrilla forces.
The list of militia members, who carry our rebel activities from home, should have been surrendered in December already.
According to the country’s Peace Commissioner, the FARC has now registered 6,804 guerrillas and 1,541 militia members.
The list if only the first of two the guerrillas vowed to surrender.
While president Juan Manuel Santos last year said that the group could demobilize some 10,000 militia members, Peace Commissioner Sergio Jaramillo said the total number of registered FARC militia members could end up around 3,000.
The vast majority of these militia members are obligated by the guerrilla group’s peace deal to register their demobilization and disarm, but are not expected to stay inside the ZVTN camps, many of which are far from equipped to shelter demobilized FARC members.
The demobilization and disarmament of the FARC has been marred by chaos as the government seems unable or unwilling to construct the so-called ZVTN camps that are supposed to shelter the FARC members while their judicial situation is resolved.
While many can count on being pardoned, those accused of grave human rights violations will have to appear before both a transitional justice tribunal and a truth commission.
These two bodies are currently set up in an attempt to offer justice to the approximately 8 million victims left by the multi-party armed conflict in 1964.
Some 24,400 state officials who are either convicted for or charged with war crimes are also invited to take part in the justice system that offers reduced sentences to those telling the truth and compensating their victims.
The system is fiercely opposed by hard-right former President Alvaro Uribe, accused of several war crimes, who has called the transitional justice system a “terrorist court.”
