SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
In Colombia, a special war crimes tribunal has found former guerrilla leaders guilty of carrying out mass kidnappings during the country's civil war. But as John Otis reports, many Colombians say the tribunal has been far too lenient.
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CAMILO SUAREZ: (Speaking Spanish).
JOHN OTIS, BYLINE: On Tuesday, Tribunal Judge Camilo Suarez ruled against seven former leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a now-defunct guerrilla group known as the FARC. They were found guilty of kidnapping more than 21,000 people. Most were abducted to secure ransom payments that helped fund the FARC's war machine. Hostages were tortured, sexually abused, chained to trees and led on forced marches through the jungle. Some died of tropical diseases.
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SUAREZ: (Speaking Spanish).
OTIS: Judge Suarez said, "this sentence does not erase the suffering, but it recognizes that what happened was unjustifiable and inhumane."
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SUAREZ: (Speaking Spanish).
OTIS: He ordered the former rebels to spend the next eight years doing restorative social work, like helping to locate the bodies of missing people and removing land mines. What the sentence does not include is any prison time for the rebels. That was a key rebel demand in exchange for signing a 2016 treaty that ended much of the fighting. However, Juanita Goebertus, who heads the Americas division of Human Rights Watch, points out that the peace treaty does call for at least some restrictions on the liberty of rebel leaders who are found guilty of war crimes.
JUANITA GOEBERTUS: Colombians have been waiting since the peace agreement to learn what that effective restriction of liberty will actually look like.
OTIS: But the war crimes tribunal ignored this provision. Thus, guilty rebel leaders remain free to move about the country, and many of their victims are outraged.
CESAR LASSO: (Speaking Spanish).
OTIS: Among them is Cesar Lasso, a former Colombian police sergeant, who was held hostage in the jungle for 13 years.
LASSO: (Speaking Spanish).
OTIS: He says the court's ruling leaves a bad taste in the mouths of guerrilla victims. It sends a message that crime pays. What's more, the soft sentences to ex-guerrillas - several of whom now serve in Colombia's congress - infuriate fans of Alvaro Uribe, a former Colombian president. Uribe is revered by many Colombians for waging a military offensive that weakened the guerrillas and helped convince them to make peace. But in a separate case, Uribe was found guilty by a regular court of bribing witnesses. Last month, he was sentenced to 12 years of house arrest.
PALOMA VALENCIA: What we are seeing in Colombia is that criminals go to Congress, and people who work - like President Uribe - for the country are being prosecuted.
OTIS: Paloma Valencia, a Colombian senator and member of Uribe's right-wing political party.
VALENCIA: That's why Colombia is really an upside-down country at this point.
OTIS: But another former Colombian president, Juan Manuel Santos, takes a different view.
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JUAN MANUEL SANTOS: (Speaking Spanish).
OTIS: Santos received the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating the peace treaty with the FARC. Speaking on Colombian TV, he said the peace process has led to real progress.
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SANTOS: (Speaking Spanish).
OTIS: "The FARC has stopped kidnapping and committing other crimes," Santos said. "If they were still fighting, Colombia would be much worse off." For NPR News, I'm John Otis in Bogota, Colombia. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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