Colombia’s peace tribunal chief warns government cuts could trigger International Criminal Court scrutiny

In Aeschylus’ Oresteia, Orestes kills his mother to avenge his father, whom his mother had murdered after he sacrificed their daughter. The Furies, goddesses of vengeance, pursue Orestes until Athena establishes a court to put him on trial, breaking the cycle of retribution.Last week, Danilo Rojas Betancourth, 65, chose this myth for his inaugural speech as president of Colombia’s Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), the tribunal established under the 2016 peace agreement between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the now-defunct guerrilla group. For him, this is the ultimate purpose of justice: to put an end to vengeance.But he takes office at the worst possible moment for the institution. The government of Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella has cut its budget by 170 billion pesos (around $52 million), forcing the JEP to leave its headquarters, move to remote working and scale back protection for victims, witnesses and judges. Meanwhile, a constitutional reform bill is making its way through Congress that would shut the tribunal down in 2028.Who are the Furies today? The judge, a former president of Colombia’s Council of State, prefers not to name them. “I wish I knew who was behind it.”Question. You have been chosen to lead a jurisdiction that the government has effectively marked for closure. Are you here to run the JEP or to manage its winding down?Answer. Both. The JEP is already beginning to plan for its closure. It has resolved nearly 1,000 amnesty cases involving former guerrilla fighters and granted 1,070 decisions not to prosecute members of the military. By December 15, it will have issued its final indictments in the 11 major cases it is investigating. Next year, those indicted will decide whether or not to acknowledge responsibility. Those who do will face trials resulting in restorative sanctions. Those who do not will go to trial and could face prison sentences of up to 20 years.Q. Can the JEP function with a budget cut of 170 billion pesos and 85% fewer contracts?A. It is the most devastating blow the JEP has received in all these years. It forces us to undertake a complete restructuring. We will vacate these premises in March, with remote working becoming the norm and staff working on a rotating basis. We will have to scale back activities that were very important for victims. We have to change strategy.Q. Did you expect such an aggressive assault?A. No, of course not. But the JEP has a longstanding legitimacy problem, because the peace agreement lost the referendum. It was much like Brexit: it was close, but it lost. Since then, anything that happens at the JEP is accepted by half the country and resented by the other half.Q. Is there an element of revenge in this offensive — in the budget cuts and the attempts to undermine the JEP’s legitimacy?A. I don’t know whether revenge is the right word, but there has been a merciless ad hominem attack: the focus has been more on the person than on the arguments. My colleagues have been subjected to attacks that are false and malicious. The dignity of many people here has been undermined.Q. Who is behind it?A. I wish I knew. Some politicians have spoken out about it, but it’s very hard to know who might be behind it.Q. The budget cuts affect security arrangements for the judges themselves, who are also targets of these attacks, as well as for victims, witnesses and those appearing before the JEP. How many people will lose their protection?A. We are talking about almost 250 people whose security arrangements will have to be scaled back and reassessed. I don’t think they will be left without protection altogether; that would be very risky. I have repeatedly told the government that it must take responsibility for this. Q. Almost 10 years on, there have been just two rulings. Was the JEP too ambitious?A. I acknowledge that it was. In its effort to ensure that no one escaped justice, the JEP took on a broader remit. In my view, it could have been somewhat narrower. But when you reduce the number of people under investigation, you increase the scope for impunity. Our two rulings — on kidnapping and false positives [civilians killed by Colombian military personnel and falsely reported as guerrillas killed in combat] — cover an enormous number of incidents: the kidnapping ruling alone covers 21,000. It is not a ruling on a single case, but on thousands. There have also been decisions that are equivalent in substance to rulings, even if they are not formally called that: the 1,000 amnesties and the 1,070 decisions not to prosecute.Q. With today’s perspective, what would you have done differently?A. I would have opened only four cases: the FARC case, the security forces case, the case of civilians involved in the war and the case of state agents such as congresspeople, governors and mayors. Those appearing before the JEP and the victims would not have had to attend different cases, but just one. But the qualitative aspects are harder to measure. This process produces genuine reconciliation. Admitting responsibility is not easy. Doing so in front of a victim, in relation to serious harm inflicted on them, is immensely valuable.Q. What do you say to those who believe that planting trees or painting a mural is not a punishment enough for crimes such as kidnapping and false positives?A. The JEP did not invent these sanctions; they were established in the peace agreement. No state can bring every perpetrator of mass harm to justice, so a transitional arrangement has to be agreed: a small number are tried, and they answer for all the crimes. That is what could happen in Ukraine or Gaza when the time comes to establish accountability. Here, the decision was: no prison, but a sanction that restricts freedom and restores lives. What is sometimes so readily dismissed — a mural, a tree-planting project, a mine-clearance operation — is very transformative for the victim, because that is the kind of sanction they asked for.Q. Do all victims see it that way?A. No, and that is entirely understandable. There are victims who have every right to say: “What I want is for this person to rot in prison.”Q. Some of your colleagues argue that the real aim of shortening the JEP’s mandate is to prevent the trials of the 29 military officers who refused to acknowledge their crimes, almost all of them generals. Do you share that view?A. There is a group of generals who did not admit responsibility, and our small prosecution office has until March 14, 2028, to charge them. I would seriously doubt that this project seeks to obstruct that, because doing so would mean empowering the ordinary justice system and changing everything the peace agreement set out to achieve. And if charges could not be brought because the timeframe had been cut short, the International Criminal Court’s preliminary examination could be reopened. That is a risk.Q. The JEP is constitutionally guaranteed to remain in place until 2033. If Congress passes the bill, will you take the matter to the Constitutional Court?A. I would hope it would not have to reach the Constitutional Court, that Congress would stop the process. A law that shortens the timeframe and changes the court with jurisdiction over the cases is not consistent with the peace agreement. But if it passes, I am in favor of going to the Constitutional Court.Q. And would you appeal to international bodies, even if that put a strain on relations with the government?A. Scrutiny by the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court will be unavoidable. The government of Iván Duque signed a cooperation agreement with the ICC prosecutor that expressly states that the JEP’s budget must not be affected and that its legal framework must not be changed. That is precisely what has been done in budgetary terms and what they are now seeking to do in legal terms.Q. Anyone looking at Colombia today would see anything but the end of a war. Where are we now?A. The FARC disappeared. There has not been a single attack by that guerrilla movement in 10 years. Dissident groups, deserters and criminal groups such as the Clan del Golfo remain, which have gained ground because the state failed to take control of those areas. It is a new war, but completely different from the one waged by the FARC, which did aspire to seize power.Q. Will the government’s hard-line approach to bringing armed groups under its authority work?A. I hope it works. But the bill on the submission of armed groups to justice draws heavily on the restorative justice system, which is our area of expertise. It does not provide for prison sentences behind bars, but rather detention in agricultural colonies, and it sets conditions requiring perpetrators to tell the truth and help locate the disappeared.Q. Colombia’s ambassador to the United Nations, Mauricio Gaona, said the peace agreement is not a model for the world. Was it necessary to go that far?A. Gaona was simply doing what his role requires, in line with the government. All the countries that intervened before were generous, including the United States. The discrepancy is glaring.Q. Are you concerned that, when the JEP closes, its legacy may not be what you hoped for?A. Over time, it will become clearer. It seems we may need to go through another experience for people to see how well we did things here. The victims were treated very well: not only did they take part in the process, but the psychosocial support provided to people who had suffered so much was also very important. And I am convinced that this model can be useful beyond Colombia. There are heads of state responsible for mass atrocities who will never go to prison. When they operate at that level, a way forward has to be found. And that way forward is: no prison, but they must accept responsibility. Accepting responsibility is not easy.Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition