The Chief of Mission of the United Nations in Colombia, Jean Arnault, this week called for the strengthening of FARC reincorporation, while denouncing the high levels of uncertainty surrounding the peace process. He also confirmed that the nine FARC leaders who have not reported their whereabouts have valid concerns over their physical and legal security, highlighting the fragility of the reincorporation process.¹ Iván Márquez and Óscar Montero (“El Paisa”), whose whereabouts are still unknown, wrote an open letter to the Congress’ Peace Commission this week to criticize the implementation of the Peace Accord with regards legal security following the capture of Jesús Santrich; modifications to its text and the implementation of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP); and the failure to fulfill aspects such as political reform, amnesty, the release of prisoners, land titles and rural dignity, and payments for former combatants’ productive projects.² Three former guerrilla leaders, who withheld their names, also requested that the International Inter-American Commission on Human Rights take precautionary measures to protect their legal rights,³ and Fabián Ramírez, until recently one of the missing FARC leaders, wrote to the National Protection Unit to request the return of two of his bodyguards.⁴

The Jesús Santrich case entered the news again this week when the Attorney General Martínez confirmed that he does not have audiovisual evidence to implicate him in drug trafficking, but that this information is now part of a legal process being carried out in the United States. This development may give force to claims of his innocence in a case which has created legal uncertainty for many former FARC combatants since his capture six months ago.⁵ Jhon León, member of the FARC political party, also denounced the lack of public defense for former FARC combatants coming before the JEP in cases 001 (illegal detentions)⁶ to 004 (violence in Antioquia and Chocó, opened on 25 September).⁷

On 30 September, the first 25 plots of land covering 66,540 ha reported as illegally-acquired assets by the FARC were entered in the cadaster for the reparation of victims of the armed conflict. In 2017, the FARC reported 722 plots of land covering over 240,000 ha, some of which fall within natural parks and indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities’ collective territories. Of the 722 plots, 299 now have at least one coordinate, and of these 90 have been identified.⁸

Concerns over the future of Development Plans with a Territorial and Ethnic Approach (PDET) were raised on 1 October, responding to the lack of technical, financial, and legal clarity for their implementation. The PDET were created by the Peace Accord as part of reparations efforts for 170 municipalities directly affected by the armed conflict. To date, nine of the 16 PDET areas have reached the sub-regional level of organization, and the Territorial Renovation Agency (ART) aims to complete the rest by the end of the year before structuring each action plan. However, there are as yet no resources or official route defined for this next phase.⁹

The FARC announced that they will share georeferenced information on the whereabouts of 182 victims of forced disappearance, building on the information on 33 victims already delivered to the International Red Cross. According to the National Center of Historical Memory (CNMH), there were almost 83,000 victims of forced disappearance during the armed conflict.¹⁰