Colombia's JEP charges ex-FARC for structural violence against Indigenous peoples, exposing transitional justice's colonial blind spots
Original framing: “Colombia peace tribunal charges ex-FARC members with anti-Indigenous crimes” — bing news
The Nasa people's 'Ley de Origen' (Law of Origin) mandates that justice restores harmony with territory, not merely punishes individuals. FARC's recruitment of Indigenous youth violated the 'Minga' — collective labor for communal survival — while their assassinations of 'Kiwe Thegnas' (territorial guardians) severed intergenerational knowledge transmission. The JEP's Western adversarial process cannot adjudicate spiritual harm to 'Madre Tierra'; only Indigenous jurisdictions can. The 2021 JEP Auto 265 recognized this but implementation remains colonial.
This charging decision exposes the central paradox of Colombia's transitional justice: it prosecutes the symptom (FARC's anti-Indigenous violence) while protecting the cause (the extractive-military alliance that made Indigenous territories strategic corridors for capital).
The JEP's liberal legal framework cannot adjudicate the spiritual severance of 'Madre Tierra' or the structural violence of 1,200 mining titles in Cauca reserves. True repair requires what the Nasa have always practiced: jurisdictional pluralism where Indigenous law governs territory, the Guardia Indígena replaces militarization, and FPIC vetoes extraction. Until the Constitutional Court enforces Auto 265 and the Ethnic Chapter against the National Mining Agency, each conviction becomes what Anansi would call a 'story told to hide the spider's web' — performative accountability that legitimizes ongoing dispossession. The trickster's lesson: justice that does not transform the land tenure system is not justice, it is a ritual of containment.