TERRORISMU.S. Judge Orders Colombia’s Now-Demobilized Insurgents to Compensate Family of Kidnapped Politician

A Pennsylvania federal judge ruled on Thursday that Colombia’s now-demobilized Marxist guerrilla, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), will have to pay $36 million in compensation to the son of Ingrid Bentacourt, a Colombian politician who was kidnapped by FARC in 2002 and held hostage for six years.

Lawrence Delloye - who was then called Lorenzo - was 13 in 2002, when his mother, now 60, was kidnapped by the Marxist guerrilla. On 2 July 2018, she and fourteen other hostages were rescued in a daring commando raid by the Colombian military.

Bentacourt, who, in 2002, was the presidential candidate of the Green Party, did not return to politics after her rescue. She is now completing her Ph.D. studies in theology at Oxford University.

In December 2016, FARC signed a peace agreement with the government of Colombia, bringing Latin America’s longest insurgency to an end after 52 years. FARC was formed by Che Guevara in 1964 as part of broad campaign to foment Cuba-like revolutions in several countries in Latin America. More than 260,000 Colombians were killed in the war between FARC and successive Colombian governments, and FARC expelled more than 6.6 million Colombians from areas under its control in central and southern Colombia.

Betancourt’s former husband, and Delloy’s father, is French. Delloye was born in California, and is thus an American citizen.

Because of his American citizenship, he was able to bring charges against the FARC under U.S. antiterrorism laws. His lawyers filed the lawsuit in 2018 in Pennsylvania, where one of Ingrid Betancourt’s FARC kidnappers is serving a 20-year prison sentence for drug trafficking.

The American judge jointly condemned the organization and thirteen of its former commanders, including Luciano Marin, aka Ivan Marquez. Official negotiator of the 2016 peace agreement, he is one of the few guerrilla leaders who have taken over the maquis.

Legal analysts say that the court ruling is not likely to have a practical effect. The 2016 peace agreement between FARC and the Colombian government shields FARC commanders and fighters from legal liability, with the exception of a few mass atrocities committed by FARC fighters. As part of the agreement, the former FARC commanders recognized and accepted their responsibility in the practice of kidnapping – which was a major source of funding for the guerrilla — and asked the victims for forgiveness.

The FARC was allowed to form a political party, which kept the NAME FARC until January 2021, when it changed its name to Comunes.

The 2016 peace agreement guaranteed the FARC (now Comunes) party ten seats in Colombia’s Congress. The Colombian Congress comprises a Senate with 108 seats and a House of Representatives with 172 seats. The peace agreement stipulated that FARC would be allowed to place candidates for the Senate and the House of Representatives, and if the combined number of FARC representatives elected for both chambers fell below ten, additional House members and Senators would be added to FARC to make up the difference.

The presidential and parliamentary election of 2026 will be the last one in which FARC would have a guaranteed minimum number of lawmakers.

Betancourt has so far not commented on Thursday’s verdict. On social media, however, the comments were largely critical. Her son was criticized for his supposed greed. His mother, who supported the peace negotiations with the FARC and the 2016 agreement, was harshly criticized by right-wing politicians who argued that the peace agreement, with its many concessions to the FARC, was unnecessary because FARC was facing a military defeat.

Betancourt, who settled in Britain after her release in 2008, visited Colombia only rarely, and usually quietly. She made an exception in December 2021, when she came to Colombia to be present at the re-launching of the Green Party (called Verde Oxigeno, or “(Oxygen Green”), the party she created and of which she was the presidential candidate in 2002, when she was kidnapped. Oxygen Green plans to run in both parliamentary election, scheduled for 13 March 2022, and the presidential election, scheduled for 29 May 2022.