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14. DESERTION, CAPTURE, AND AFTER

I left in order to be with my family, because I saw how much they had suffered because of what I had done when I was younger. The guerrilla took me very far from the land I am from. After a long time on the move, they gave me permission to return to see my family. After a couple of weeks with them, I returned to the guerrillas, but I missed them. I felt so bad having had them close again and talking to them again after two years of not seeing them; having shared with them all that I had learned during the time I had been gone. I thought I wouldn't be able to bear being without them again, not knowing if I would ever come back. So the second time, I left without permission.³¹⁹

The attrition rate among Colombia's child combatants is high. At least 40 percent of the 112 children we interviewed gave themselves up to the police or army. Many of those who deserted had been looking for opportunities to escape for months, if not years. Among the others, there were some children, especially paramilitaries, who did not want to leave. Only a handful said that they wanted to return.

But very few of the children are able to go back to their families. Those who deserted from the guerrilla or the paramilitaries are at risk of being re-captured and killed, and, by returning home, of placing their families at risk also. Some children do not want to return home, and in some cases the parents are themselves with the guerrillas or paramilitaries. Most children give themselves up for personal protection, even though some told us they were afraid that they would be beaten or ill-treated.

Those who are captured are normally handed over by the army or the police to juvenile judges. Many of the children we spoke with were initially locked up in detention centers for juvenile offenders. They were eventually transferred to a reception center run by the Colombian Institute of Family Welfare (ICBF).

For example, Elías and Jhon Freddy were held for three and four months respectively in the Ibagué correctional facility in the department of Tolima; William was in La Pola in Medellín for three months; others were admitted to the ICBF program after shorter periods in detention; and a few were admitted almost immediately. Juvenile correctional facilities do not provide adequate security for former combatants, who are at risk of reprisals either from their adversaries or their former comrades. Putting them in jail with urban toughs and drug users is also inappropriate given their special circumstances.

It is the juvenile judge who decides to whom the child is referred after capture.³²⁰ The criteria judges apply vary widely across the country, legal experts say.³²¹ According to ICBF statistics, about two-thirds of the children who desert or are captured pass through a juvenile court as young offenders. The remaining one third are treated as children at risk and are located in a specialized ICBF institution for former child combatants.³²²

In practice, nonetheless, most children in both categories end up in the care of the ICBF. Still, no ICBF or public advocate official was able to give Human Rights Watch a clear idea of how many former child combatants were being held in correctional facilities for children or where these children were held, making it impossible for us to visit any. Despite recent attention to the question of former child combatants, there remains some concern that judges in remote areas where there is no local ICBF office continue to send such children to prison, a problem that government officials acknowledged.³²³

The welfare of these children is a worry, since apart from the security risk of being in prison, they lack access to psychological counseling and other support available in the ICBF centers. The public advocate and ICBF have urged judges to put the welfare and interests of the children before any other consideration, in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.³²⁴

In April 2002, the ICBF sent judges across the country a booklet establishing guidelines on former combatants to be followed by the armed forces, police, judges, and family welfare officials. The booklet asserts that all children who have left armed groups "have a right to specialized protection from the state, regardless of the circumstances in which they left them." As noted below, until recently children had different legal rights, depending on whether they deserted or were captured, or what irregular armed group they belonged to. The point stressed in the guidelines is that whatever the child's legal situation, none should be held in police or army custody after their surrender or capture, or in detention centers for young offenders. All must be referred at once to the ICBF and admitted immediately into its program.³²⁵

Treatment at Capture

Most of the children Human Rights Watch interviewed said that they had been well treated by the security forces after capture. Many former child combatants said this without hesitation.

There were important exceptions, however. Some children said that they had been beaten, kicked, threatened, and insulted. In several cases, children told Human Rights Watch that senior officers intervened to stop their subordinates from beating children.³²⁶

An example was sixteen-year-old Efrain, a member of the FARC-EP militia from Putumayo. Efrain was captured with a fellow militia member in January 2002.

They had us both on the ground. A soldier said, "Search them." They began to frisk me and a soldier took out my revolver. Straight away they knew I was from the militia. A civilian, a woman, had told them. I said that we were farmers,

"One of them started digging needles in my back, the kind they use to sew sacks shut. . . . At that moment, my friend, who was listening to my screams, confessed everything."

hired hands, and that the guerrillas took our taxes. I said I'd bought the gun. But my friend told them another story. They insisted: tell us the truth, who are you really?

They made us sleep outside that night, tied up. It rained, and we froze. I thought the night was never going to end. They gave me breakfast, then they separated me from my friend. Now you're going to tell me the truth; you are a collaborator of the guerrillas, or a guerrilla, aren't you? I said no. They had tied my hands behind my back and my feet, and they were hitting me in the face, all over my body. One of them started digging needles in my back, the kind they use to sew sacks shut. He was going to work on my front, but the other one told him not to abuse me any more. The others said, so what, that I was a militia man, a guerrilla. At that moment, my friend, who was listening to my screams, confessed everything. He said that I'd been five years in the guerrilla and had been on a mission. He was scared that they would torture him too. I didn't talk because I didn't want to involve my family. The army would go interrogate them. That's why I didn't want to tell the truth. So they came back and kept hitting me. My throat was dry with thirst and they gave me some water. Then they made me remove my shirt and tied me to a pole and whipped me with the sheath of a machete which has leather thongs. The guy hit me real hard and it burned like hell. In the end I told them the truth. I was scared they were going to dig the needle under my fingernails, like the paramilitaries do.³²⁷

Rodolfo, Wilmer, and Jaime, all age seventeen and members of an UC-ELN urban militia commando in Arauca, were arrested by the police acting on a tip-off while they were asleep at Wilmer's home in March 2002. All three told Human Rights Watch that they were beaten and kicked after their arrest. Rodolfo told Human Rights Watch that a policeman kicked him and punched him in the stomach, then hit him over the head with a handcuff and a leather belt.³²⁸ He said he was held overnight with his wrists chained to a bar of the window so that he could not lie down. Jaime said that a policeman told them: "I wish to God that a cylinder bomb would fall on you so that you suffer like you have made others suffer."³²⁹

The three were taken from the police station to a juvenile detention center in the city of Arauca, where they were detained for a month with young offenders held for ordinary criminal offenses. From Arauca, they were brought to the ICBF in Bogotá.³³⁰

Troops allegedly beat and ill-treated children captured during Operation

“When they captured us, they told us they'd kill us if we did not talk, or that they'd leave me on a mountain alone. They hit me and kicked me in the stomach.”

Berlin until senior officers intervened to protect them. Thirteen-year-old Darío, who at age twelve had had to pester the FARC-EP's 33rd front commander to let him join, told Human Rights Watch:

When they captured us, they told us they'd kill us if we did not talk, or that they'd leave me on a mountain alone. They hit me and kicked me in the stomach. They treated the adults worse than me. I refused to answer the questions. But then a sergeant told the others not to hit me. He called the battalion in Bucaramanga and the battalion commander ordered them to bring me to the battalion. I was not hit any more. I was in the battalion for a day and they brought me to Family Welfare in Bogotá.³³¹

From other accounts of Operation Berlin, it appears that senior commanders halted the ill-treatment of guerrilla prisoners, both adults and children. Ramón, also age twelve when he joined guerrillas, told Human Rights Watch that the arrival of the ICRC probably saved his life. Soldiers had threatened to burn him alive.³³² An official of the public advocate's office, who was directly involved in the handover of some sixty-five FARC-EP child deserters in Suratá, Santander, described the conduct of the Fifth Brigade as "impeccable and respectful."³³³