Colombia says former FARC rebels have not kept promises to surrender cash and gold

Colombian authorities report that the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) has failed to fulfill its financial obligations under the historic 2016 peace agreement, significantly hampering victim reparation efforts.

According to a report released Tuesday by Colombia’s Inspector General’s Office, the former rebel group has surrendered only a fraction of the assets it promised to relinquish. Of the 444 kilograms of gold the FARC committed to hand over, only 252 kilograms have been delivered to authorities. The report also highlights that the group has transferred just one of 722 promised rural properties and only 17% of pledged cash assets.

These unfulfilled commitments are undercutting programs designed to help victims of Colombia’s decades-long internal conflict, which claimed over 260,000 lives and displaced millions.

The 2016 peace accord, which formally ended more than five decades of armed conflict between the FARC and the Colombian government, included provisions allowing former rebels to avoid prison sentences, form a political party, and secure 10 reserved seats in Colombia’s congress. In exchange, FARC leadership agreed to surrender assets to fund victim reparation projects including rural infrastructure development, memorial initiatives, and truth and reconciliation programs.

Under the agreement, these assets would be transferred to the Society of Special Assets, which would convert them to funds for agencies supporting conflict victims.

Jose Lisandro Lascarro, a former FARC commander known by the alias “Pastor Alape,” defended the group’s compliance efforts in response to the report. Speaking to The Associated Press, he claimed the FARC had surrendered all assets it could in a UN-supervised process but cited security concerns as a major obstacle.

“We handed over all of the assets that we could turn in, before other groups occupied our territory,” Lascarro stated.

Indeed, the power vacuum created by FARC’s disarmament has triggered a surge in violence across parts of rural Colombia, with various armed groups now competing for control of former FARC territories. This volatile security situation, according to Lascarro, has prevented former members from retrieving cash buried in remote areas now controlled by other rebel groups.

He further explained that the lack of formal property titles has complicated the transfer of rural properties to the government, as the FARC had no legal documentation for much of its land holdings.

The Inspector General’s report also revealed that the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), the tribunal established under the peace agreement, lacks sufficient funding to implement its rulings on truth and reparation activities. The tribunal has issued orders requiring reparations for victims of FARC kidnappings and extrajudicial executions carried out by the Colombian military.

Alarmingly, the report indicates that the budget currently allocated for these victim reparations amounts to just 17% of what is actually required, creating a substantial funding gap that threatens the peace process’s credibility.

This financial shortfall poses a significant challenge to Colombia’s broader reconciliation efforts, which rely heavily on meaningful reparations to acknowledge and address the suffering of conflict victims. The situation also raises questions about the long-term sustainability of the peace agreement if key financial commitments remain unfulfilled.

Colombia’s peace process has been closely watched internationally as a potential model for resolving long-standing internal conflicts. However, these implementation challenges highlight the complex reality of transitioning from war to peace in a country still grappling with armed violence, territorial disputes, and the legacy of decades of conflict.