Salvatore Mancuso is one of the most notorious figures in Colombia’s six decades of conflict, responsible for some of the most heinous of crimes during the darkest chapters in the country’s history.
As a senior commander of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) – the country’s largest rightwing death squad – he ordered forced disappearances, sexual violence and massacres of civilians.
“There was not a single campesino who did not live in fear of that man,” said Angelica Salsero, representative of the Association of Victims in Cordoba, the northern Colombian region where the AUC sprang up. Like many others there, Salsero lost a family member to the paramilitaries.
So when president Gustavo Petro recently appointed Mancuso as a “peace manager” for negotiations with armed groups, Salsero – like many others – reacted with outrage, saying the decision makes a mockery of all those who lost loved ones or were forced from their homes.
“How can someone be named a Peace Manager when they committed so much war and death? It’s an insult to all of his victims,” she said.
Mancuso demobilised during a much-criticized peace process in 2003 and was extradited to the USA in 2008 for drug trafficking. He finished his sentence in prison in 2020 but remains in detention in Atlanta, Georgia, as he is yet to pay for his war crimes in Colombia.
Mancuso has accepted responsibility for more than 300 killings and is accused of committing about 75,000 crimes.
In the hopes of receiving lenient punishment the former paramilitary leader has testified virtually to Colombia’s special peace tribunal (JEP), giving details of how the country’s military, as well as its business and political elites, worked hand-in-glove with the paramilitaries to stamp out leftwing guerrillas.
Mancuso’s testimony is helping the JEP to untangle the truth of Colombia’s conflict and that knowledge could eventually help the government negotiate with other rightwing groups who remain active today, experts say.
His appointment as a peace envoy by Colombia’s first ever leftwing president, came as a shock to many.
But his inclusion in negotiations is part of Petro’s bold strategy to include figures across the political spectrum – even where their ideological ties or criminal past would usually exclude them from any official role.
In November Petro appointed José Félix Lafaurie, head of Fedegan – a traditionally conservative association of cattle ranchers – to lead talks with leftist ELN rebels.
Mancuso could be a useful bridge between the government and the Gulf Clan (ACG) – an armed drug faction which has become the largest criminal organisation in Colombia, say analysts. Negotiations with the ACG stalled and Petro broke off a ceasefire in March.
“Appointing Mancuso can only be positive in attempts to establish a channel with the ACG. He has managed to create some confidence with that group and his appointment has the potential to reinvigorate the channel between the government and the organisation,” said Elizabth Dickinson, senior analyst for Colombia at Crisis Group.
Mancuso’s testimonies helped authorities discover mass graves near the Venezuelan border in June, and the former AUC commander is encouraging other paramilitary leaders to join him in the peace process.
But victims argue that Mancuso’s dire human rights record means he should have no role in the country’s future.
Eliécer Arias, who belongs to the Indigenous Kankuamo people, lost his elder brother to Mancuso’s death squads who tortured their victims before burning them or throwing them into rivers.
“For 22 years as victims, we have waited for an act of reparation and to be recognised by the Colombian state. Then on Sunday I heard this news. It’s a huge blow to us families who have lost people to the paramilitaries. It’s not just sad and enraging. It’s humiliating.
“We’re always told that the victims are at the centre of these peace processes but in reality nobody is listening to us. This guy walks free and we, the victims, are left adrift once again,” Arias said.
It remains unclear when and if Mancuso will return to Colombia. He remains subject to an arrest warrant, and the country’s courts have confirmed that his appointment as peace manager would not exempt him from trial.
“The question is how this decision can be anything more than symbolic. What kind of peace processes can Mancuso promote from a detention site in the US? With whom?,” said Juan Pappier, deputy director for the Americas at Human Rights Watch.
Mancuso’s victims argue that wherever he ends up he should be given no honours.
“The appointment of Mancuso is an affront to all of us,” says Luz Marina Hache Contreras who was displaced by the Colombian military and paramilitary forces. “Recognition must be given to those who have suffered Mancuso’s crimes, not to the criminal himself. It is his responsibility to contribute to the truth without anything in return.”