When a guerrilla named Miguel Antonio Puentes surrendered three years ago, he thought it was the beginning of a new life.

After dedicating his youth to the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, the man also known as "Commander Rene" was taking advantage of the government's offer of amnesty for his crimes if he turned himself in.

But in August, Colombia's Supreme Court ended Puentes' dream when it struck down his appeal seeking clemency for a string of kidnappings. Those, the court declared, were not political crimes that it could pardon.

The court's stance revived a question that has plagued dozens of countries, from post-civil-war Central America to post-apartheid South Africa and post-communist Europe: Which crimes can be forgiven in hopes for peace and which cannot?

El Salvador granted a full amnesty to all sides after its civil war in the 1980s. Argentina's congress passed, then revoked, two laws that protected human-rights violators from its days as a military dictatorship. Chile's 1978 amnesty law, decreed by then-leader Gen. Augusto Pinochet, pardoned all crimes committed by the military and its opposition from Pinochet's 1973 coup to March 1978.

Machetes, cyanide bullets

Colombia's 40-year-old conflict among leftist rebels, military forces, and right-wing paramilitary fighters has been one of the most brutal in the Western Hemisphere. Massacres and selective assassinations are commonplace here, and the list of weapons include chain saws, machetes and cyanide bullets. Tens of thousands have died.

Amid this pain and suffering, the challenge for the government and the courts will be to determine which crimes to forgive for those rebels and paramilitary fighters who wish to surrender.

"I'm convinced that peace in Colombia needs a strong dose of pardon," said Sen. Antonio Navarro Wolff. Wolff and many of his comrades from the leftist M-19 guerrilla group were pardoned in the late 1980s in return for their weapons and a promise to form a legal political party.

But in Colombia, there is still no consensus on what kinds of crimes can be forgiven for former members of FARC, the smaller National Liberation Army guerrillas known as ELN, and members of the rightist United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, known as AUC.

3,000 abductions

"Here, there is a huge problem we've yet to resolve," the government's peace commissioner, Luis Camilo Restrepo, said in a recent news conference. "What to do with members of armed organizations that have committed terrible crimes; what to do with armed actors that are involved in crimes that cannot receive amnesty or sentence reductions."

In the case of the rebels, one key issue is kidnappings, because FARC has long used kidnappings for ransom to fill its war coffers. With close to 3,000 people abducted each year - mostly by guerrillas - Colombia has the highest kidnapping rate in the world. The list of victims includes the father of President Alvaro Uribe, who was kidnapped and later killed by FARC.

Uribe has taken a hard line against the guerrillas since taking office in August 2002, and pushed his military into launching several offensives against them. He has also sought to negotiate peace with the AUC and ELN, entertained proposals to swap prisoners with FARC, and opened the door to deserters with a generous amnesty program.

The peace talks with the AUC have been plagued with legal questions. Many AUC leaders are wanted for massacres in Colombia and drug trafficking in the United States and Europe, but they are demanding guarantees that they would not be extradited if they surrender.

Now Puentes' case has raised questions about the surrender system, officially known as the Program for the Humanitarian Attention to the Demobilized, which has led more than 6,000 guerrillas and paramilitary fighters to turn themselves in. Most believed that they would be pardoned.

But Colombian law stipulates that those who commit "atrocious crimes - terrorism, kidnapping, genocide, and homicide outside of combat" - will be excluded from any amnesty.

"This exclusion expresses the ethic of a society that although it may recognize political crimes, it does not allow that these crimes be committed using any method," the Supreme Court said.

Some analysts worry that the strict interpretation of the laws will hinder peace efforts and lead other guerrillas like Puentes to stay in the war.

"If we're talking about the future, any negotiation with the guerrillas on a serious basis would have to change that and broaden the scope, not necessarily pardoning them for everything," said former Peace Commissioner Daniel Garcia Pena.

"But the laws aren't necessarily in favor of them to hand themselves in, and much less negotiate peace right now."