Former FARC rebels turn ecotourism guides, but peace remains fragile

About 30 of the estim­ated 12,000 FARC mem­bers demo­bil­ised under a peace accord with Colom­bi­a’s gov­ern­ment have chosen eco­tour­ism as a path to rein­teg­ra­tion. The travel & tour­ism industry would do well to sup­port them. Full story by Ana­stas­ia Molo­ney writ­ing for the Thom­son Reu­ters Foundation.

As a former rebel fight­er, Ximena Cruz used to hide and sur­vive in Colom­bi­a’s dense forests, but now in peace­time she hopes tour­ists will vis­it the once war-torn hilly hin­ter­land in the coun­try’s cent­ral Meta province.

Cruz and about 30 former guer­ril­las from the Revolu­tion­ary Armed Forces of Colom­bia (FARC), who laid down their weapons under a 2016 peace deal with the gov­ern­ment, have chosen to become tour­ist guides as they rein­teg­rate into civil­ian life.

The 52-year war killed about 200,000 Colom­bi­ans and forced more than sev­en mil­lion people from their homes.

“We’re com­mit­ted to peace,” said Cruz, des­cend­ing the steps built by ex-fight­ers through a vir­gin forest of trop­ic­al flowers and birds that leads to a gush­ing waterfall.

“We hope the loc­al com­munity, Colom­bi­ans and for­eign­ers will vis­it this para­dise that was hid­den for so long dur­ing the war and see its beauty,” said Cruz, one of the ex-combatants.

Cruz is part of a rein­teg­ra­tion pro­ject focused on eco­tour­ism, and fun­ded by Nor­way, that fea­tures new hik­ing trails, rap­pelling and rafting.

About 12,000 FARC mem­bers, includ­ing 6,000 com­batants, demo­bil­ized under the accord that ended half a cen­tury of war with the gov­ern­ment. The FARC is now a far-left polit­ic­al party that uses the same acronym.

Ensur­ing former rebels can rein­teg­rate into civil­ian life is cru­cial for last­ing peace in Colombia.

Suc­cess­ful rein­teg­ra­tion means ex-fight­ers are less likely to return to the bat­tle­field and join oth­er crim­in­al groups or FARC dis­sid­ent fac­tions who refused to demobilize.

Commune life

Under the peace accord, most rank-and-file fight­ers were giv­en amnesty while former top com­mand­ers are expec­ted to be tried at spe­cial tribunals for alleged war crimes and human rights viol­a­tions, includ­ing the bomb­ings of civil­ian targets.

Since the accord was signed more than two years ago, thou­sands of ex-fight­ers have been liv­ing in 24 tem­por­ary demo­bil­iz­a­tion zones, over­seen by the United Nations Veri­fic­a­tion Mis­sion, scattered across remote rur­al Colombia.

At the Mari­ana Paez demo­bil­iz­a­tion zone where Cruz and about 300 oth­er ex-fight­ers live, once-bar­ren land has been turned into a type of com­mune vil­lage built on Marx­ist ideals.

Using mater­i­als provided by the gov­ern­ment, rows of make­shift hous­ing, some adorned with paint­ings and large pho­tos of guer­rilla her­oes, a foot­ball pitch, classrooms, a com­munity hall and small veget­able gar­dens have been built.

There’s also a UN-fun­ded bakery and an evan­gel­ic­al church along­side a simple bar with a pool table and cock­fight­ing ring.

Des­pite being an hour’s drive along a dirt road from the nearest town of Mesetas, ex-fight­ers hope tour­ists and bird­watch­ers will vis­it the area and stay in their camp.

“The people who will vis­it us are those who don’t have any pre­ju­dices against us. Some people are still afraid of us,” said ex-fight­er Mon­ica Suarez, who spent three dec­ades with the FARC. 

Obstacles

The gov­ern­ment has destined about $2 mil­lion for rein­teg­ra­tion pro­jects to help ex-fight­ers set up small businesses.

But more than two years on after the accord was signed, few rein­teg­ra­tion pro­jects led and fun­ded by the gov­ern­ment are up and run­ning, said Pas­tor Alape, a former top FARC com­mand­er and peace negotiator.

“Up until now, the first pro­ject with­in the frame­work of the peace agree­ment has­n’t yet been developed here in this region,” said Alape, who sits on the Nation­al Rein­cor­por­a­tion Coun­cil, a gov­ern­ment body over­see­ing the rein­teg­ra­tion process.

He called on the gov­ern­ment to step up its “polit­ic­al will” to ensure ex-fight­ers have a path toward rein­teg­ra­tion as stated in the accord.

“The con­struc­tion of peace is not an act, it is a pro­cess,” Alape told the Thom­son Reu­ters Foundation.

Of the 22 pro­jects so far approved by the gov­ern­ment, only five have received money. They range from fish farm­ing to ranch­ing to fruit grow­ing, Alape said.

He added those pro­jects that are under­way are mostly thanks to fund­ing from Nor­way, a guar­ant­or coun­try of the peace deal, oth­er European nations and the UN.

Many of the small busi­ness ven­tures set up by ex-fight­ers on their own are “likely to fail” because they lack the tech­nic­al expert­ise, sup­port and invest­ment over the long-term, accord­ing to a 2018 report by the think tank Inter­na­tion­al Crisis Group.

Ex-rebels say it costs more to trans­port a product than to pro­duce it.

“The roads are bad so it’s dif­fi­cult to get our pro­duce to the loc­al mar­ket and town. We also need help with mar­ket­ing,” said 54-year-old Miguel Molina, who is part of a 10-mem­ber chick­en cooper­at­ive that pro­duces eggs.

Support winding down

Ex-com­batants receive a gov­ern­ment sti­pend of $225 a month — equi­val­ent to 90 per­cent of Colom­bi­a’s min­im­um monthly wage. This fin­an­cial sup­port is sched­uled to end in August.

As the dead­line looms, ex-fight­ers say they face increas­ing uncer­tainty about their future and where they will live. Many demo­bil­iz­a­tion zones have been set up on land ren­ted by the government.

“Once August comes, we don’t know what will hap­pen, where we’ll go, what income we will have or if the gov­ern­ment will buy the land so we can all stay here,” ex-rebel Suarez said.

Andres Stap­per, who heads the gov­ern­ment’s rein­cor­por­a­tion agency (ARN) said while chal­lenges remain, the right-wing gov­ern­ment of Ivan Duque, which has been crit­ic­al of the peace deal, is “com­mit­ted” to help­ing ex-fight­ers reintegrate.

The gov­ern­ment is work­ing to cre­ate “a roadmap” to identi­fy wheth­er land with­in rein­teg­ra­tion zones can be bought, he said.

“But many of them are inside farm­ing and indi­gen­ous reserves … to which we’re look­ing for a solu­tion because these prop­er­ties can­’t be bought. Agree­ments need to be reached with these com­munit­ies,” Stap­per said.

Giving up

For some ex-fight­ers, the lack of jobs and oppor­tun­it­ies has promp­ted them to aban­don the demo­bil­iz­a­tion zones for good.

Colom­bi­a’s mil­it­ary estim­ates 1,200 FARC dis­sid­ents are act­ive, with some form­ing new groups involved in drug traf­fick­ing and illeg­al gold mining.

Accord­ing to ex-FARC com­mand­er Alape, not more than about 500 fight­ers who demo­bil­ized as part of the peace accord have left the zones.

Chris­ti­an Visnes, the Colom­bia coun­try dir­ect­or with the Nor­we­gi­an Refugee Coun­cil, which runs edu­ca­tion and oth­er pro­jects for ex-fight­ers, says rein­teg­ra­tion efforts and fund­ing must be increased to pre­vent more violence.

“Two years on, a coher­ent rein­teg­ra­tion effort is still lack­ing,” Visnes said.

“Clearly, this is con­trib­ut­ing to the increas­ing con­flict we are see­ing in many of Colom­bi­a’s war-torn regions .. where the risk of ex-com­batants abandon­ing the pro­cess is increasing.”

Ex-fight­ers also worry about get­ting killed.

Accord­ing to the UN, 85 ex-FARC rebels have been murdered in Colom­bia since the peace accord was signed, mostly by illeg­al armed groups fight­ing for con­trol over former FARC strongholds.

Baby boom

Mean­while, daily life at the demo­bil­iz­a­tion zones con­tin­ues — a routine of cook­ing, clean­ing and going to class.

For ex-fight­er, 31-year-old Leidy Mar­in, who says she vol­un­tar­ily joined the FARC when she was just 12, giv­ing up her weapons has meant the chance to become a mother.

Dur­ing the war, moth­er­hood was not an option, and most rebel fight­ers who got preg­nant either had an abor­tion or handed over their babies to rel­at­ives or friends to look after, female rebels say.

“It’s import­ant for people to come here to see we’ve kept to our side of the bar­gain. We’ve left behind our weapons,” said Mar­in, as she rocked her baby daugh­ter in her arms.

The girl is one of 60 babies born in the demo­bil­iz­a­tion zone in the last two years.

“Now we want to get on with our lives. I’d like to study com­puter sci­ence at uni­ver­sity. I want my daugh­ter to have some­thing when she grows up,” said Marin.

Source: The Thom­son Reu­ters Found­a­tion, the char­it­able arm of Thom­son Reu­ters. Report­ing by Ana­stas­ia Molo­ney; edit­ing by Jason Fields. 

Fea­tured image: Colom­bia has its eco­tour­ism treas­ures such as the Caño Cristales water­fall. Image by Mario Carva­jal (CC BY 3.0) via Wiki­me­dia.