_{This article is an adaption of the original article in Spanish: La reincorporación en el marco de la Paz Total, published in Medina Gallego, C. 2022. Paz Total, insumos para la formulación de una política pública integral de Paz, Universidad Nacional de Colombia}

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In order to achieve a successful reintegration of ex-fighters in future peace processes, it is useful to understand the development of earlier discussions on the reintegration of FARC ex-fighters. I detected three key moments in the analysis of the concept of reintegration during the Havana peace talks (2012-2016):

1) FARC’s initial ideas about reintegration; 2) the negotiation of the reintegration and its results included in the Final Peace Agreement; 3) The implementation of the reintegration of ex-fighters and some lessons learned. Subsequently, I’ll address each one of them.

1) TERREPAZ, a proposal for reincorporation.

In November 2015, in the midst of the negotiations in Havana, the FARC-EP initiated the publication of a series of minimum proposals related to point 3 of the Agenda, End of Conflict. The fifth proposal, distributed in 10 sub-points, mentioned the TERREPAZ: Special Territories for the Construction of Peace. These were a sort of small towns for ex-combatants, to be chosen from areas where the FARC-EP had a historical presence and which should be constitutionally protected. Each sub-item addresses a specific element to be taken into account for the design and implementation of these zones. The third subpoint explains the nature and essential criteria for the conformation of these TERREPAZ:

The Special Territories for the Construction of Peace TERREPAZ constitute the social and geographical space for the integral transformation of the FARC-EP in its territorial dimension, in the political, economic, social, and cultural spheres, inhabited by ex-combatants, family members and relatives, and neighboring citizens of the place, within the constitutional order arising from the dialogue process and the forms of political and social organization derived from the exercise of direct, self-managed and community democracy, through town councils or popular assemblies. The implementation of the peace agreement in these zones will guarantee socio-environmental sustainability, the right to territory, water, a healthy environment, food production, food sovereignty, and good living conditions in general (Minimum Proposals, 2015).

These proposals were the result of internal reflections and discussions on the effectiveness and desirability of a “traditional” process of Disarmament, Demobilization and Reinsertion (DDR), generally applied to insurgent organizations to guarantee their reintegration into legality after a peace process. The counterinsurgency conception of the DDR strategy, conceived and designed under a concept of ideological subjugation of each individual to “facilitate” their reintegration into society, has not had positive results either in Colombia or abroad, above all because of its individual character; a thesis that was confirmed by Jean Arnault, then head of the UN Political Verification Mission:

International experience tells us that between individual reintegration and group reintegration, the second is the most sustainable. If you take the example of countries not too far away, such as the Central American countries, we realize that individual reintegration with small businesses has not worked out well, even when support was offered for several years, in the end, it tends not to stick with the ex-combatants. On the other hand, what we have observed is that when it comes to rural guerrilla movements, productive reintegration has been more sustainable. Today, for example, what has survived in a couple of Central American countries are those cooperative-like projects (Hoy Diario del Magdalena, 2017).

The FARC’s insistence on using the word reincorporation – and not reinsertion or reintegration – was not limited to the semantic field but went much further. Reincorporation was conceived as a collective proposal, even beyond the cooperatives as a productive strategy or the political party. It meant respecting the de facto power built by the FARC during its years of armed and political presence in the territories and using it for the necessary transformations in the countryside. It also meant preserving the values and culture built by that guerrilla community. It meant counteracting not only the counterinsurgent conception of the DDR but also capitalism in a broader sense.  

This proposal was not only supposed to be beneficial for the insurgency or the communities but also implied a guarantee for the transfer of real power in the territories, which is not immediate and implies an extended time of power vacuum, which – as we have seen – is easily absorbed by other armed actors. With a territorial organizational deployment of the disarmed insurgency, it is more feasible to achieve a gradual transition towards the presence of state institutions that never before existed in the peripheries.

The TERREPAZ proposal produced a train wreck between the government and the FARC-EP. General Mora stated emphatically that

We have never considered a fragmented Colombia; it is not part of our mindsets. We have never thought of it! The famous ‘TERREPAZ’ are only part of Farc’s imagination (El Nuevo Siglo, 2015).

The initiative was described by some as an attempt by the FARC to control territories and, in general, was widely rejected by right-wing sectors and the national government. The proposal was buried, although some elements were rescued as we will see below.

2) The Negotiation and the Final Peace Agreement.

Reincorporation was not negotiated until August 2016, some weeks before the publication of the Peace Agreement. The result shows a hybrid of the vision of individual reinsertion on the one hand and collective reincorporation on the other. The individual approach was embodied by a system of individual economic and social benefits, the collective perspective by elements such as the social economy organization ECOMÚN and the creation of the legal political party.

Thesis 15 of the “Theses for discussion” of the tenth guerrilla conference said in this regard:

We have agreed in that aspect, that our reincorporation is that of a community of armed rebels, men and women, and at the same time of individuals, with their own aspirations (…). We have the desire to preserve our community under the new circumstances since it constitutes the basic nucleus that will have to expand towards the entire popular camp to advance our purposes of building a new social power “from below” and of taking positions of political power and government for the changes demanded by the majorities (tenth guerrilla conference, 2016).

The theses also expressly state the decision that reincorporation would not be linked to any state agency: “it will be bipartite and on behalf of the National Reincorporation Council (CNR)” (op.cit., 2016).

The creation of ECOMUN was at the time considered a central pillar of the proposal for collective economic reincorporation by the FARC-EP. Once the collective productive projects were approved by the CNR, the National Government would transfer the resources of each ex-combatant (the 8 million, earmarked for productive projects) to a common fund administered by ECOMÚN, the entity in charge of executing the productive projects. ECOMUN would submit periodic reports on the execution of resources to the CNR (Final Peace Agreement, Point 3.2.2.6., p. 74). At the same time, the Peace Agreement opens the possibility for individual projects to be undertaken by ex-combatants who wish to do so.

In addition to generating an income for ex-combatants affiliated with the collective productive projects managed by ECOMUN, it would also contribute to the preservation and strengthening of the community after their transition to civilian life, overcoming the DDR model that would only lead to an increase in the universe of precarious and informal work. In addition, adopting an even broader vision, it would contribute to the construction of a new economic order based on the principles of solidarity, cooperation, community, and distributive and environmental justice, counterbalancing neo-liberal capitalism in Colombia.

ECOMÚN’s proposal was closely linked to the political strategy of the new Party that would emerge after the signing of the Final Agreement (first the FARC Party, then Comunes) both aimed at preserving the FARC community.

3) Six years of implementation.

During the four years of its mandate, the Duque administration fulfilled some of its obligations in terms of reincorporation. Ninety-five percent of the universe of 14,033 ex-fighters received their one-time allowance of 440 dollars. The state subsidy (90% of the minimum wage, some 220 dollars) is deposited each month in the bank accounts of 88% of the ex-combatants. There are 9,659 ex-combatants who have benefited from projects; that is, they have been disbursed 1.768 dollars to establish their productive project (ARN, 2022). So, if we want to see the glass half full, we have something to fill it with: resources invested for a total of more than 20 million dollars.

However, there are certain quantitative measurements that have not been made or have been made insufficiently. For example, six years after the signing of the agreement, how many people in the reincorporation process are able to earn their daily sustenance from their productive project, whether collective or individual? How many cooperatives created by ex-combatants are likely to succeed in the coming years? How many individual productive projects are there with future viability? How many people have been able to enter higher education? How many would have liked to enter, but could not and for what reasons?

It is also important to know qualitative evaluations of the reincorporation process, for example, regarding the preparation of primary and secondary education. What is the educational level of these programs? Are they sufficient for those who want to enter university? Did they have continuity over time? Did they have enough supply, both in rural areas and in the cities, given the exodus that took place from the ETCRs to the nearest cities? But it would also be interesting to know more about the offer of psycho-social assistance to ex-combatants: was it sufficient, was it satisfactory, and did it solve needs?

Beyond qualitative and quantitative measurements, it is also useful to understand the shift in the approach and how the government, from the beginning, promoted the reintegration within the approach of a “traditional” DDR process, emphasizing the individual aspect, using the ARN (Agency for Reincorporation and Normalization) for this purpose. The ARN, due to its experience in demobilizing deserters during the conflict and its experience with other peace processes, did what it was used to do: provide individual assistance. Although the name of the Colombian Reintegration Agency ACR was changed to National Reincorporation Agency ARN, the focus did not change. The urgent need for ex-fighters to resolve their economic situation and the slow approval of collective projects has led many to turn to individual projects.

Another difficulty was the link that was established by the FARC, from the very beginning, between political and economic reincorporation. As already mentioned, the reincorporation strategy was perceived as a single one; the economic, social, and political reincorporation were seen as mutually reinforcing processes. And it was quite logical to do it this way since all FARC ex-combatants were also militants of the PCCC, the Clandestine Colombian Communist Party. It was thought, therefore, that this entire universe of ex-combatants/militants would strengthen the ranks of the new party that would be created after the signing. For multiple reasons that we will not delve into in this article, the reality was different. The majority of ex-combatants resigned their party membership at some point, leading to an imbalance in the distribution of resources, opportunities, and, above all, representativeness in the national and international community, as the former commanders of the Secretariat – now the leadership of the Comunes political party – control resources, relations, and contracts.

Conclusions

The objective of this article was to raise some reflections on the concept of reintegration and reincorporation. FARC’s initial approach revolved around a collective reincorporation based on the TERREPAZ and was discarded by the Santos government, who perceived it as an attempt to repeat the experience of the “Independent Republics” of the 1960s. The narrow vision of the state regarding historically autonomous territories and proposals for alternative economic development, closed the door to a collective and transformative reincorporation.

The fear of the alternative power that the FARC-EP had built in some territories throughout almost half a century of conflict seemed to immobilize Santos’ brain. The political, social, and economic control held by the insurgency could have been used as a support tool to make the gradual transition of the transfer of power so that there would not have been power vacuums, easily occupied by other armed actors; not to mention other interesting political, social and cultural confluences that could have been produced in society.

The AFP ended up being a hybrid between traditional reinsertion – individual, welfare-based, subject to the norms and values of the existing society – and collective reincorporation, represented mainly by the new party and the ECOMÚN proposal. However, in practice, this hybrid approach, sometimes as a result of realities that nobody could foresee, and sometimes as a consequence of the inability of different actors to plan, coordinate and execute, was displaced by a focus on individual reincorporation, with the “support” of the ARN – without ignoring the internal fractures within ex-FARC-. This has led to a repetition of negative international practices, since individual reinsertion – without ignoring that any reintegration project entails certain individual processes – based on individual projects is less successful. In this way, the vulnerability of the population being reintegrated is reinforced instead of aiming to overcome this condition.

References:

• ARN en Cifras (2022). Así avanza la Reincorporación. Available at: https://www.reincorporacion.gov.co
• El Nuevo Siglo (2015). No de Farc a ‘encierro de rebeldes’, insisten en zonas paz. Available at: https://www.elnuevosiglo.com.co
• Hoy Diario del Magdalena (2017). «La reintegración individual es más sostenible que la grupal» (sic): Jean Arnault. Available at: www.hoydiariodelmagdalena.com.co
• Institute for Inclusive Security (s.f.). Recommendations for Elevating the Role of Women in Mediation. Available at: http://www.peacewomen.org/
• Walter, B. (2010). Conflict Relapse and the Sustainability of Post-Conflict Peace. University of California, San Diego
• The minimum proposals and the Thesis for the Tenth Guerrilla Conference are private archives from the author. Available on request.