Colombian Peace: the Third Agreement

This week began a cycle of events called Reincorporation that transforms lives. The organizing entities in Antioquia are the UNDP-EPM Alliance, Eafit University, Proantioquia, the UN Verification Mission and, by the national government, the Agency for Reintegration and Normalization. The events seek to show the projects in which the ex-combatants of the Farc participate through the testimonies of their protagonists and with commercial samples of their products.

From the first event, held on August 20, several conclusions remain. The unanimous recognition of project leaders for government support, through the ARN, the United Nations system and international cooperation. Which shows that there is some light amid the problems of implementation. The will of peace of the reincorporates that I would summarize with three words: discourse, politics and production (this I take from an intervention by Andrés Zuluaga, from Anorí), beyond the violence that is suffered in many regions and the dissidence.

With the will of the national government to ensure the reinstatement and support of the international community, the unknown comes from regional and local agents. That is, the places where mayors are linked to these initiatives (like Mutatá) or not (like Miranda); the places where governments do something for the implementation of the agreements or where they create a bad environment (as in Antioquia); the places where the inhabitants identify opportunities for joint work with the reinstated and those where they are perceived as a threat.

The projects that were exhibited focused on clothing, handicrafts, coffee and fish farming, but none is limited to that main activity and all of them articulate to a greater or lesser extent people on the sidewalks in which the Territorial Training and Reincorporation Spaces are located. There were items for sale and I took a pound of Tolima coffee with The third agreement (more striking than Marquetalia).

Calmly, at home, I find out from the label why the third agreement is called. At the end of the last century there was a truce, if it can be said, between the Nasa people and the Farc; The second agreement was that of 2016, with the national government, signed at the Teatro Colón. The third results from the cooperation between the reincorporates of the Farc in Planadas (Tolima), the Nasa and coffee families in the area, supported by the Faculty of Design of the University of Ibagué. It is in the third agreement where the track of reconciliation is in many regions of the country. The conjunction of peasants, reincorporated, academics, plus entities that contribute to credit and commercialization. And most importantly: the treatment between everyone as people, as Colombians, who begin to trust each other.