MISSION
Our mission is to build upon the peace agreement in Colombia, by creating a Solidarity Revolving Fund (SRF) which will be an essential tool to economically support small territorial cooperatives of the ex-combatants of the FARC-EP (Revolutionary Armed Forces from Colombia, People´s Army) in Colombia. Currently, we, the former guerrilla fighters have put down our weapons, and we are now starting cooperatives and productive projects as the main strategy for our social and economic reincorporation. In this way, we want to strengthen solidarity economies as well as the process of reincorporation of ex-combatants – both essential developments for long-lasting peace in the country.
OUR PROJECT: “PEACE CO-OPS”
In order to create alternative livelihoods for ex-combatants and peasants, it is of crucial importance to strengthening local and solidarity economies.
Objective 1: To create and implement a Solidarity Revolving Fund (SRF) managed by ECOMUN.
Objective 2: To support and give the initial impulse to some territorial cooperatives by offering affordable loans.
BRIEF BACKGROUND ON THE ARMED CONFLICT IN COLOMBIA
Colombia has suffered for decades from a violent armed conflict resulting in more than 300.000 people killed, 50.000 people missing, and more than 7.000.000 people displaced. Many claim that (international) interests regarding land and resources are the very core of the conflict. In November of 2016, a peace agreement was finally signed between the Colombian government and our rebel group FARC-EP, ending a 52-year armed conflict. The peace deal included the agreement: Comprehensive Agrarian Reform, which involves the implementation of a mixed development model based on one hand, on the sustaining of the traditional agroindustry and on the other hand, the strengthening of the peasant, indigenous, and Afro-Colombian economies to ensure living conditions for the majority of the population. The agreement states that solidarity economy is one of the major strategies to be developed in a peacebuilding stage, not only to support and enhance peasant economy but also as a strategy of social and economic reincorporation of ex-combatants.
THE PROBLEM
Yet, while the FARC-EP handed over their weapons, there are still many challenges in the current stage of peacebuilding in the country. First, the peace agreement is not enough to establish peace, there are many threats from the traditional “enemies of the peace” who are still damaging the social movement and killing social leaders and ex-combatants. Just when we were writing these lines on the 30 of August of this year (2018), more than 270 social leaders and near to 80 members of the new political party FARC (Alternative Revolutionary Force of Colombia) have been assassinated in different places of Colombia since the signature of the peace agreement in 2016. An ex-combatant of the FARC describes his current situation:
There are thousands of ex-combatants, who were fighting against a corrupt government that was selling land to foreign Trans National Companies. Paramilitaries came to kill campesinos, (peasant farmers) clear the land and start plantations of banana, African palm oil and other products for export. Now that fight continues in our political party and us, ex-combatants need to integrate again into society. This is very challenging since we have to learn new skills and find a place where people want to hire us. Our dream is to create our own work and practice what we preach: work on a solidarity economy on land for the people of Colombia.”
A second problem is the problem of the coca crops for illegal use. On October 5th, 2017, the police opened fire on unarmed peasants in Tumaco, Colombia. Eight were killed, dozens more were injured. The massacre was part of a crackdown on coca farmers in the “War On Drugs”, despite an agreement for crop substitution. One of the young guys who got shot in his knee explains:
They should stop this and bring a solution for the people. The soldiers and the police say the eradication will continue until they dismantle every coca plantation in this area. But they haven’t come here with any projects or loans for the sowing of plantains or cassava, not a single project has been proposed here. There’s no solution for peasants. The only ‘solution’ they bring is eradication, and that’s all.
(…) We are marginalized, we have no help and everything is abandoned here. There are no schools, medical centres or electricity, no roads. Our needs are based on the poverty around here. If you grow plantains, there are no means to take it out for sale. If you plant cassava, who will buy it? So then how can we make a living? The people of the coca come here and we live from it. The government basically have abandoned us. They send the army and the police. They make us run away in the wild firing their guns, what can we do? Nothing.
(…) We continue cultivating this crop because there are no other means to survive. For example, with plantain, you barely get to cover the costs! If the government helped us, we would leave this crop and plant something else. With coca we didn’t have any savings, but we could get by, and now? The government is leaving all of this destroyed, and we see no hope that we can survive this.” (theempirefiles.tv )
The substitution of crops is really a good strategy for restoring the environment after the war consequences. We believe in the support to small farmers to get over the traditional economy of the coca crops but not neither in the repression policies nor in fumigation. Imprisonment of coca leave producers increases the social conflict and fumigation only destroys nature and precludes food production.
Third, the gap between the poor and the rich in Colombia is still one of the biggest in the world. Generating more equity and dignity for all is our main goal. And fourth, our society has been a victim of a huge media and ideological campaign. Throughout history, this has caused hatred towards democratic and progressive political forces, hampering the process of reconciliation and peacebuilding.
A SPECIFIC CHALLENGE: BUILDING A SOLIDARITY ECONOMY AND SUSTAINABLE PRODUCTIVE PROJECTS.
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Figure 1. Ex-insurgents of the cooperative in San Pacho, Antioquia in a workshop offered by ECOMUN
in addition to these specific problems, there is a big challenge in creating successful ways of guaranteeing sustainable livelihoods of ex-combatants and peasants who are living in former conflict zones. The proposed strategy is based on the strengthening of solidarity economy processes, specifically in the development of productive projects through peasants and ex-insurgents’ cooperatives. Currently, Social Economies of the Common, ECOMUN is the leading cooperative and has three business lines: Self-Sufficient Comprehensive Farms, Fishery and Agritourism.
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Figure 2. Colection of eggs in Carrizal, Antioquia.
These lines are being developed in the different territories through small cooperatives which will be associated to ECOMUN as the second level organization. At this moment near to 70 cooperatives are already set up in about 40 territories, involving around 3500 ex-combatants in which close to 25% are women. These cooperatives also involve afro Colombian, indigenous and handicap population. There are around 80 productive initiatives in different sectors, like culture, farming, tourism, sports, communication and arts. Our challenge is to create different solidarity economy projects that can foster the development of an alternative economy in the territories.
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Figure 3. Breeding of chickens by the territorial cooperative in Carrizal, Antioquia
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Figure 4. The manufacture cooperative is now producing men´s wear in Bogotá.
However, we have identified different troubles in this process. To give a few examples:
- Most of the cooperatives are lacking land for their productive projects. Without land we cannot develop agricultural projects! Despite the commitments acquired by the Colombian government in the peace agreement, the policy of redistribution of land among poor and landless peasants does not start and it seems that the new far-right government has a little compromise in this regard. Accessing to land via bank loans is still unavailable. Until now, there is not a policy for ex-combatants to access loans offered by formal banks, we cannot give guarantees, we cannot fulfill risk evaluations, and in general, interest rates in banks are unaffordable for peasants and cooperatives.
- Entering to a competitive market with conventional products under extreme conditions like farms very far from market centres, high prices of agricultural inputs and extremely low prices for the products —often even below the cost of production— is another common problem.
- The process of legalization of cooperatives is a big challenge since it requires, for example, to write statutes with more than 30 pages and a lot of documents which can be difficult for people with low literacy; creating and managing a cooperative business requires specific knowledge, essential for its management, which cannot be acquired in a short period of time.
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Figure 5. Capacity building workshop organized by the educational committee of ECOMUN in San Francisco, Santander
Thus, the solidarity economy project as a peacebuilding strategy is not as easy as we could suppose.
To tackle these problems, we propose different alternatives: Firstly, we need access to land in an autonomous way and as soon as possible. Fortunately, in some places, we have received the solidarity from peasant, indigenous and Afro Colombian communities who, despite their own conditions, have shared some land with us. However, this is not enough to counteract the lack of land for all the FARC cooperatives. We expect to buy land in the formal market and so we need access to loans with realistic and affordable interest rates. It means, not to lie either on government policies and its bureaucratical programs or on private banks. Second, we need to be creative and realistic about the feasibility of entering into traditional markets. In that sense, we really believe in mainly supporting a self-sufficiency economy in our territorial cooperatives. It means to support agroecological practices and the Self-Sufficient Comprehensive Farm model in which we can basically guarantee the living conditions of our associates and leave some products for the local market. Third, to build capacities among ex-combatants and peasants that can increase the likelihood of building successful cooperatives, making them more knowledgeable in issues regarding management, communication, marketing and organization among other skills and recognizing and keeping their current valuable knowledge in farming production and communitarian leadership.
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Figure 6. An assembly of associates of the territorial cooperative in San Francisco, Santander
But the most important obstacle is that public policies are not yet implemented and the effect of international cooperation will spend more time than we assumed. It seems that this will continue hindering the implementation of the peace agreement and specifically the reincorporation process. That situation represents a risk in the achievement of the peace in the territories since it can motivate new and not desirable forms of violence. So, our aim is to call international solidarity for building peace in the territories by developing feasible local businesses that can provide a living for our ex-combatant population. But to do that, we need the first impulse and we, as the leading cooperative, can give this first impulse, by providing affordable loans to our associated cooperatives. The money that territorial cooperatives can borrow from the Solidarity Revolving Fund (SRF) will help them solve their first obstacles, in most of the cases: access to land.
WHO ARE WE?
We are members of the ex-rebel group and associates to the leading cooperative ECOMUN. Our team is composed by:
- German Moreno is the general manager of ECOMUN. He has been a political activist since 1975. After the dirty war in the 80s against the Patriotic Union (A political party created by the FARC-EP and other political forces in an attempt to achieve peace in 1984) ha had to enter to the guerrilla to protect his life. In the FARC-EP, German was in charge of several activities of education and social organization, but mainly in the management of the FARC productive projects during the war and the economy of his front.
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- Ubaldo Zuñiga is the president of ECOMUN. He is an economist and has worked as a teacher in public schools. Ubaldo was a guerrilla fighter for 20 years and was in charge of the work with marginalized peasant communities and of the education of other combatants.
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- Fany Castellanos is the vice-president of ECOMUN. She was born in the region of Sumapaz, one of the regions in which the peasant struggle for the access to land took place in the last decades. Her parents were communists and because of that, her family was displaced to other regions. Then she became a guerrilla fighter joining to the FARC-EP for 27 years. Fany was in prison for 4 years and was released thanks to the peace agreement and now is currently the vice-president of ECOMUN. With a broad experience in social organization in the guerrilla, she has been supporting the setting up and organization of the territorial cooperatives, focusing on problem-solving and decision-making strategies used among the boards of the territorial cooperatives.
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- Juan Camilo is the secretary of ECOMUN. He is currently studying mathematics and was delegated by the front Alfonso Cano to be a member of the board. He is also supporting the development of cooperatives in the region of Cauca and managing all the information regarding cooperatives at the national level.
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- Jairo Lesmes is a member of the ECOMUN board and has experience in social organization. He was a worker´s union leader in the Tobacco National Company and because of the killings of social leaders in the 80´s, he decided to enter to the guerrilla to save his life in 1985. He became an international representative of the FARC-EP, integrating the international commision and was a political prisoner for eight years. Until now, he has supported the creation of several territorial cooperatives in different regions in Colombia.
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- Juan Carlos Ramirez belonged to the guerrilla since 2004. He was responsible for the social organization of rural communities. He was a political prisoner released thanks to the peace accord after 6 years. Currently is a member of the supervisory committee of ECOMUN and promotor of the territorial cooperatives solving problems regarding organization and legalization of territorial cooperatives.
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- Walter Hoyos is a member of the ECOMUN board. He contributed to the FARC since 1988 when he was a student at the high school helping the guerrilla in different tasks. Then he was captured three times and to protect himself he became a guerrilla fighter in 2000. He is in charge of the development of the cooperatives in the Caribean region helping them in legalization and structuring of their boards.
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- Arinson Murillo belonged to the FARC-EP for 16 years. Additional to the military tasks, he was in charge of literacy and basic mathematics of new combatants and in charge of the management of food provision for the front. In ECOMUN is a member of the supervisory committee and is in charge of internal organization processes of territorial cooperatives of Icononzo, Tolima. He also belongs to the board of the ETCR of Icononzo.
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- Julián Cortés is the coordinator of the educational committee of ECOMUN. He is a mechanical engineer with a master’s degree in Development and Rural Innovation from Wageningen University and is currently conducting PhD studies in social sciences at the same university. He belongs to the FARC-EP since 2006 and was a political prisoner for three years. His work in ECOMUN has been the design and practice of capacity building strategies in the territorial cooperatives.
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- Manuel Rubio is the adviser of the FARC in productive projects in the National Council of Reincorporation. He is an economist graduated at the National University and public manager with a master in Economic Development. He has a broad experience in cooperatives and small business development. His work in ECOMUN is mainly focused on supporting the formulation and planning of productive projects and in the systematization of all the information regarding productive strategies.
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- Tatiana Lote studied economics and has a master in political studies. She has experience in agrarian research and social work with peasant communities. Currently, she is a member of the technical team in charge of the design of strategies for the social and economic reincorporation of the ex-insurgents of the FARC-EP and belongs to the educational committee.
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- Nataly Contreras is a social worker graduated at the National University from Colombia. She has been working since one year ago in the implementation process of the peace agreement, specifically in the reincorporation process and in the internal organization of ECOMUN and its strategic relationship. She is also a member of the educational committee.
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WHAT DO WE NEED?
Our goal is to achieve more than 30.000 dollars in the first international campaign. With this money we can support our territorial cooperatives by investing in:
- Land. We expect to give loans to a few cooperatives for investing in small plots of land enough to start feasible productive projects.
- Agricultural inputs.
- Seeds.
- Agricultural infrastructure.
- Agricultural Machinery.
- Machinery in general.
- Transportation.
- Housing
WHAT DO YOU GET IN RETURN FOR DONATING?*
If you support us with:
- 5 US$: Facebook thanks. We really appreciate your contribution and we will announce it on our Facebook page
- 12 US$: Social Networks Thanks. We will be happy to announce our thanks to you on all of our social networks.
- 25 US$: Digital Postcard. We will send you a rebel/pacifist personalized digital postcard to thank you for your support. It can be with a souvenir photo of the former guerrilla, or if you prefer, with a current photo of our spaces of peacebuilding.
- 42 US$: Printed Mug. Each time you have a coffee or a tea you will remember your contribution to the peace in Colombia.
- 75US$: GO GREEN 1. If you just want something symbolic but important for your contribution, we can plant 1 tree on any of our farms purchased with the support of the Solidarity Revolving Fund with a small plate with the name you want to remind forever. We will send you pictures of this tree once it is ready and a report will be published on our social networks.
- 105 US$: Personalised T-shirt. Let´s go outside with a personalized T-Shirt of the FARC. You can choose between a design which includes a rebel symbolic image and one with a peacebuilding image.
- 223 US$: Personalized Video Greetings. We are really happy with your solidarity and we will send you a personalized video of one of the beneficiaries of the Solidarity Revolving Fund. You can watch it while you have a coffee in a personalized mug, and if you want we can publish it on our YouTube Channel.
- 300 US$: GO GREEN 2. If you want to make an environmental impact with your contribution, we can plant 5 trees of different species on any of our farms purchased with the support of the Solidarity Revolving Fund with small plates with the names you want to remind forever. We will send you pictures of that and a report will be published on our social networks.
- 485 US$: CD music of the FARC-EP. Our music is part of the history of our revolutionary peasant movement. If you really like Colombian folk music we can send you the last musical product of the ex-combatant Julian Conrado, one of the most known revolutionary musicians alive in Latinoamerica.
- 1105 US$: Sweatshirt. Would you like to exercise a bit? Let´s go with a sweatshirt produced by one of our cooperatives. We will also give you a personalized T-shirt.
- 1500 US$: FARC Artist´s Painting. We are extremely thankful for your contribution and we will give you a beautiful painting created especially for you by one of our known artists.
- 2500 US$: FARC artist´s Sculpture. Let us say that we are very happy and thankful for your solidarity and we will send you a beautiful sculpture with a personalized plate created by one of our artists.
*Please be aware that some of these rewards need to be shipped to your country. In that case, we will try to move them with our friends around the world as near as possible to your place and we will kindly request you to pay an additional shipping cost depending on the distance required.
We defined a minimum goal of 30.000 US$ but we will be really happy if we can achieve a bigger goal and so we can support more local investments on our territorial co-ops.
WHAT CAN I DO IF I CANNOT DONATE?
If at the end you are interested in this project, but you cannot donate, you can contribute with us by:
- Sharing this page on Facebook and social networks
- Sending an email to everyone you know who may be able to help us
- Cooperating with ECOMUN as a practitioner or researcher exploring different issues like the substitution of crops, reincorporation, peasant agriculture, fishing, housing, among others.
We will be very thankful for your important contribution.
Let’s build together Peace and Solidarity Economies in Colombia!!!
For questions please mail us to educacionecomun@gmail.com