“When we arrived the community here didn’t know what to expect. ‘Will there be conflict, or killings or threats?’,” says former guerrilla commander Joverman Sánchez Arroyave, known by the name Rubén Cano in the FARC guerrilla (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia). “But there has been none of that. We have come here to work, and to work together with the community. That’s what we are doing.”
Today, Rubén is one of a group of FARC ex-combatant families who have settled down for a peaceful life in the valley of San José de León, municipality of Mutatá in Antioquia in northwest Colombia. Together, they have purchased and now cultivate 36 hectares of land.
But transitioning from guerrilla warfare to a life in peace has not been an easy process. Two years after signing the peace treaty with the Colombian government in 2016, ex-combatants continue to face trauma, stigmatization, and insecurity.