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TEHRAN, November 14 - The nine former rebel fighters, who traded their guns, battle fatigues and heavy rucksacks for paddles, helmets and life jackets, launch four rafts laden with visitors into the turbulent Pato River, deep in Colombia’s dense Amazon jungle.
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) -The nine former rebel fighters, who traded their guns, battle fatigues and heavy rucksacks for paddles, helmets and life jackets, launch four rafts laden with visitors into the turbulent Pato River, deep in Colombia’s dense Amazon jungle.
The former guerrillas from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) have chosen rafting as their path to reintegration, as the government pushes to make tourism a top engine of the Andean nation’s economy.
“During the conflict, this region was rough, there were bullets and bombs all the time. Today, so much has changed - many people come to see the waterfalls, the mountain, the river,” guide Duberney Moreno, 34, a 13-year veteran of the FARC, said on Friday.
Nearly 13,000 former combatants and their unarmed sympathizers are participating in a reintegration process agreed as part of a 2016 peace deal to end more than 52 years of war with the government.
Reincorporation is considered fundamental to ensuring former FARC members do not return to the battlefield with smaller rebel group the National Liberation Army (ELN), numerous crime gangs and dissident groups that refused to demobilize.
The conflict in Colombia has killed more than 260,000 people and millions more have been displaced, suffered sexual violence or been maimed by land mines or bombs.
Source: Reuters
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