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Social Reintegration - Achieving reconciliation through the arts

CASE STUDY: Ibagué

Ibagué is known as Colombiaʼs capital of music so it is only right that an ACR intervention project here is bringing together former combatants and members of the local community through the arts. A group of around eighty people gather in a local college every week to take music and dance classes together. They are drawn from local participants of the ACR reintegration programme - a mixture of former combatants from the FARC and ELN guerrilla groups, and from the AUC paramilitaries. They are joined by young people from vulnerable parts of the community who may be at risk from being recruited into an illegal armed group.

As men, women and children arrive for their workshops, there is a palpable excitement amongst them as though they are arriving for a party. Jorge is 21-years-old and full of youthful cockiness with his sunglasses on and mohican haircut. He is looking forward to the session and thrilled to show off how well he can now play the drums. Life hasn’t always been so easy, however. He demobilized from a guerrilla group a few months ago after ten years as a child soldier and guerrilla. Taking up percussion has given him a new reason for getting up in the morning, and he has ambitions to make a career of touring music around Colombia.

“The great thing about this is it shows you there are other ways of living,” he says, with a sudden air of wisdom gained through hard experience. “I didn’t realize there were opportunities like this; I thought the only way to live was by being a guerrilla. When you’re living in the jungle, you don’t get any education and you can’t imagine there are any other options. Music is helping me move on with my life.”

The project also allows participants to discover skills they never knew they possessed. Excombatants often demobilize believing the only abilities they have is the knowledge of how to handle weapons and fight. Programmes like this instill a confidence in new, positive skills.

“I feel like Iʼve discovered a talent I never knew I had,” says 28-year-old Camilo, a former FARC guerrilla. “It also makes you learn how to work with other people - if you’re arrogant or selfish youʼll break the harmony.”

The ACR staff who are working on the project are delighted with the results and are seeing real changes in the participants. Edwin Moreno is a psychologist and believes one of the greatest benefits is how former combatants change the way they feel about themselves mentally through thinking differently about themselves physically.

“Imagine how you carry yourself in a war,” he explains. “You’re always tense. You use your body to hold a weapon, and you’re always ready to defend yourself. Here, you see people relax who are normally very rigid. Suddenly everyone’s smiling, and through music and dance they’re learning how to use their bodies differently.”

Using the arts to address difficult issues like reconciliation and reintegration, or to offer an alternative path to joining a gang is gaining in popularity in different conflict and post conflict countries. Music, art and drama creates a ʻsafe placeʼ in which people can communicate with each other in different ways, making it easier to open up new forms of dialogue.

“They’re learning a new language like this, and how to interact with people from other backgrounds,” says Martha Lucia Arteaga, director of Ibague’s ACR Service Centre for participants. “Outside of here, if they need to do something in the community with their neighbors, they will find it easier now.”

In a city like Ibagué, which faces the dual challenge of reintegrating former fighters and keeping young people from difficult backgrounds from being recruited by illegal gangs, this project is giving people hope and opportunities. Even more than that, it is giving men and women with some of the most complicated histories in Colombia the chance to change their lives, and consequently the lives of those around them.

“We’ve seen a new joy in the people who come here,” says Martha. “Their eyes shine with a new lust for life now. It’s a way for them to know they are human.”