Former FARC combatants promote tourism in former guerrilla zones

In some places in the departments of Meta, Caquetá, Guaviare and Putumayo, between the center of the country and the Colombian Amazon, where a decade ago the sound of fighting between the disappeared FARC and the Colombian Army was heard, tourism is opening up pass through the former guerrilla rebels.

The municipality of Mesetas, in Meta, which was historically a territory controlled by the FARC, was opened to tourism since the 2016 Peace Agreement with its imposing waterfalls between mountains and forests that Rafael Guaduas once walked when he was carrying a weapon and camouflaged in The guerrilla.

“They can calmly go to enjoy one of the hidden paradises, because during the war no one could go there. Today they can go without fear of anything at all,” she told the voice of america Rafael Guaduas, who since handing over his weapons in 2016 has been dedicated to guiding tourists through the natural treasures that for years were displacement corridors for the FARC.

There are 12 projects led by signatories to the agreement that have received training from organizations such as Paz con la Naturaleza and the National Learning Service, SENA, where ex-combatants were trained as tour guides.

“We have trained possibly 250 to 300 peace agreement signatories and we have trained them in different areas, from biodiversity documentation, business plans, deforestation monitoring, participatory science,” he explained to the VOA Jaime Góngora, director of Peace with Nature.

Mesetas was for the former FARC one of the main strategic points through which they connected with the departments of Caquetá, Tolima and Bogotá. It was also the center where the guerrillas deployed their armed actions against the Colombian Military Forces.

Today the story is different and from the most important tourism fair in the country and one of the most prominent in Latin America, ANATO, Rafael exposes and promotes this and other plans to dozens of tourism businessmen from countries such as Panama, Mexico, the United States , Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina.

In Colombia after the Historic Peace Agreement with the FARCVarious armed groups continue to confront the Colombian State in the country. According to the Single Registry of Victims, the decades-long armed conflict has left more than nine million victims to date.

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