Billionaire Howard Buffett wore boots made by former FARC combatants

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This photo shows, from left to right, Joshua Goodman, news director for the Andean Region of the Associated Press; Colombian President Iván Duque, and Howard G. Buffett, president of the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, during the Annual Concord Summit in New York on September 23, 2019 in New York. Buffett's boots were made by former FARC combatants in Colombia. (Credit: Riccardo Savi / Getty Images for Concordia Summit)

(CNN Spanish) - A photo, which at first glance could be one more of the Concordia Annual Summit, attended by Colombian President Iván Duque, and billionaire Howard G. Buffett, in New York, shows a changing reality in Colombia.

The focus was yellow “troperas” boots that Buffett combined with his dark cloth suit and striped tie, a gift that, along with a backpack, President Duque made to the president of the Howard G. Buffett Foundation.

• Colombian Government reinforces the security of demobilized ex-combatants

The boots were made by a group of former FARC combatants who demobilized after the signing of the Havana peace accords, signed in 2016 by the then President Juan Manuel Santos and the FARC guerrillas. After years of being in the war, the now ex-combatants dedicated themselves to manufacturing footwear as their productive project.

“I put on my boots. The president gave them to me after dinner and I wonder if he was going to wear them and I said yes, yes, ”said Buffett, displaying his shoes to the more than 500 attendees of the 'Private Capital as a Mechanism in Sustaining Peace' panel 'which was held this Monday in New York.

Duque bought these in mid-March during a visit to the former Territorial Training and Reincorporation Space (ETCR) of Tierra Grata, in the municipality of La Paz, in the department of Cesar, in northern Colombia, according to the Presidency.

• Look here: Are the productive projects of ex-combatants with the government working or not?

Buffett acknowledged the cooperatives created by the ex-combatants of the Farc throughout the Colombian territory, where those who once wielded weapons now work on products such as clothing, footwear, coffee and even craft beers.

“And this is how one manages to change things. And that's how peace is maintained, ”said the billionaire.

Buffett, who announced an investment of between 150 and 200 million dollars in infrastructure for Catatumbo, another of the Colombian regions plagued by violence and poverty, said that although "peace building is not easy", the construction of Little things - like boots, in this case - are what lead to "sustaining peace."