The president of the Comunes party, Rodrigo Londoño (c), during a press conference of his Comunes party, in January 2021. Luis Eduardo Noriega A. (EFE)
The former FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) are finding it more difficult to survive in the democratic struggle than in the armed struggle.
As a guerrilla they lasted and grew for more than fifty years;
as a political party, they would be on the brink of dissolution.
In a letter signed by around 200 militants, they announced their resignation from the party, arguing that they did not feel represented by the community.
The decisions and instances "in no way coincide with our history of struggle and the revolutionary flags", can be read in the letter.
The passage to civilian life of the ex-combatants took place through the creation, in 2017, of the Comunes party, as a result of the peace agreement.
At first, the party kept the same acronym as the guerrilla (FARC), although they gave it another meaning —Common Alternative Revolutionary Force.
In 2021, they decided to change it to Commons to avoid stigmatization and association with the armed group.
Former senator Israel Zúñiga — known in the guerrilla group by the alias “Benkos Biohó” — is one of the signatories of the resignation letter.
His anger with the current party leaders goes back a long time, but only now has he made it official with his resignation.
"The only common thing that the Comunes party has is the name," he says in a phone call with EL PAÍS.
Zúñiga considers that the practices of the party are similar to the clientelistic form of the traditional political classes and what he criticizes most harshly is that some party leaders have not been able to dismantle the centralist and vertical management that they had in the old FARC structure.
“They have not wanted to understand that a party is based on the search for consensus, and consensus is only possible through debates.
Within this party there is a permanent denial of the possibility of debate and dissent”, he explains, announcing that they will regroup to create a new political movement.
The biggest point of contention among the resignations has been the handling that the party has given to reincorporation.
In the letter, they claim to be victims of exclusion by party leaders.
"There are no spaces for democratic debate, on the contrary, authoritarianism and exclusion prevail," can be read in the letter.
The president of the Comunes party is Rodrigo Londoño, alias Timochenko, top commander of the former guerrilla group.
In the last elections, the party supported Gustavo Petro, elected president.
Victoria Sandino was one of the negotiators of the agreement and was part of the party's National Political Council.
Her discontent also comes from a long time ago.
The same party had removed its voice last year.
Sandino complains that the leaders of the nucleus continued to act as if they were still part of the secretariat, despite the fact that they had gone from a military structure to a political one.
She felt that her opinions were not taken into account.
"We resigned because we had no other alternative, no guarantees for political militancy in a party that does not offer them, that does not allow discussion," explains Sandino.
Ever since, as a result of the peace agreement, it was announced that the ex-combatants of the former Marxist-Leninist guerrilla would have political participation, the recalcitrant right-wing has tenaciously opposed it.
They did not conceive that they would have representation in Congress without having been brought to justice for their crimes.
However, the signed agreement established a transitional justice, different from the sentences of ordinary justice.
Since the talks between the government and the FARC began, the guerrillas rejected the cessation of the conflict without participating in political life.
For the signatories there was no middle ground: they laid down their arms in exchange for their voice being taken into account in politics.
The militants loyal to the party play down the importance of the departure of their colleagues and equate the situation to the usual differences that can exist in any political party.
Pablo Catatumbo —current senator and former commander of the FARC— denounces that several of those who supposedly signed the letter were not consulted, some had already been expelled from the party for violating the regulations and others had never joined.
Indeed, Oswaldo Mendoza, alias “Pacho Quinto”, denounced that his name appears among the resignations despite the fact that his authorization was never requested, since he continues to be a member of Comunes.
Victoria Sandino had to rectify the list by eliminating several of those who appeared there.
Contrary to what the letter says, Catatumbo denies that there is persecution or discrimination.
"The fight is with the establishment that has not wanted to comply with the agreements, but they go against their own teammates and, unfortunately, they made a big mistake by unilaterally withdrawing from the game, without putting up a fight," he explains.
“There is more noise there than reality,” says Julián Gallo, a member of the party's National Political Council and former FARC commander.
"Militancy in a party is not mandatory and, if they don't feel represented, they leave and absolutely nothing happens," he adds.
The separation of the ex-combatants from the party has been going on for a long time.
Although Israel Zúñiga points out that more than 50% of the militants have withdrawn, Pablo Catatumbo says that this is not true because, of the 13,500 signatories of the peace agreement, not all of them signed up for the party's militancy.
“The party has registered between 6,200 and 6,400 militants”, clarifies Catatumbo.
Zúñiga's annoyance is also because the party has not denounced the murder of the peace signatories with sufficient force.
“There was no concern for the ex-combatant universe in the carnage our bases have been subjected to,” he says.
Since the signing of the peace agreement, 325 signatories have been assassinated.
Faced with this, Pablo Catatumbo has a different opinion: “Assigning the blame for the non-compliance of the agreements to the party seems absurd to me.
They have not been victims of anything;
they have been victims of the Colombian system that does not respect human rights, that murders”, he affirms.
The Comunes party is one of the most mentioned and controversial in Colombia, despite its few votes.
In its first election, in 2018, the party won 85,000 votes among the ten seats in the Senate and House of Representatives.
In the recent March elections they lost more than 30,000 votes: between the Senate and the House they only got 50,000, less than 1% of the total votes.
Society has not forgotten decades of war crimes and crimes against humanity that left thousands of victims, still without compensation.
Last June, the top commander of the former FARC, Rodrigo Londoño, acknowledged the seriousness of the crimes committed and asked for forgiveness.
If they do not get more followers, the Comunes party runs the risk of disappearing definitively, because in the next elections they must participate on equal terms with the other parties and, if they do not reach the threshold, they would be left without seats in Congress and without legal status. .
They are obliged to win supporters in the legislative period that has just begun, the second and last, according to the peace agreement.
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