https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4021-018X
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ABSTRACT
Mid-level commanders are commonly considered the visible heads of the rebel body: as leaders of combat operations, they are often targeted in counterterrorism or counterinsurgency operations. While their role during conflict has been theorized extensively, only recent scholarship has focused on mid-level commanders in post-conflict transitions. Specifically, it is not clear how mid-level commanders function within ex-combatant groups to create divergent peacebuilding results. This paper argues that transitions from conflict involve fraying of wartime bonds and rebel command-and-control structures, which is counterproductive to peace when rebels demobilize collectively. In peacetime and in the absence of wartime command, social groups formed through military logic struggle to redefine individual roles. Mid-level commanders, responsible for shaping intergroup bonds during conflict, are essential for allocating ex-combatant roles and redefining rebel-civilian relations. Against the common practice of breaking rebel wartime command-and-control structure during demobilization, this paper argues that ex-combatant groups can demobilize and reintegrate more successfully if they maintain their wartime cohesion and are provided the necessary tools for building sustainable livelihoods. To support the argument, the paper provides original qualitative and quantitative evidence from the Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) programme with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
Acknowledgements
The author thanks the anonymous reviewers at International Peacekeeping for their time and effort in assessing the previous version of this manuscript and providing constructive comments. The author also thanks Raúl Rosende, Dayron Yegrail, Carlo Nasi, Laura Wills Otero, Thomas Weiss, Mark Ungar, FARC members of Congress, the UN Political Mission in Colombia, and the Agency for Reincorporation and Standardization (ARN). More than anyone, the author is grateful to FARC ex-combatants for housing her in the ETCR and sharing their stories with her.
Data Availability Statement
The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from Sally Sharif (www.sallysharif.com). The data are not publicly available due to privacy and ethical restrictions, i.e. containing information that could compromise the privacy of research participants.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Ethics Approval
The research with human subjects for this paper was approved by the University Integrated Institutional Review Board (IRB #2018-1590) at the Graduate Centre of the City University of New York.
Notes
1 The rebel group FARC – People's Army (FARC-EP) constituted seven main operation regions or ‘blocs’ (bloque): Caribbean, Middle Magdalena, Western, Eastern, Central, Southern, and Northwestern. A bloc was composed of 500 to 5,000 combatants and corresponded roughly to a battalion or brigade in conventional state militaries.
2 Throughout this paper, for the sake of simplicity, I use the term ‘mid-level commander’ instead of ‘former mid-level commander’. The latter is the appropriate term, since FARC fronts ceased to exist with the group's disarmament following the 2016 peace agreement. The paper intends to elaborate on the process through which the rebel military logic and structure informed the post-conflict demobilization and reintegration process of its combatants.
3 Demobilization and reintegration camps are also referred to as cantons in the DDR literature. In Colombia, they are called Territorial Spaces of Training and Reincorporation (Espacios Territoriales de Capacitación y Reincorporación). The FARC employs the term ‘reincorporation’ for its ex-combatants since the peace agreement did not envision ‘reintegration’ of its combatants within civilian communities, at least in the first thirty months of cantonment. In this paper, I use the term ‘demobilization and reintegration’, which is the more common term in the DDR literature and is used for individual-oriented and collective programs.
4 Daly, ‘Dark Side of Power-Sharing.’
5 Martin, ‘Commander–Community Ties.’
6 Eccarius-Kelly, ‘Surreptitious Lifelines;’ Piccolino, ‘Peacebuilding and Statebuilding.’
7 FIP, ‘Mandos Medios de las FARC.’
8 Weinstein, Inside Rebellion;’ Wood, ‘Armed Groups and Sexual Violence;’ Rosenau et al., ‘Why they Join;’ Staniland, Networks of Rebellion; Arjona, Rebelocracy.
9 Themnér, ‘Former Mid-Level Commanders;’ Daly, ‘Dark Side of Power-Sharing;’ Barter, ‘Rebel State in Society;’ Piccolino, ‘Peacebuilding and Statebuilding;’ Themnér, ‘Wealth in Ex-Combatants;’ Gutiérrez D., ‘Towards a New Phase;’ Martin, ‘Commander-Community Ties.’
10 Zyck, ‘Former Combatant Reintegration;’ Themnér, Violence in Post-Conflict Societies; Daly, ‘The Dark Side of Power-Sharing.’
11 Ouaiss and Rowayheb, ‘Ex-Combatants Working for Peace;’ Shesterinina, ‘Former FARC-EP Midlevel Commanders;’ Sharif, ‘Wartime Bonds.’
12 Themnér, ‘Former Military Networks.’
13 Reno, ‘Transforming West African Militia Networks,’ de Vries and Wiegink, ‘Breaking Up and Going Home;’ Themnér, Violence in Post-Conflict Societies; Persson, ‘Demobilized or Remobilized;’ Sharif, ‘Critical Review.’
14 Humphreys and Weinstein, ‘Demobilization and Reintegration.’
15 Sharif, ‘Wartime Bonds.’
16 Zyck, ‘Former Combatant Reintegration.’
17 Berdal, Disarmament and Demobilisation; Bertrand and Pauwels, ‘Prospects for the Future;’ Lundin et al., ‘Reducing Costs;’ Knight and Özerdem, ‘Guns, Camps and Cash.’
18 Themnér, ‘Wealth in Ex-Combatants.’
19 Nussio and Oppenheim, ‘Anti-Social Capital.’
20 Whitehouse et al., ‘Brothers in Arms.’
21 Bakker, Raab, and Milward, ‘Preliminary Theory;’ Parkinson, ‘Organizing Rebellion;’ Staniland, Networks of Rebellion; Sharif, ‘Predicting the End.’
22 Henderson, Cohesion; Wood, ‘Armed Groups.’
23 Kenny, ‘Structural Integrity.’
24 Sharif, ‘Wartime Bonds.’
25 Daly, Organized Violence; Themnér and Karlén, ‘Building a Safety Net;’ Martin, ‘Insurgent Armies;’ Sharif, ‘Critical Review.’
26 Borzello, ‘Challenge of DDR;’ Corbin, ‘Returning Home;’ Knight, ‘Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration;’ Mergelsberg, ‘Between Two Worlds;’ Kaplan and Nussio, ‘Community Counts;’ Martin, ‘Commander-Community Ties;’ Martin, Piccolino, and Speight, ‘Ex-Rebel Authority.’
27 Mampilly, Rebel Rulers; Arjona, ‘Institutions, Civilian Resistance.’
28 Janzen, ‘Guatemalan Ex-Combatant Perspectives.’
29 Martin, ‘Commander-Community Ties.’
30 Santamaría and Hernández, ‘Fostering Solidarity.’
31 The FARC changed its name to Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia —People's Army (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – Ejército del Pueblo, FARC-EP) following the Seventh Guerilla Conference in 1982. Henceforth in this paper, I refer to the FARC rebel group as FARC-EP and reserve FARC to refer to the group and its former combatants following the 2016 peace agreement with the government of Colombia.
32 The FARC-EP had materialized a classic guerilla organizational structure, inspired by the Marxist-Leninist approach to warfare. Throughout five decades of conflict, it managed to maintain its tight command-and-control structure, despite engaging in criminal activities, such as narco-trafficking, kidnapping, and extortion. See Leech, The FARC; Arango, FARC; Villamizar, Las Guerrillas.
33 Nussio and Quishpe, ‘Fuerza Centrífuga’
34 During conflict, mid-level commanders maintained privileged positions within the rebel group's organizational structure. A commander led a front (frente), constituting 30 to 1,000 combatants. The FARC's decentralized nature allowed mid-level commanders autonomy in recruitment, securing finances, and assigning battalion roles. During conflict, commanders were responsible, not only for leading combatants in battle, but for communicating with the Secretariat and financially managing the fronts. Accruing funds to manage each front was the responsibility of commanders, making them the principal authority for communicating with and exerting authority over civilian populations. See Spencer, ‘Sword of Honor;’ Gutiérrez Sanín, ‘Criminal Rebels;’ ‘Telling the Difference;’ Otero-Bahamon, Uribe, and Peñaranda-Currie, ‘Seeing like a Guerrilla.’
35 The FARC prefers using ‘laying down of arms’ (dejación de armas) instead of ‘disarmament’, implying that the group has not ‘disarmed’ politically and socially; it has only laid down its arms to continue the social-political fight without arms. A few FARC fronts formed a dissident group and refused to disarm.
36 With military assistance by the United States during Plan Colombia, the Colombian military gained special training and equipment for targeting FARC-EP's top leaders and commanders.
37 Gutiérrez D., ‘Towards a New Phase.’
38 Interview with FARC Congressman Carlos Antonio Lozada (August 2019)
39 Various ETCR included individual ex-combatants from different fronts than is shown in . The figure also excludes mobile columns of FARC-EP.
40 The Colombian government, on recommendations by the UN Mission and other agencies involved in the reincorporation process, extended the initial thirty-month period for demobilization and reintegration. This paper, however, only takes the first thirty months into account, since the analysis is not impacted by external factors to DDR, such as the Covid-19 pandemic. The paper is investigating the ex-combatants propensity to stay within the DDR program during the period officially allocated to demobilization and reintegration – thirty months.
41 Ex-combatants were given thirty months in the camps to work on land rented by the government from various landowners. Ex-combatants in ETCR without a commander reported concern for their future once the ETCR lease ended and the government stopped paying their monthly allowances. In the absence of guarantees for the future, financial insecurity translated into disillusionment with DDR and the peace process.
42 Interview with the author, ETCR Tierra Grata (August 2019)
43 Bennett, ‘Process Tracing;’ Arjona, ‘Institutions, Civilian Resistance.’
44 Considering the low number of observations on the camp level (N = 24), I did not base the arguments in this paper on the quantitative analysis of the ETCR data. Although the twenty-four ETCR in this analysis represent the ETCR population, the low number of observations does not allow conducting multivariate regressions on the data. The quantitative analysis, although robust, simply substantiates the arguments developed through extensive qualitative research with ex-combatants, former mid-level commanders, and FARC party leaders.
45 The Institutional Review Board had approved research design, procedures, and measures prior to interviews. The author positioned herself as an outsider, affiliated solely with an academic institution and researching the variation among ETCR. If a camp was led by a mid-level commander, the commander was interviewed first in discreet locations inside the camp. Then a snowball sampling strategy was used to interview both male and female ex-combatants individually. Face-to-face interviews with ex-combatants ranged 45–60 min and were performed in Spanish by the author inside participants’ homes or neutral sites in the ETCR. Participants provided informed consent and received no compensation.
46 Segura and Stein, ‘FARC's Collective Reincorporation Project;’ Carranza-Franco, Demobilisation and Reintegration in Colombia.
47 Retention rate captures the ratio of ex-combatants remaining in the ETCR after thirty months of DDR (mean = 0.52; min = 0.24; max = 0.88).
48 The p-value for the T-test comparing the mean retention rate of the two sets was 0.03, rejecting the alternative hypothesis that the true difference in means is equal to 0.
49 Ex-combatants that left the ETCR did not necessarily rearm or join dissident factions of FARC-EP. Following disarmament, ex-combatants were free to leave the ETCR. Incentives to leave included reuniting with family, looking for jobs outside the ETCR, joining FARC dissidents, or joining criminal groups. Camps that created a well-functioning community not only incentivized ex-combatants to stay within the camp but motivated them to bring civilian family members to live with them within the camp. There are no credible reports on the number of ex-combatants who joined FARC dissidents, FARC recidivists, or criminal bands after leaving the ETCR. It is, however, certain that ex-combatants that remained in the ETCR followed the legal DDR path delineated by the peace agreement. Interview with Carlos Antonio Lozada, FARC Congressman and leader of FARC political party (Bogota, August 2019).
50 Final Agreement, section 3.3.
51 Arias, Herrera, and Prieto, ‘Mandos Medios de las FARC.’
52 Interview with a FARC mid-level commander in ETCR Tierra Grata (May 2019)
53 Interview with an ex-combatant in ETCR Tierra Grata (May 2019)
54 Interview with an ex-combatant in ETCR Tierra Grata (May 2019)
55 Interview with a FARC ex-combatant in ETCR El Oso (August 2019)
56 Interview with a FARC ex-combatant in ETCR Yarí (January 2022)
57 Interview with a FARC ex-combatant in ETCR La Fila (May 2019)
58 Interview with a FARC ex-combatant in ETCR La Fila (May 2019)
59 Interview with a FARC ex-combatant in ETCR La Fila (May 2019)
60 Interview with a FARC ex-combatant in ETCR Agua Bonita (May 2019)
61 Interview with a FARC ex-combatant in ETCR Agua Bonita (May 2019)
62 Interview with a FARC ex-combatant in ETCR El Oso (August 2019)
63 Interview with a FARC ex-combatant in ETCR El Oso (August 2019)
64 Interview with a FARC ex-combatant in ETCR El Oso (August 2019)
65 Interview with an ex-combatant in ETCR La Fila (June 2019)
66 Interview with an ex-combatant in ETCR Agua Bonita (May 2019)
67 I compared the two ETCR sets (with and without mid-level commanders) using a Wilcoxon signed-rank test for economic viability (on the ordinal scale) and a T-test for government funding and international support (both on the interval scale). The p-value of the Wilcoxon signed rank test is 0.002, which is less than the significance level alpha = 0.05. We can conclude with 95% certainty that the median score for economic viability in ETCR led by a mid-level commander is significantly different from those without wartime leadership.
68 Interview with a FARC ex-combatant in ETCR Yarí (January 2022)
69 Interview with a FARC ex-combatant in ETCR El Oso (August 2019)
70 Interview with a FARC ex-combatant in ETCR El Oso (August 2019)
71 Interview with FARC Congressman Carlos Antonio Lozada (Bogota, August 2019)
72 Interview with a FARC mid-level commander in ETCR La Fila (May 2019)
73 Interview with a FARC mid-level commander in ETCR Tierra Grata (May 2019)
74 Ibid.
75 Interview with a FARC ex-combatant in ETCR Tierra Grata (May 2019)
76 McClanahan, Sanchez Parra, ‘Conflict, Environment, and Transition;’ Sánchez Supelano, ‘Ecotourism in Colombia;’ Van Broeck, Guasca and Vanneste, ‘Iniciativas Turísticas.’
77 Interview with a FARC ex-combatant in ETCR El Oso (August 2019)
78 The p-value for the T-test comparing the two sets on government funding was 0.975, failing to reject the alternative hypothesis that the true difference in means is equal to 0. The p-value for the T-test comparing the two sets on international support was 0.643, failing to reject the alternative hypothesis that the true difference in means is equal to 0.
79 Interview with José Lisandro Lascarro, ‘Pastor Alape,’ a member of the FARC-EP Secretariat and the head of FARC's ex-combatant reintegration program (Bogotá, August 2019)
80 Sharif, ‘Demobilizing and Reintegration Ex-Combatants.’
81 Hauge, ‘Group Identity.’
82 United Nations, ‘Integrated Standards;’ de Vries and Wiegink, ‘Breaking Up and Going Home;’ Muggah and O’Donnell, ‘Next Generation.’
83 Kaplan and Nussio Citation2018, ‘Community Counts;’ Veale et al., ‘Participation as Principle;’ Schuberth, ‘Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration.’
84 Pickering, ‘Generating Social Capital;’ Bowd and Özerdem, ‘How to Access Social Reintegration.’
85 Themnér and Karlén, ‘Building a Safety Net;’ Nussio and Oppenheim, ‘Anti-Social Capital;’ Whitehouse et al., ‘Brothers in Arms;’ Sharif, ‘Critical Review.’
86 Long cantonments have usually been a sign of malfunctioning DDR programs, which had not materialized a phase of the program to allow ex-combatants to leave the camp.
87 Knight and Özerdem, ‘Guns, Camps and Cash.’
88 Segura and Stein, ‘FARC's Collective Reincorporation Project.’
89 Themnér, ‘Former Military Networks;’ Martin, ‘Commander-Community Ties.’
90 Themnér, ‘Former Military Networks.’
91 Ibid.
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Sally Sharif
Sally Sharif is Post-Doctoral Research Associate at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame.