BOGOTA, Colombia – As the conflict between Colombian capitalists and Colombian communists continues, a former guerrilla fighter said the artisanal beer that he is helping to produce “tastes like peace.”
Carlos Alberto Grajales and more than 20 others working at the La Roja brewery are among the 13,000 veterans of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia People’s Army, or FARC, who laid down their arms after the peace accords in 2016.
Grajales wore a T-shirt to promote the Colombian “Comunes” socialist political party while talking about La Roja, which produces “La Pola” and “La Gaitana” beers in honor of Colombian heroines and the “Pola Paz” in honor of the peace accords.
“It is a beer that tastes like peace,” Grajales said in Spanish.
The beer brewery had an initial investment of about $29,000 and half of it was a loan. They learned how to brew ale from Wally Broderick and set up the first operation in 2018 in Colombia’s department of Tolima. It started in a kitchen with a gas stove at a home in the municipality of Icononzo and it grew into an industrial operation in Bogotá's 7 de Agosto neighborhood.
Grajales said La Roja operates like a cooperative, or co-opt, that is controlled by all 24 members. He said everyone gets paid and the profits are reinvested into the business. He said the government’s lack of support for the peace accords has stalled the cooperative’s growth.
Colombian President Ivan Duque has denied accusations that he has gotten in the way of delivering the promises of the peace accords. The National Reintegration Council, a government agency set up after the 2016 peace accords, reported investing millions in businesses for leftist guerrilla veterans.
The Marxist-Leninist guerrilla warfare of the 1960s continues to fuel violence in Colombia. The Martín Villa 10th Front, or FARC-EP, is a FARC dissident armed group founded after the 2016 peace accords. The Colombian military is also dealing with fighters of the National Liberation Army, or ELN.
The ELN guerrilla took credit for blowing up a bridge in the town of Pailitas and setting up bombs that injured eight people in a road between the municipalities of San Gil and Socorro earlier this month.
The Colombian military recently reported killing 23 FARC dissident fighters, including leaders “Arturo” and “Ernesto,” near the northern border with Venezuela where there is a narcotrafficking corridor.
Both leftist armed groups also operate in Venezuela, according to the Human Rights Watch. Colombian defense minister Diego Molano believes the Russian-backed Venezuelan government provides the Marxist-Leninist guerrillas support.
In the office of Rodrigo Granda, a FARC veteran leader, there is a poster of an image that Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez unveiled in 2012 saying it was a 3-D reconstruction of South America’s 19th-century independence hero Simon Bolivar.
Granada, also known as Ricardo González, accused right-wing populists of wanting to “tear apart the Havana peace agreement.”
Duque recently said there are suspicions foreign operatives will try to influence the upcoming Colombian elections. The “Comunes” communist party will be participating in the parliamentary election on March 13 and the presidential election on May 29.
Torres contributed to this report from Miami.