IX - Contesting the Deserter Frame

Summary

This chapter discusses the two main counter-frames that challenge the loyalist frame about deserters presented in Chapter 8. The main challenge comes from the deserters themselves, who refused to be labelled as traitors and do not want to be identified as ex-combatants, in addition to fearing being hunted down by both loyalists and FARC dissidents. The secondary challenge arises from the government, which continues to place all ex-combatants into the same category of desmovilizado and whose neglect of the collective economic projects promised in the peace agreement is creating mass abandonment of the protected reincorporation zones – thus dismantling the FARC hierarchy and putting the group’s stated revolution project into further jeopardy.