07/12/2025
Proclamation of the VIII Festival of Reconciliation – “Harmonizing with the Land” (Chalán, Sucre | December 4, 5, and 6, 2025)
Here, where the mountain converses with the water and the mud remembers, we gather as delegations and sister communities; as community leaders, institutions, organizations, artists, teachers; as those who have had to sustain life amidst the persistence of conflict, and yet we insist on everyday peace.
We open this gathering with the vibrant rhythm of dawn; with the drums that announce that reconciliation is not a discourse, but a call that walks the streets and is shared in the air of every sunrise. Because when the drum sounds, the land awakens; and when the land awakens, no one is a stranger.
And we declare—with the gentle strength of the weavers, with the firmness of those who have suffered and do not surrender—that reconciliation is not forgetting, nor silence, nor obedience. Reconciliation is a form of lived truth: a truth that listens, that acknowledges, that names harms and their causes, and that dares to transform what reproduces them.
We say, from the pedagogy for peace that is born in the classroom but overflows its walls, that educating is opening paths for difficult conversations, dismantling stigmas, recognizing historical inequalities, and rebuilding the social fabric with art, sports, memory, critical thinking, and care. And we affirm that we cannot do it alone: peace is built in networks, in alliances, in community.
That is why we reaffirm two guiding principles that here became a shared word: Participatory Action Research, which unites reason and heart, city and territory, technique and lived experience; and deliberative democracy, which teaches us that democracy does not end with voting and truly begins when we pay attention to one another, when we learn to understand the other even in disagreement, and when we speak from the perspective of the regional common good.
We honor practices that heal without fanfare: the healing stew that transforms shared experiences into reconciliation; The braiding that heals wounds while weaving thoughts; the décima that names the unnamable; the theater that rehearses memories and futures, inviting us to recognize that human peace necessarily involves peace between human beings and the natural world; the harmonization woven with knowledge and aromas at dawn, reminding us that peace is also with Mother Nature and with the entire territory.
And we say clearly: without inclusion, there is no peace.
Here we hear dignity made manifest: an LGBTIQ+ population that, together with our powerful women's organizations, moved from pain to creation and to a public voice; leaders who transformed trauma into demands, threats into resistance, and fear into organization; diverse communities that have won respect, public policies, and recognition, demonstrating that cultural transformation does occur when dialogue is sustained and difference is valued.
That is why we proclaim that no one will be left out again: not because of their gender, their sexual orientation or identity, their skin color, their origin, or their history. And we embrace the call for a territorial agenda of historical reparation and Afro-descendant restoration in Montes de María, understanding that the solutions must be as profound as the pain, and as collective as the memory that sustains them.
We also declare that reconciliation requires courage in the face of the improbable: restorative dialogue with companies is not submission or window dressing; it is putting the whole truth on the table, acknowledging mistakes, making amends, and reorganizing the way we “enter” the territory: not from the outside, not from above, but through community processes and the Regional Space, strengthening their autonomy and their capacity for coordination and advocacy.
And we proclaim a lesson that this Festival reaffirmed with evidence and humanity: to forgive is not to forget. Memory has an episodic face and an emotional heart; and forgiveness does not erase what happened, but it can lessen the weight of negative emotions, open space for the functionality of life, and better guide restorative justice. To reconcile, then, is to remember without letting pain govern us; it is to reclaim the future without renouncing the truth.
Given everything we have experienced here, we make commitments that cannot be captured in a photo or applause:
We commit to strengthening community networks of care and self-protection, and to improving information, analysis, and visibility to protect those who sustain social processes in the territory.
We commit to bringing peace education to homes and schools, and to defending epistemic justice: that territorial knowledge not be subordinated, but recognized as a guide for transformation.
We commit to upholding inclusion as a daily practice—not just a slogan—until every municipality, every neighborhood, and every rural community can say: here, dignity is non-negotiable.
And so, from Chalán, we seal this Proclamation not as an end point but as a beginning: that the Festival not merely remain on the calendar, but become a way of life; that reconciliation be our path forward; that the land be our teacher; and that the Regional Space continue to grow—powerful not by imposing, but by convening, listening, embracing, and transforming.
