The banana workers of Urabá have mobilized one of the most significant campaigns for political, civil, and labor rights that Colombia has experienced in the last three decades. They have consolidated a trade union with about 15,000 members, which is unprecedented in the Colombian agricultural sector. Following the decentralization policies of the 1980s, the union Sintrainagro managed to improve the workers' living conditions during the 1990s, as well as their possibilities of access to local centers of power. This labor union also stimulated the organization of a Latin American federation of agricultural workers that gathers most of the wage workers in the continent's banana industry. Sintrainagro's leaders claim that Colombian banana workers are on a path that can take them to citizenship. How have they achieved this in the midst of such a ruthless armed conflict as the one taking place in Urabá?

This chapter discusses the process through which the workers and their allies bartered protection, security, and a significant level of political participation in exchange for loyalty to a political and economic order that required the elimination of one of the most important political forces in the region. Although this loyalty is not to the national state, but rather to a regional order established by a non-state counterinsurgent military apparatus, the workers are not mere "victims" of this order, since they have gained advantages and have been able to exert influence over the dispute. This was facilitated by the influence of different rebel tendencies on the group of workers and the legalization of one of them, EPL, during the peace process between the government and the guerrillas. This legalization included alliances between legal and illegal entrepreneurs, some sectors of the armed forces, and traditional politicians. The rivalry between the two major rebel projects in the region has led to a haggling over the workers' support, which has caused an unusual confluence of former enemies. This coalition has neutralized the possibility of a coincidence between the guerrilla organization still in arms-FARC-and the banana workers, as well as the success of a peace process that could legalize a unified project for the different rebel tendencies.