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Global Jigsaw from the BBC World Service.

1:11

Listen now by searching for the explanation

1:13

wherever you get your BBC podcasts. I

1:24

used many tactics to stay alive. They

1:28

would get you off the boat and they

1:30

would circle you. They would surround you, four

1:32

or six paramilitaries. And they would put you

1:35

in the middle of that circle, in a

1:37

small chair. Of

1:41

course, when you're surrounded by paramilitaries,

1:43

armed people, you would feel

1:46

completely afraid. You knew what they were doing.

1:48

You knew that they were killing everyone. In

1:53

the middle of that circle, people used

1:55

to get nervous and they would say crazy

1:57

things. And many times they were killed. So

2:01

one day they did that to me. They put me

2:03

in the middle of that circle and

2:06

they started asking me a lot of

2:08

questions. And my tactic was

2:10

to try to keep my nerves,

2:13

trying to stay calm

2:16

and be very, very,

2:18

very aware of the language that I was using.

2:21

That was a tactic that helped me a lot. Lehner

2:25

Palacios specializes in mediation. He

2:27

can keep his cool. He can reason

2:29

with people. And not just

2:31

any people, hostile people, armed

2:34

groups who aren't that into pleasantries

2:36

and compromise. These

2:39

days, Lehner works in conflict resolution at

2:41

a national level, in his country Colombia,

2:44

working towards peace. But

2:46

he's a self-taught mediator and he had to

2:48

learn these skills young. He

2:50

was still in his teens when he first had to

2:52

negotiate for his own life. Something

2:55

he'd have to do again and again,

2:58

in a region where guns and violence had become a

3:00

part of daily life. You're

3:03

listening to the Lives Less Ordinary podcast

3:05

from the BBC World Service. I'm

3:07

Asi Fuchs. Lehner

3:19

grew up in a cluster of villages

3:21

called Bojaja, which is in the Pacific

3:23

Choco region of Colombia. It's

3:25

covered in very dense forests and people

3:27

get around on boats via a network

3:29

of remote waterways. The

3:32

people who live there are mostly Afro-Colombian,

3:34

like Lehner, although there are indigenous people

3:36

too. Small riverside

3:38

communities are largely cut off from the

3:40

outside world. His particular

3:43

village, Poga, was tiny, just

3:45

a few hundred inhabitants. But

3:48

while Lehner's upbringing was isolated, it wasn't

3:50

lonely. His family

3:52

was enormous. I was

3:55

born in a very, very... numerous

4:00

family. We were 23 siblings.

4:03

So I had to speak with my oldest

4:05

brother, with my youngest siblings. I

4:07

was the one in between all of

4:10

them. What was life at home

4:12

like with 23 siblings? That's quite,

4:14

that's a lot of siblings. Life

4:18

with 23 siblings is amazing. Like

4:20

you get a lot of fun.

4:23

I was in between all these

4:25

siblings. I had to assume this

4:27

role of the guide. All my

4:29

siblings saw me as a guide,

4:31

as a voice that was kind

4:34

of orienting the family to where we wanted

4:37

to go. His parents had

4:39

a lot of mouths to feed. This wasn't

4:41

easy. And his dad had to

4:43

rely on a mix of trading and subsistence

4:45

farming to support the family. So

4:51

my dad was a trader, but our

4:55

situation was a lot of

4:57

poorness. There was many,

4:59

many days where we endured hunger.

5:01

My dad had a crop of

5:04

plantain and we helped him, but he was

5:06

a peasant. He was a peasant in an

5:08

area that is very abandoned. This

5:10

is a part of the world, a part of Colombia. You can't

5:12

get to it by road. It's very

5:15

deep in the forest. There are rivers all around.

5:18

How did you get around as a kid? So

5:20

POGUE is very, very deep in the jungle of Chocoa.

5:38

To get to POGUE, you have

5:40

to take a canoe 8 hours

5:42

up the Atrato River. And then

5:45

after those 8

5:47

hours, you have to take another one 2 hours

5:49

to get to POGUE. So we're

5:51

talking about 10 hours. The

6:03

river

6:06

is right, or if there is a lot

6:08

of water, if there is rainy season,

6:10

it's very very hard to get there.

6:13

And then sometimes when

6:15

the water is very low, you have just

6:18

to literally drag the

6:20

canoe through the river and

6:23

that takes more time. And if

6:25

there's a lot of water, sometimes you

6:27

just cannot go there. So this is

6:29

a very cut off community, there were

6:31

no outside government forces

6:33

there. Do you think that

6:35

because it was so cut off that this

6:38

made the community closer, more tight

6:41

or knit? Were people close? Definitely.

6:45

That's something that I miss and that I admire a

6:47

lot from my community. This

6:53

is a community where people are

6:55

very very close. For example, all

6:57

the adults in the community were

7:00

parents of the children. So any

7:02

adult had the right to admonish,

7:04

to correct, to provide guidance for

7:07

a child that was going off the

7:09

way, for example. And we all acknowledged

7:11

and accepted that. There was

7:13

a lot of solidarity, there was a lot of

7:16

generosity, and I think that part of it was

7:18

because there was an absence of the state. How

7:21

did people resolve disagreements or arguments

7:23

between themselves and this community? There was a

7:25

very important day in our community, 28th of

7:27

December. This

7:33

is the Innocence Party, that's how we

7:35

call them in Colombia, El Día de

7:37

los Inocentes. And

7:39

what happened is that that

7:42

day, someone in the

7:44

very early morning would go house

7:46

by house getting food. Whatever

7:49

food people wanted to donate, they

7:51

would get it and we would put it in a

7:53

community table. The drums

7:55

would start sounding and everyone would come

7:58

out of their houses and the party

8:14

It was a beautiful party where

8:17

reconciliation happened. It didn't matter

8:19

if you had fought with

8:21

someone, if there was animosity

8:23

between families, that was the day

8:26

where reconciliation happened. It was sacred.

8:28

The town would get the harmony

8:30

again. All of us

8:32

in the community were experts in conflict

8:35

resolution. We were experts in conflict resolution,

8:37

and this was the space where that

8:39

happened. So when it

8:41

came to internal conflict, the community looked

8:43

after itself just fine. But

8:46

there was a wider conflict that was harder to

8:48

deal with. Lainer's community

8:50

had to share the forest with outsiders, armed

8:53

groups locked in a struggle that had

8:55

lasted for decades. To

8:57

break it down briefly, on one side you had the

9:00

FARC, leftist revolutionary guerrillas

9:02

who controlled large areas of rural

9:04

Colombia. The routes were

9:07

idealistic, but over the years

9:09

the cause had degenerated, they relied

9:11

on kidnapping and drug trafficking for

9:13

financing. The FARC could be

9:15

brutal to local civilians. On

9:18

the other side, the paramilitaries, groups set

9:20

up by landowners to suppress the guerrillas,

9:23

these groups were unofficially backed by the

9:25

army and the government in Bogota. They

9:28

were also responsible for shocking brutality

9:30

against civilians in the territories they controlled.

9:34

Initially, when Lainer was growing up, the

9:36

villages were mostly left alone. But

9:39

the forest was controlled by the FARC. Every

9:46

now and then the guerilla would appear in

9:48

a community, and they would arrive,

9:50

and they would stay for a week, and they

9:52

would call for meetings. And

9:55

in those meetings, they would say,

9:57

do you see that there's a

9:59

lot of corruption? all these politicians, they're

10:02

still in your money, they're still in your things. And

10:05

sometimes they would do things for the

10:07

town, sometimes they would bring a

10:10

cow and they would kill the cow

10:12

and give us meat. That was the

10:14

discourse that they were giving. These

10:17

guerrillas that came, were they made up of

10:19

people from within your community? Were they outsiders?

10:21

Were they people from neighboring communities? Like

10:23

who actually were they? Most

10:28

of them were not from our communities, most

10:30

of them were from the interior

10:33

of the country, but

10:36

they were not part of us. Later

10:38

on, I understood that this

10:41

territory was important for them. One,

10:43

because they needed to control it

10:46

to move arms, to make traffic

10:49

of arms, but also

10:51

because they would plan attacks in other

10:53

regions and then they would hide in

10:56

our community, they would hide in the jungle,

10:59

which was so remote. The FARC

11:01

were a familiar presence. Relationships

11:03

were even friendly at

11:05

times. Usually at the beginning, if we were at

11:12

school for example, and a

11:14

boat of the guerilla was passing by the

11:17

river, we had no problem and we were

11:19

just like jumping the boat of

11:21

the guerilla and get to our town. That

11:24

was okay, that was normal. It was not a big

11:26

deal, but one day

11:28

the guerilla

11:31

did something that changed everything. There

11:35

was a group of young men in

11:37

the town and the guerilla said that they

11:40

were thieves. So

11:42

they called everyone in the community

11:44

to the plaza and they

11:47

gathered us there. They had

11:50

the young men. They did

11:52

a judgment of

11:54

them and they said that two

11:57

of them were going to be killed in front

11:59

of us. Fortunately, there

12:01

was solidarity among the older people in

12:03

the town, my dad and others, and

12:11

they talked to the guerrilla and they asked them,

12:14

please don't do that. We know how to deal with

12:16

this. And at

12:18

the end, the guerrilla accepted. So there was

12:21

an internal punishment. We

12:25

did some commitments with the guerrilla. We

12:27

made some compromises. And

12:29

fortunately, they were not killed. From

12:32

that day, I started feeling

12:35

fear. That was the

12:37

day when I felt unprotected. That was

12:39

the day when I started feeling that

12:41

I was in danger,

12:43

that we were in danger. The

12:46

guerrillas' enemy, the paramilitaries, were making their

12:48

presence felt too. They set

12:50

up checkpoints along the river. But

12:52

there was a third group of outsiders too. These

12:55

people were unarmed. They

12:57

came from the church, nuns and

12:59

priests doing missionary work. One

13:02

priest, Reverend Jorge Luis Maso,

13:04

was also the local teacher. He

13:07

had a bunch of jobs in the community and

13:09

he was a massive influence on Lehner. Lehner

13:13

obviously showed a lot of promise too. And

13:15

he started working for Luis in the church while he was

13:17

still at school. But no,

13:19

Jorge Luis Maso was a priest.

13:25

He was a social leader. But most,

13:28

to me, he was a friend. He

13:30

was working in Bohaja when I

13:32

arrived there to collaborate with

13:34

some nuns, that some

13:37

religious women who were there. In

13:39

96, the presence

13:41

of the guerrilla was much more active

13:44

in the communities. They were very installed

13:46

there. But the paramilitaries

13:48

were already coming and were

13:50

already surrounding us. And

13:52

what the paramilitaries did is

13:54

that they installed blockage. They

13:57

didn't allow resources to come.

14:00

into the communities. So with

14:03

the Reverend, how we responded is that

14:05

we started doing humanitarian help, humanitarian

14:07

assistance, and we were negotiating to

14:10

be able to bring the most

14:12

basic things that people need to

14:14

survive. We were negotiating

14:16

to bring rice or to bring salt.

14:19

His job was to pilot canoes full

14:21

of supplies, medicine, and nuns all

14:24

around the remote network of villages and towns.

14:27

Lainer knew the lay of the land, and

14:29

he was known to be an expert navigator

14:31

and boat handler, but

14:33

it soon became apparent that he had other, even

14:36

more useful skills. His

14:38

massive family had also made him a

14:40

natural negotiator. It became his

14:43

job to talk his way through the

14:45

many checkpoints. I mean, what were you

14:47

saying to these armed groups, to these

14:49

paramilitaries, to get them to, you know,

14:51

to convince them to let you through

14:53

with these supplies, these food, these essential

14:56

medical supplies, like what

14:58

were you saying to them? So

15:05

paramilitaries would say that we

15:07

were guerrilla members, that we

15:09

were leftists, and they

15:11

thought that the work we were doing with

15:14

the communities at the end was going to

15:16

benefit the guerrilla. So they were very uncomfortable

15:18

with what we were doing. And

15:20

the church, because it was so

15:23

risky, asked us not

15:25

to intervene. They asked us not

15:27

to deal with paramilitaries. So

15:29

whenever we would reach a control point

15:31

at the beginning of paramilitaries,

15:33

we would just not talk, not talk

15:36

at all. That was the order of

15:38

the church. But at the end, we

15:40

had to, we had to talk, we were

15:42

challenged, we had to negotiate

15:44

with them. But most of the

15:46

times, these discussions with paramilitaries were

15:49

at play with death,

15:51

like we were about to be killed.

16:01

I was driving the boat in

16:04

the Atrata River close to Ije

16:06

del Fuerte. And

16:10

there was a huge control point of the

16:12

proud military there. What

16:21

they used to do, the proud military, is

16:23

that they would stop people there in that

16:26

control point, and the people that

16:28

they wanted to kill, they would just ask them

16:30

to get off the boat and

16:33

stay there to do something,

16:36

and the boat would continue, five

16:39

minutes later you would be killed. So

16:43

I was driving at 6pm and

16:45

they stopped us, and the

16:48

proud military that was there wanted me to get off

16:51

the boat. And I said, no,

16:54

I'm not going to get off the boat. And

16:57

he said, yes, you have to get off the boat. And

16:59

the tactic that I used

17:02

is that I started raising my

17:04

voice, I started speaking loudly and loudly, saying,

17:06

no, no, I'm not getting off the boat.

17:09

So others in the boat would

17:11

know what they wanted to do. Luckily,

17:15

one of the nuns listened

17:18

to me and she intervened. Nunt

17:20

Claribel. And that's what saved

17:23

me. If I had to stay

17:25

there, if I had jumped off the boat, I would

17:27

have been killed in five minutes. They

17:32

had a book with names of people that they

17:34

were going to kill. If you have the name,

17:38

the same name of someone in that book, you

17:40

would be killed. They didn't care. They were not

17:42

going to investigate it. They were not going to

17:44

research. And in

17:46

our communities, our families, we

17:49

repeat a lot of our names. I

17:51

don't know why I could have been named Macario

17:53

as my grandfather. And if there was a Macario

17:56

in that book, I had the

17:58

risk of being killed. In

18:02

his 20s, Llaner graduated from canoe

18:04

pilot to unofficial advocate for the

18:06

local community. So

18:13

I was a threat not only

18:15

to parallel militaries, also to

18:17

the guerrilla. I remember one

18:20

day the first disagreement we had with

18:22

the guerrilla was when I found out

18:24

that they were going to recruit 12

18:27

or 15 young men of a

18:29

community, of a neighbor community and

18:32

they were close to me. Like

18:34

I had seen those children playing

18:36

soccer, running around the neighborhood. Like

18:40

I didn't like the idea of

18:42

they going to join the guerrilla. So when

18:44

I found out it was the day before

18:46

they were going to be recruited, it was

18:49

like 6pm, almost night,

18:51

and I went to that community

18:53

and I met with them. I met with

18:55

those young men and I told them, hey,

18:57

don't go stay here.

18:59

That's not a good idea. In

19:02

the morning, the boat of the guerrilla

19:04

came to the

19:06

community and it was expecting all these

19:08

12, 15 young

19:10

men to go on board and go to

19:12

the war. But when

19:14

the boat arrived, these young men

19:17

said, you know, we're

19:19

not going. They told this

19:22

to the guerrilla members, we're not going. Lainer

19:24

advised us that we should stay and I

19:26

think we think it's a good idea. And

19:30

to the guerrilla, this was an

19:32

offense because I was cutting out their

19:34

supplies, the supply of human

19:36

resources that they needed. So how

19:38

did the FARC respond to that? How

19:41

did the guerrillas respond when they found out

19:44

that it was you who had told these young boys

19:48

not to join? No,

19:51

no. In

19:53

those territories, they don't speak

19:55

with words, they speak with guns. So

19:57

after this happened, I wanted to say that

19:59

I was not going. I was expecting the shots to

20:01

come. When the

20:04

young man was telling the guerrilla commander

20:06

that they were not going, I could

20:08

see how his face was furious. The

20:12

FARC didn't take action yet. The church

20:14

afforded Lainer a certain amount of protection, but

20:16

he didn't know how far he could push it. All

20:19

the while the nuns and Father Maso became

20:21

another even larger family for

20:24

Lainer. No la hermanas

20:26

para mi. Nuns were wonderful.

20:29

I would see them going to these communities,

20:32

being with everyone, sharing what they

20:34

had. They would share the pound of

20:36

rice or a little bit of oil. There

20:38

was a lot of solidarity coming out of them. And

20:42

even with me and with the other collaborators

20:44

that were with them, for

20:47

example, at my house, I

20:50

never celebrated a birthday. My family,

20:52

my parents, they never threw

20:54

a birthday party for me. It was

20:57

impossible. It was unthinkable. It

20:59

would be like a party every two weeks, right? Exactly. There

21:03

were so many of us. It was unthinkable.

21:05

So I remember that the first time that

21:07

someone celebrated a birthday party for me were

21:10

these nuns. It was on March of 98. It

21:14

was a dinner. We prepare

21:16

a dinner. They made some jokes. And

21:20

we needed that lighthearted moment because we were

21:22

in the middle of the war. Celebrating

21:26

that birthday was a moment where

21:28

we were just relaxing and being

21:31

together and remembering that

21:33

there was something more. For

21:36

a while, Father Mazo and the sisters

21:38

walked that fine line between the armed

21:40

groups. But in the late 90s, the

21:43

paramilitary struck. Father

21:45

Mazo had gone on a mission to get supplies

21:47

60 miles upriver at the town

21:49

of Kibdo, the site of the

21:52

nearest road connection. The river was very high.

21:58

And his... His plan was to

22:01

gather some food, to get some

22:03

plastics for shelter, to gather things

22:05

to bring to

22:07

Puerto Conte. When he was

22:09

arriving to Kipto, he

22:11

was almost in the city. Next

22:13

to the hospital, a boat

22:16

of parallel militaries crashed

22:18

the boat where Father Jorge Luis

22:21

was in. They hit him.

22:24

They hid exactly where he was sitting,

22:27

and he died. He died. We

22:29

searched the body for days. Eventually

22:32

we found him. He

22:34

hadn't drowned. He died because of

22:37

the crash of this boat.

22:40

It was hard. It was hard

22:42

for me. So

22:44

I had to go and hide. I had

22:47

to hide for weeks in my

22:49

community. I had to go almost to the jungle

22:51

to hide. I

22:54

remember him with so much love, and I

22:56

wanted to honor him. So me

22:58

and my wife, when our daughter

23:00

was born, as we were

23:02

hiding, we named her

23:05

Ana Luisa. It was our

23:07

way to honor Father Jorge

23:09

Luis. It was our way of

23:11

remembering him and keeping him present

23:13

in our lives. After

23:15

Father Mazo died, Lainer grew into his role

23:17

as a community elder. And the

23:20

community would need him. A lot. Because

23:22

in the late 90s, the paramilitaries

23:25

flooded into Bohojá, panicking the

23:27

locals. So

23:32

life changed radically when the paramilitaries

23:34

took our town. For

23:37

example, our houses had

23:39

no doors. They had no windows.

23:42

And when paramilitaries arrived, we had

23:44

to put doors and windows, right?

23:47

Because trust started dropping.

23:50

In 2002, the tension finally broke. An

23:53

all-out war began. On

23:58

May 1st, at 5 a.m. them,

24:00

the fight started all day. Our

24:04

houses were made of wood so the bullets would go

24:08

through the walls. So we left and

24:11

the river was so high that some

24:13

of the streets were underwater so

24:15

we started walking with water on our hips.

24:17

We passed by the church, many people

24:23

were there already, passed by the church

24:26

and we slept in the house

24:28

of the nuns. Which

24:30

is 30 meters away from

24:32

the church. The next day

24:34

the fight was even more intense and at

24:40

9am we decided to talk with the church.

24:48

We started shooting this huge gun that

24:51

they had towards the place

24:54

where the guerrilla were.

24:56

Sister Sofia, one of the nuns, she got

24:58

a notebook and she told me start writing

25:06

because our intention was to

25:08

leave evidence. We wanted

25:10

people to know how we had died and I

25:13

was writing when we

25:15

heard the explosion, a

25:17

huge explosion. We

25:20

looked out the window and

25:22

the church had no roof and we only

25:24

saw smoke. We saw

25:26

some people walking toward us, people

25:29

who had survived but they were falling and

25:32

dying in front of us. We

25:35

started to run out of the house but

25:39

a bullet hit a little boy

25:42

who was in the arms of his mother and he

25:45

started bleeding and the mother

25:48

started shouting and she was desperate

25:50

and everyone was so scared, there

25:53

was so much panic that

25:55

we were concerned that even

25:57

the community was

26:00

going to start killing itself. The

26:03

panic was going to make people make crazy

26:05

things. However,

26:08

someone shouted, there is a grenade. There

26:10

is a grenade in this house. And

26:12

we started running away from that house.

26:14

And then the little

26:16

boy, the little boy died in

26:19

the arms of his mother. And

26:22

we had to convince her, just leave

26:24

him. We cannot run

26:26

with him. Leave him. And we

26:28

almost didn't convince her to

26:30

leave his boy dead in

26:33

the street. Again,

26:37

bullets, bullets all over the place,

26:39

bullets trying to hit

26:41

us. So I jumped to the river

26:44

with my daughter. I had

26:46

to jump to the water with

26:48

my daughter just to hide from

26:50

the bullets. And my

26:52

daughter almost drowned. Then we were

26:56

able to arrive to another town, Bijia

26:58

del Fuerte. And when we got there,

27:01

the guerrilla was there. And they were so

27:04

also panicked that they wanted to kill us, that

27:07

they wanted to kill us by gunshots. And they

27:09

wanted to kill us all. And we were

27:12

pleased. Don't kill us. Don't kill us. The

27:16

army arrived in the area by helicopter. And

27:18

the guerrillas disappeared into the forest. The

27:21

community was already devastated. The

27:23

bombing of the church would come to be known

27:25

as the Boya Já massacre, one

27:28

of the most notorious atrocities in a

27:30

long and very bloody conflict. There

27:33

was a huge exodus out of the area. Lehner

27:36

left too for a little while. It

27:38

would take years for people to return. The

27:41

town of Bella Vista itself was abandoned. It

27:43

was like the tragedy had left an open wound on the

27:45

place. A new settlement

27:48

called Nuevo Bella Vista was built along

27:50

the river. Massive

27:53

tragedy, right? Like 100, 119

27:56

people killed in the bombing of this church, many

27:58

of them children. Very.

28:01

Small, tight knit community. How did.

28:05

How did the community cope in the aftermath?

28:08

Would move a his answer Your body

28:10

yours is a community that is facing

28:12

a lot of challenges. Sixty.

28:16

Young men. Sixty young men

28:18

have committed suicide. Asked

28:21

her what happened. From

28:23

December. Eighteen people have

28:26

died from cancer. People.

28:28

Who were inside the church? In.

28:31

Two thousand and two And we

28:34

are worried. And we're concerned. Not.

28:36

Have another gas cylinder. But

28:39

of cancer because of

28:41

stress, because of trauma

28:44

killing ourselves. So

28:46

this has been a very,

28:49

very bumpy road to recover

28:51

after that tragedy. Asked

28:54

her. What Happened? There

28:57

were three massive displacements from Bada.

28:59

Seven thousand people left the territory.

29:10

Though not mama. The

29:20

singers are known as the considers the

29:22

forget. Their group from when

29:25

as home village singing traditional songs of

29:27

grief resistance and he on. The

29:31

community organizer says and and

29:33

there is a very important

29:36

role that traditional music plays

29:38

in that process allows which

29:41

are songs traditional songs that

29:43

house help to recover social

29:46

fabric. It

30:01

was only one the peace process began to

30:03

get serious, and twenty four that a real

30:05

chance came for the community. To move past

30:07

what had happened. The.

30:09

Far for preparing to put down their arms.

30:12

But. That wasn't enough for the civilians.

30:15

Bajo. They. Wanted an

30:17

apology. Lane. Or

30:19

was given the job of going to

30:21

the gorillas and demanding they say sorry.

30:24

But no a me political move

30:26

or to leap out of this

30:28

by the community decided everything they

30:30

decided how that fact was going

30:32

to to happen to go. A

30:35

they told if you want to ask forgiveness

30:38

you have to come Here is that you

30:40

have to come to the place where the

30:42

massacre happen where you declare you made this.

30:45

And. They all said we want to

30:47

space where we can say whatever we

30:49

want as victims we don't want to

30:51

go through a script. We not going

30:53

to make one of these scenarios where

30:55

people just read something we would you

30:57

which is one an open mike to

30:59

say whatever you want. The only thing

31:01

that the gorilla can control about this

31:04

act will be the worst that they're

31:06

going to. Say to ask

31:08

forgiveness. I was a

31:10

facilitator. I got all

31:12

those conditions from the community and put

31:14

them on paper and I went to

31:17

visit their their negotiators, the gorilla members

31:19

and I was sure that they were

31:21

going just to send me away and

31:24

to say like what are you are

31:26

thinking That is crazy Of course we

31:28

will not do it this way and

31:30

somehow I was glad. That. That

31:33

was going to happen because I

31:35

was so into these. Hard

31:38

negotiation that I just wanted to quit.

31:40

I wanted to quit. I was getting

31:42

crazy and I was happy because with

31:45

oldest conditions from the community I knew

31:47

that the negotiators we're not going to

31:49

accept. Surprisingly, they

31:51

accepted. And. What? What happened

31:53

in the forgiveness ceremony? When.

31:56

I left her ammonia a.

31:59

Muscle. to put him In

32:01

the ceremony, we decided that the FARC

32:03

was going to enter the town from

32:05

a special place and they were going

32:07

to walk through the streets,

32:09

some specific streets, mirroring

32:13

the trajectory of the gas cylinder that

32:15

destroyed the town. Also

32:17

the government entered through another way, another

32:19

street. There were many,

32:22

many, many alabaus, many traditional songs.

32:25

And this time, these songs were

32:27

not only helping that people

32:29

reach heaven, as they usually do,

32:31

these alabaus were also

32:34

reclaiming rights and denouncing

32:36

the conflict and the threats that we were

32:38

still enduring. All

32:41

the structures of the FARC were

32:43

present. We were very strict with

32:45

that. We didn't want

32:48

only the top commanders in the table.

32:53

We want everyone to be there. Like, yes,

32:55

the top commanders, that was important, but we also

32:57

wanted people who were on the ground in

33:00

the war, shooting their arms. Those,

33:04

if the complete structure was there, it

33:06

was a sign that they

33:08

were really involved in this

33:10

forgiveness act. And that happened.

33:14

An historic moment for Colombia,

33:16

as the rebel leader apologizes for

33:18

a bombing that killed 119 people.

33:23

Pastor Alepe, as he's known,

33:26

who is head of Colombia's

33:28

revolutionary armed forces, traveled to

33:30

northwestern Colombia to affirm his

33:32

responsibility for the attack and to

33:34

ask for forgiveness. We

33:37

also had the opportunity

33:39

to make some requests. And

33:42

we were very explicit about something, and this is

33:44

important. We were

33:46

open to listen for

33:48

their forgiveness, but

33:50

we were not forgiving them, because

33:53

forgiveness is a

33:55

decision of individual

33:57

victims. that

34:00

we can decide for everyone. And

34:02

we were only going to

34:04

forgive them if the state

34:07

and the guerrilla actually

34:11

made changes, positive

34:13

changes in our community. So

34:15

that was important for us too. And

34:19

this act was

34:21

so healing, this ceremony was so healing

34:23

for victims who were there that after

34:27

many, many victims of Boha Jha

34:29

started calling me, started calling us

34:31

saying, okay, we want another act,

34:33

we want another ceremony because right

34:36

now we are ready to actually

34:39

give forgiveness for the FARC. So

34:42

it definitely gives a sense of closure. The

34:45

brokering of this apology propelled Lainer to

34:47

the national stage. He

34:49

got a job on Columbia's Truth Commission in

34:51

Bogota. He was one

34:53

of 11 commissioners in charge of finding

34:55

a lasting peace. This

34:58

was a senior role and it's a

35:00

remarkable ascent for a man who grew

35:02

up without much access to electricity, education,

35:04

and even shoes. In

35:06

his role, he's met many victims of violence and

35:09

perpetrators too. It

35:12

was also interesting something

35:15

that happened in those years

35:18

because I was able to

35:21

meet someone who was going

35:23

to kill me. He was hired to kill me and

35:26

I thought in front of

35:28

him, he told me, please excuse

35:30

me, please forgive me. I was

35:33

going to kill you. I could not find you,

35:35

but I was going to kill you and we

35:37

hugged each other. I forgave

35:40

him and I was

35:43

able not only to listen

35:45

to what he was saying to me,

35:47

he told me his story. This was

35:49

a young man who grew up in

35:51

poverty, who got involved in

35:53

arms, had a boy whom

35:56

he could never hug. This Was

35:58

very, very tough because. During the

36:00

years of the Truth Commission, I

36:02

was able to seats that many

36:05

of these perpetrators were human beings

36:07

with complicated stories and that change

36:09

me a lot. Leaner

36:13

continues to unearth the truth about

36:15

what happened turned the darkest days of

36:18

the conflict. But of course not everyone

36:20

wants the truth to come to my

36:22

it. She receives many threats and are

36:25

not empty. One of his bodyguards. Killed

36:27

And Twenty Twenty. But

36:30

he still advocates for this community,

36:32

people who could easily be forgotten,

36:34

out of sight, out of mind,

36:37

And are not that. Doubtless

36:57

Lane or Blossoms. Speaking to me

36:59

from Bogata, I'm on the the

37:01

producer with Harry Graham. For

37:04

he car buyer with the translator

37:06

Monday Sound Son and another com

37:08

os. Are editor next week your

37:10

back with the story of a

37:12

daring months long escape by Aboriginal

37:15

Australians. Women across that. That's all

37:17

for now and. For. What

37:33

I used as a weapon of. War. In

37:35

none of these villages, there was

37:37

any piped clean water for people.

37:39

a nation in the grip of

37:42

criminal downs. How bad does it

37:44

have to get before international community

37:46

reacts? A country showing signs. Of

37:48

fiction. Right now it's done things

37:50

that really quite dark. The nation

37:52

is divided. The mistrusts front thought.

37:55

The Global Sick So from the Bbc

37:57

World Service is back for any serious.

38:00

Listen now by searching for the

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explanation. Older you get to be the

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hippies. Were

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Unfair Mussina and I'm such for and

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were on a quest to find out

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where the wild of women a living

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that fast life we're hearing from some

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getting right and isn't the best said

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Would be a woman from. The. Bbc World Service.

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