HOME   | E-MAIL  | ESPAÑOL

Towards reconciliation

Colombians current situation has characteristics of its own. The internal armed conflict, which has gone on for over fifty years, has been aggravated in the past two decades by such complex and socially damaging phenomena as guerrilla, drug trafficking and the formation of self-defense groups. The barbarity of their ways of fighting and war actions eventually makes them similar to each other. In these circumstances, a great deal of creativity is needed to strike a balance between indulgence and vengeance, between forgiveness and punishment, and find the path of reconciliation.

The magnitude of our conflicts and the viciousness of violence in Colombia today, brings about the fact that peace, that we all long for, can only be of a foundational nature. It has to be a kind of peace which reconstitutes us as a society and as a nation. It must be a kind of peace in which nobody is a victor or a loser. In the amnesties that are granted the truth must be ascertained as rigorously as possible, to ensure that perpetrators acknowledge the horror of their barbaric deeds, and that victims are able to freely point out their aggressors. An act of profound collective catharsis is needed to come to terms with our present, and make it possible for victims and culprits to rebuild their situation in life on new foundations.

A balance between forgiveness and punishment based on the truth, shall clear the way for the restoration of the conditions in which the values of dignity and freedom are again a reality in the lives of all Colombians.