Former foes join for peace

After 18 years as an insurgent, he laid down his weapons in a 1991 peace deal, and soon after, he formed an organization to help other wounded ex-guerrillas.

Buitrago, meanwhile, set up a support group for landmine victims. When the two men met, they realized that both would benefit if they joined forces.

Now CFP gives help to ex-combatants from both sides, offering employment advice, legal aid, and emotional support. But with limited funding and a tiny one-room office, their work is not easy. Many businesses are unwilling to take on disabled staff, while others flatly refuse to give jobs to demobilized rebels.

Ex-soldiers receive a small pension, but often the payments are barely enough to cover the cost of medication. Demobilized guerrillas still face the threat of assassination by right-wing death squads or even by their former comrades. But the biggest challenge is the bitterness, hatred, and fear caused by the trauma of war.

As a 19-year-old Army conscript, Richard Benavides lost his foot to a rebel landmine. Now, 12 years later, he admits that when he heard of CFP, his curiosity to meet former adversaries was offset by persistent feelings of anger and pain.

"At first, I wanted nothing to do with it," Mr. Benavides says. "They were the ones who damaged me. I thought that if I met one, I'd want to kill him. But I wanted to try and forget all that happened. I wanted to get rid of the hate inside."

At the first few meetings, Benavides felt so uncomfortable that he found it hard to even speak to the former rebels.

But after three or four sessions, he started to see group members in a new light. Instead of soldiers and guerrillas, they were all victims of the war.

"Why should I hate them? I'm not in the Army any more," he says. "I don't need to fear anyone."

Veterans often discover that their own lives closely mirror the experiences of their one-time foes.

The armed groups promise an exciting life to poor youngsters with few other opportunities, but recruits on both sides soon realize that life on the frontline is worse than they could have imagined.

"It's run for your life and kill or be killed – the same thing for us all," says Benavides.

Although CFP has held several large-scale events including former combatants and war widows, most encounters are casual meetings at the office.

For years after demobilization, Benavides, like many veterans, had felt paranoid and afraid and at night had dreams of bloody combat. But since meeting his former enemies, both the nightmares and the overall fear have disappeared.

"This was the therapy I needed," he says. "Something has been mended."

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