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Pretty sure this was the hardest picture I’ve ever had to take.
This past Tuesday I was part of a “march against FARC,” a hastily organized protest in reaction to FARC’s execution of four Colombian soldiers during a failed rescue operation.* The soldiers had been captive in the jungle for nearly fourteen years and were found dead next to their chains, shot to the head. I joined thousands of people dressed in white as they made their way across the city center chanting for the end of the FARC, demanding that remaining kidnapping victims be freed, demanding peace.
These types of protests are common in Colombia, I remember them since I was a child, a sort of outlet for the collective outrage over a war no one knows how to fix. The mood was not somber. It was a sunny day, and people waved flags and sang along. But it was much harder for me than I had expected. A little girl walking next to me, about nine years old, clutched a yellowed picture of a woman holding an umbrella. Maybe her mom. Maybe an aunt. Tears came down her face, and when I finally gathered the courage to ask, I just got a number: eight. Eight years, “disappeared”. God, I don’t know how to deal with this. I cried the whole way.
It’s easier now, to forget we’re in the middle of a war. Ten years ago, before my family left Colombia, war was everywhere. My school bus had armed escorts. We never left the city because FARC roadblocks made it was too dangerous to travel by land. One of my classmates saw his grandmother kidnapped on Christmas eve, when guerrilleros just walked into their country house holding machine guns and tied everyone as they took her away. Today, the war has become more of an abstract concept. Something you see in the news. Something you argue about how to fix after two beers too many at family gatherings. But not for that little girl, and not for that old woman with the big picture of John Paul II. Not for millions of Colombians that still live it every day.
Tuesday’s march was a sobering reminder that our war is very much still here. We have a long way to go.
*There’s a big controversy about what was actually going on, the Army denies there was a rescue operation underway. Blame’s in the same place regardless, if you ask me.
