The event that addressed forgiveness and reconciliation brought together survivors of conflict and ex-combatants from different armed groups.

At the Let's Talk about Truth Meeting, which took place in Valledupar (Cesar), there were the participation of victims of conflict, former members of groups outside the law, and with the accompaniment of State entities, including the Victims' Unit.

Abelardo Caicedo, a former guerrilla fighter, now a member of FARC political group, and Oscar José Ospino, former paramilitary leader, who for years clashed in combats, sat together to apologize to victims of armed conflict in Cesar and La Guajira.

"We are ready to tell the whole truth, we have to be able to reconcile, I am sorry for all the families of the civilian population who paid our war with blood", said Abelardo Caicedo.

For his part, Ospino Oscar said that "it is a time of peace, forgiveness, a thousand times forgiveness for the damage caused to the population that had nothing to do in the armed conflicts of our organization of the time".

More than 400 victims and representatives of the indigenous peoples accepted reconciliation as a contribution to the peace of the country, and maintained that "peace is a way of living, of being, of love for one's neighbor and that only through dialogue, can achieve".

"Serrania del Perijá put many dead, we lost parents, brothers, children, husbands, who are still missing but we continue to believe in this process to achieve true peace in Colombia," said Martha Forero, indigenous leader of Asoperijá.

Currently, according to the Unified Registry of Victims RUV, in Cesar there are 294,403 victims subject to reparation and in La Guajira, 114,240 victims.

(Fin/ERG/LMY)