Colombian Peace Process

I recently participated an event organised by Nansen Centre for peace and dialogue held in Nobel Peace centre in Oslo. The event was about Colombian peace process and forgiveness and was invited Bertha Lucia Fries a victim of bomb attack in Bogotá. I found her a very courageous person with a great heart.

On February 7 2003, Bertha Lucia Fries became victim of terror attack in a private social club in Bogotá while she was taking her dance lesson. In that bomb attack performed by FARC group killed 36 people and 150 injured including Ms B. L. Fries. At the beginning she has been suffocated by the pain and never thought to forgive, even because before that accident she was a successful consultant.

It took her long and painful eight years to recover from her physical injuries, and then, she realized there was more to repair: The hatred. She managed to have a dialogue with FARC members, most of them young men, and she realised that they too were victims by killing people and also killing themselves.

She has been accused by some people including her family and friends of suffering Syndrome of Stockholm by having empathy with those young men and women from the rebel group.

Bertha started to find an answer, “why?”, “why that attack and why in that place which was not that important”. Later she found the answer that she was looking for, but she did not want to share with us, she told us that she forgave her attackers, she also told us that after the forgiveness she found the best thing in her life “Inner Peace”.

Now Bertha Lucia Fries is well respected peace promoter and she is part of the reconciliation team in her country. After 52 years of civil war, Colombia now is about to turn a corner to start a new era of peace process and reconciliation.

This story reminds me the story of  the South African lady who met and forgave the man who killed her daughter. This shows also without dialogue, forgiveness and conciliation, peace is impossible.

After that event, I asked myself if one day I would be able to tell the story of many Somali Bertha Fries or Ginn Fourie who I am sure that they exist but are anonymous to the wider audience.

Cabdiraxmaan Maxamed Abtidoon