Mr. appearing: why did you kill her?
Why did she hurt my mom?
Where did she kill her?
Where did she bury her?
Why did she make me suffer so much?
These are the words of the letter that a girl wrote to the person who, according to the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), the transitional justice court agreed upon between the Colombian State and the extinct FARC in 2016, murdered her mother.
Unlike many questions asked by the victims of thousands of crimes committed in the context of the Colombian conflict, these were answered in another letter.
Letters from minors to those appearing at the JEP (Special Jurisdiction for Peace). NATHALIA ANGARITA
Dear child: Today I start this letter asking for your forgiveness since my intention at that moment was not to hurt you.
Unfortunately I made decisions that I regret and that may be enough to ease your pain.
Why did he kill her?
She didn't know there were people who loved her so much and who were going to miss her.
Why did he hurt my mom?
She didn't know that she was good and she had people like you who loved her and waited for her at home.
Where did he kill her?
She went far from home to avoid you hearing her.
Where was she buried?
Close to the river so that her body would be in a nice place.
Why did he make me suffer so much?
Because I am an egoist who did not think about the harm I would cause you, I let myself be carried away by power.
Forgive me.
This closes one of the 93 exchanges of letters that, since 2022, children and adolescents have initiated with perpetrators prosecuted by the JEP.
While their parents or caregivers attend a hearing in that jurisdiction, which can take entire days, justice officials develop activities that seek to integrate minors into the restoration processes, one of the great goals of all the scaffolding agreed in Havana. to overcome the wounds of 60 years of war.
Cards are one of those mechanisms.
Growing through conflict
“Boys and girls are often marginalized in conversations about the conflict,” Ariel Sánchez Meertens, head of the Restorative Justice Advisory Office of the JEP, explains to this newspaper.
In his experience, the truth is hidden from minors, it is thought that they do not understand what is happening.
However, they are victims.
“Everyone has been involved in some way with the violence that has affected Colombia,” says Eliana Antonio Rosero, head of the JEP's Department of Differential Approaches.
An official from the Special Jurisdiction for Peace shows one of the letters.
NATHALIA ANGARITA
That justice has sought to change a dynamic that excludes children.
He has encouraged them to write down their fears and doubts, through letters that they then send to people who appear in that court.
Even if they respond, they never meet in person nor are their identities revealed.
The goal is not to face: it is to process.
“This special dialogue circle seeks to repair and prevent future conflicts,” explains Eliana Antonio.
It begins with the expression of the child's pain, moves toward recognition of the harm, and seeks to reach forgiveness.
Those who respond to these letters are not always directly the former guerrillas, former soldiers or former paramilitaries responsible for the crime that affected the child who writes, since the goal is to raise awareness among victims and perpetrators.
Dear writer
I can't go back in time and revive this person.
I cannot with words express the feeling of regret nor with good actions make families continue their lives without having to remember their loved one.
But I do want to tell you that before the almighty God I have asked for forgiveness and that every day I wake up it is thinking about that person and his family, every moment of my thoughts and actions are on the way to making up for the damage committed.
I want not only for the good of that family but also to feel like a member of society again and move forward, but hand in hand with the victims and with love and affection for every living being.
I hope you can and we can live in peace.
Appearing
Emotional conversations, not judicial ones
Activities to reach out to children waiting during hearings are not limited to letters.
There are activities for children who do not yet know how to write.
“Through puppet performances and plays, the complex phenomena of war that they usually hear on the radio or television are explained to them.
For example, what are
false positives
”, explains Eliana Antonio, who clarifies that children create their own script.
Others participate in the preparation of “memory books”, where they write or paint memories of their relatives, so as not to forget them;
Others participate in the creation of “butterfly gardens of resilience,” writing their formulas to build peace in Colombia on the wings of the butterflies.
Response of a perpetrator to one of the orphaned children.
NATHALIA ANGARITA
Of all these actions, however, the letters are the most powerful, explains Harvey Suarez Morales, executive secretary of the JEP.
Furthermore, they have generated a powerful effect on the attendees who receive them.
He emphasizes that when reading the letters, many feel that they are words that their own children could share, in a logic more of understanding what happened than of clashing in a trial.
He highlights that several defendants, after writing a response letter, have returned home to face their own children and tell them: 'yes, I was responsible.'”
For the officials in charge of these projects, pedagogical activities help children, in a few years, directly confront those appearing in a logic of restoration, of breaking the cycles of violence.
The processes, says Suárez, seek to ensure that “when that day arrives, no damage is generated, they can be recognized and an interesting process begins.”
The secretary highlights that the voice of minors has also helped the JEP move away from ordinary justice, which is more punishing than restorative.
“It takes the justices out of their formal legal language and engages them in an emotional conversation,” he explains.
Sánchez Meertens, an expert in memory and reconciliation, summarizes what is happening: “Nothing breaks barriers like the communication that is included in these letters.”
Through them, he explains, the children's voice enters the processes without them being exposed to hearings or long and painful testimonies, which can re-victimize them.
And the letters are read before the recognition hearings, in which those appearing can accept their responsibility.
“No one remains the same after seeing these letters and puppets;
nor the officials of Forensic Medicine, the Search Unit or the Victims Unit,” he assures.
The process is challenging for perpetrators.
Eliana Antonio says that at first they wonder how to tell a child that they committed a crime and, over time, her positions soften.
“She can even be seen in the change in her handwriting;
it becomes less rigid,” says the expert in differential approaches.
This is helped by the fact that the JEP has a mandate to find large criminal patterns, and focus on those most responsible for the most serious cases of these patterns, and not on investigating each of the hundreds of thousands of crimes committed in six decades of conflict.
For this reason, Suárez, Sánchez and Antonio agree, those who respond to the children may not be responsible to those referred to in the letters, which even facilitates the process of changing victims and perpetrators.
Victims who respond like this:
One of the letters from a minor addressed to the perpetrators.
NATHALIA ANGARITA
I don't know what to call you, excuse me if I write any words that could be read as disrespectful.
I just want to tell you something, your question is painful for me, and I must recognize that we never measure the damage we generate, I can only affirm that the actions of the war, in which we participated as soldiers, degraded us and separated us from the principles learned in home.
Why did we do it?
There is no concrete answer, I just have to say that I feel ashamed for having done so.
What do we become?
It's a question I ask myself every day, because like you, I have dreams and goals, from which I turned away, to become something I am not.
I can only say that I have the conscience and the will to build a new country and a different present, to which I invite you, so that, together, even without knowing each other, we can materialize.
Appearing
*For protection, the identity of the minors and those appearing who write the letters is kept confidential.
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