Inside the Salón del Nunca Más (Hall of Never Again), where the faces of victims of Colombia’s half-century-long internal conflict stare silently from their pictures hung along the walls, former combatants, members of the security forces, and survivors of the armed conflict sat together on February 2 to talk.
This wasn’t a hollow symbolic gesture, nor a staged act of reconciliation. It was something far more fragile, and far more real: an uncomfortable, human exercise in restorative justice.
The meeting in the hall took place in Granada, a municipality that endured some of the worst violence of Colombia’s long-running conflict. Between 1980 and the mid-2000’s, this corner of eastern Antioquia was caught between the crossfire of guerrilla groups, paramilitaries, and state forces.
The result was mass displacement and violence. An estimated 90% of rural residents and 70% of the urban population were forced from their homes, nearly 3,000 people were disappeared, 460 were victims of selective killings, and dozens of kidnappings and sexual assaults left a community deeply fractured.
Now, ASOVIDA, the local victims’ association, together with representatives from Comunidades Restaurativas, a program supported by Prison Fellowship Colombia, brought together victims of the conflict, former combatants from the demobilized Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and former members of Colombia’s security forces appearing before the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP).
While participants meet regularly throughout the process, the February 2 gathering marked the culmination of the process and took the form of a symbolic celebration.
“This place is sacred”
The gathering opened with words from Gloria Ramírez, a community leader, member of ASOVIDA, and a victim of forced displacement. She reminded those present that this was no ordinary meeting hall.
“This place is sacred,” she said. “We are not here to victimize ourselves again. We are here to find tools to move forward.”
In Granada, memory has become a form of resistance. For more than 18 years, victims groups have worked to transform grief into collective action, often under threat, often in silence. Gloria admitted that for a long time, the idea of sitting across from those who caused the harm felt impossible.
“We were terrified of getting close to them,” she said. “But we understood that without truth, there is no path forward.”
That insistence on truth echoed throughout the encounter. For the victims, reconciliation does not mean forgetting, nor abandoning the most painful questions: what happened, why it happened, and where the bodies of the disappeared are located.
Walking through the hall makes that tension visible. Archival photographs show war-battered streets and faces of victims and their loved ones frozen in grief. Yet alongside them are images of community members rebuilding together, evidence of resilience layered on top of loss.
The long road to restorative justice
The Comunidades Restaurativas program, or “Communities of Reconciliation,” did not arrive in Granada to open arms. It emerged from a recognition that traditional justice mechanisms often fail to fully address victims’ needs, that legal rulings alone do not always translate into a sense of reparation or closure.
Its early attempts to convene dialogue sessions and community meetings between victims and former perpetrators were met with rejection. The community was not ready to receive their victimizers. Trust had to be built slowly, conversation by conversation.
A turning point came on September 23, 2017, when former FARC members publicly asked for forgiveness inside the town’s church, led by demobilized guerrilla commander José Lisandro Lascarro, known by the nome de guerra “Pastor Alape”. Granada was later declared a “Territory of Peace,” and the Day of Forgiveness and Reconciliation was formally established.
Since then, between 50 and 60 former guerrillas, paramilitaries, and ex-members of the security forces, have taken part in symbolic acts of victim reparation.
Many have contributed to rebuilding community spaces, gestures meant to acknowledge responsibility rather than erase the past.
“They were not mistakes. They were actions.”
One of the most powerful moments of the gathering in February was the intervention of Gabriel Montaño, who is appearing before Colombia’s Special Jurisdiction for Peace in connection with extrajudicial executions.
Montaño reflected on his responsibility. “I used to think what we had done were mistakes,” he said. “Today, I understand they were not mistakes. They were actions, and those actions caused profound harm.”
His words captured a core principle of restorative justice: taking responsibility without euphemisms.
“I am responsible for what I did,” Montaño added. “And part of this process is learning to live with that truth—without ever forgetting the victims.”
For those listening, such acknowledgment does not erase pain. But it shifts the conversation.
“When someone looks you in the eye and says, ‘Yes, I did this,’ it changes the possibility of moving forward,” said Sonia Suárez, a member of ASOVIDA.
Survivors, not enemies
William Forero, a former FARC combatant who is now a community leader, offered a reframing that resonated across the room: moving beyond the language of “victims and perpetrators” to recognize one another as survivors of the war.
According to Forero, the conflict cannot be reduced to a simple battle between good and evil.
“Most of those who carried weapons were pushed there by a system that denied them opportunities,” he said.
In Granada, the war did not arrive as an external invasion. It was local young people who ended up on opposing sides.
Granada became a corridor of violence largely because of its strategic location in eastern Antioquia.
Situated along key routes connecting Medellín with the Magdalena Medio region and the eastern plains, the municipality served as a passageway for armed groups seeking territorial control, mobility, and access to supply lines.
Its rural geography, combined with a weak state presence during the height of the conflict, made it a contested zone for guerrilla groups, paramilitary forces, and state security forces alike.
Control over Granada meant control over transit routes, local populations, and strategic depth, placing the civilian community at the center of competing military and political interests.
Remembering, so it does not happen again
The meeting closed around a shared conviction: memory should not trap communities in pain, but prevent repeating the offenses.
In Granada, roads once used for war are being reimagined as paths toward reconciliation. Spaces of mourning are turning into places of collective learning.
“War is not welcome here,” one community leader said at the end of the event. “We do not want to leave our children a territory marked by violence. Our inheritance will be peace.”
In a country where armed conflict persists and political polarization runs deep, what is happening in Granada offers an uncomfortable but powerful lesson: reconciliation cannot be decreed from above.
It is built slowly, when former enemies choose to sit face to face and decide to speak.