A few months after the signing of the peace agreement and the surrender of the weapons she had carried throughout her life with the FARC, Paulina Cardoso was forced to flee Tolima with her 11-year-old son Wenyer Cardoso and a baby in her stomach. Wearing nothing but the hot weather clothes they wore, they ended up in frigid Bogota after hearing a phrase that made Paulina’s body freeze. “You have to bring your son to the cause,” the ex-combatants said to him, who then joined the guerrilla dissidents.
She had finally managed to reunite with her son and she wasn’t about to lose him again. They threatened her in the afternoon and by night she had already decided to leave. “I wouldn’t allow him to live what I did. I joined the guerrilla when I was 11 because I was abused at home and didn’t have a childhood,” she says, brought to tears when they join Wenyer, now 17, and Juan Andrés, now five sees a project involving children of ex-combatants, the Choir of the Sons and Daughters of Peace.
They sing along with 50 other boys and girls in an unthinkable and enormously symbolic setting: about the melted down weapons delivered by the guerrillas, which were transformed into the artwork Fragmentos under the direction of the artist Doris Salcedo. Wenyer stands out in the chorus. He is a boy with very black hair and native facial features, moving his head and body in rhythm and singing powerfully. In front of the choir, Juan Andrés moves a white dove like little children.
Wenyer Cardoso, her brother and Paulina Cardoso, their mother, former fighter of the extinct FARC guerrilla Juan Carlos Zapata
“It touched me with the whole soul of the war,” says Wenyer after the singing and remembers that reintegration as a family into civilian life was not easy. “But you’re trying to make peace. Mami signed the peace agreement in 2016. From that moment we believed that we would live well, that we would try to reconcile. Not to erase the past, because people who forget their past are likely to repeat it, but to try to change the course of our history,” says the boy.
His story also reveals the difficulties ex-combatants have faced in recent years. At least 343 were killed and many had to evacuate the Territorial Spaces for Training and Reintegration (ETCR) where they lived. “Unfortunately there are people with hate and resentment in their hearts who kill peace signers. So I would like to make an appeal, we may not have the same ideologies, but as long as we respect each other we can live in peace. For me, peace means respecting ideologies and beliefs.”
Wenyer speaks with such serenity that his words fail to reveal the harshness of what he has experienced. After fleeing Tolima to avoid being recruited by dissidents, Paulina and her children have endured hardships. The first days in Bogotá were alone. With no family or friends, she says, she got groceries from the supply centers. “I’m not ashamed to say it, I had to pull her out.” He then managed to get in touch with an “intermediary” from the extinct FARC, a figure who was supposed to help with reintegration, and his situation improved. She began studying public administration and doing trades to survive. And one afternoon a text message came inviting them to a peace choir.
Foundation of the choir “Daughters and Sons of Peace”, consisting of daughters and sons of ex-combatants of the extinct FARC guerrilla Juan Carlos Zapata
“I said yes and here I am. Music has opened many doors for me, I never thought it would take me this far. It helps me, I sing, I free myself. I get so carried away I forget I shouldn’t be moving that much on stage. With this passion, with which I sing toward peace,” says Wenyer.
The Choir of the Sons and Daughters of Peace was created on the initiative of the Bogotá Philharmonic Orchestra. Its director, David García, recalls that they invited the signers to take their children to workshops every week and, given their enthusiasm, decided to found the choir, which is “a laboratory of peace”. The United Nations Verification Mission and the Ford Foundation were added, and they had their first presentation in November 2021 to commemorate the five-year peace agreement between the Colombian state and the former FARC. “We will consolidate this choir, then we bet that the children will have access to the study of the instruments, the theoretical and musical elements; and later that a Philharmonic of Peace arises. It’s a long-term process, but it has to remain in time as a symbol,” adds García.
The choir is also an example of the veterans’ baby boom. There are no exact numbers, but according to the former guerrillas, at least 3,500 children have been born after arms shipments. Carlos Villarraga, who spent 21 years of his life in this guerrilla group, is one of the ex-combatants who had children after the peace agreement was signed. Now Nasly Maité, who keeps her mother’s common name, is among the choir members. “I think that these children singing on these tiles reflect the hope that young people will never again experience scenes of war like we do,” says the man who takes his daughter to class every week with Professor Sandra Rodríguez of the Philharmonic .
The ex-fighter of the extinct FARC guerrilla Carlos Villarraga with his daughter on August 18, 2022 in Bogotá. Juan Carlos Zapata
Seeing her lift the dove on stage is a hopeful act for Villarraga. “It gives us more strength to know that the signing of the peace agreement was indeed the best action we could take to end this cycle of violence finish,” he says. Beyond the speeches, as Javier Ciurlizza, director of the Ford Foundation in the Andean region, said during the launch, music fills peace with meaning. “What we hear in this choir is the most beautiful expression of the promise of peace,” he said.
For the Wenyer family, the choir also meant the opportunity to make up for lost time. While Paulina was away at war, he was left in the care of an aunt. Reuniting with his mother was painful and the relationship is still evolving. But the music helped them. Now Paulina has Wenyer, Juan Andrés and another three-year-old son. For her, it is an opportunity to be a more present mother. “The three of them do a concert for me at home, they start rehearsing together and that lifts my spirits. I have three singers that I never thought would come out of me,” says Paulina, who is looking for a job.
After introducing themselves, the children played and ran on the tiles of war while the parents, still shocked to be standing on their old weapons, talked about the future. “Below the feet of each of us lies the story of a painful war, but also the commitment to rebuild, a message that does not focus on nostalgia for the past but for the future,” said Manuela Marín, mother, signatory of the Agreement and one of the creators of the Choir of the Sons and Daughters of Peace.
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