Inspiring: Healing the War Machine News Articles
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The bidding opens at $9,000. For sale? A Yazidi girl. She is said to be beautiful, hardworking, and a virgin. She’s also just 11 years old. This advertisement – a screengrab from an online marketplace used by ISIS fighters to barter for sex slaves – is one of many Abdullah Shrem keeps in his phone. Each offers vital clues – photographs, locations – that he hopes will help him save Yazidi girls and young women like this girl from the militants holding them captive. Shrem was a successful businessman ... when ISIS came and kidnapped more than 50 members of his family from Iraq’s Sinjar province. Tens of thousands of Yazidis fled their homes ... while thousands of women and girls were abducted and sold into slavery. Desperate – and angered at what he saw as a lack of support from the international community – he began plotting to save them himself, recruiting cigarette smugglers used to sneaking illicit produce in and out of ISIS territory to help his efforts. So far, he says, his network has freed 240 Yazidis; it hasn’t been easy, or cheap – he’s almost broke, having spent his savings paying smuggling fees. A number of the smugglers have been captured and executed by ISIS while trying to track down Yazidi slaves. But Shrem insists the risks are worth it: “Whenever I save someone, it gives me strength and it gives me faith to keep going until I have been able to save them all.” Once they manage to make contact ... it can take days or even weeks to get safely out of ISIS territory.
Note: A 2021 news article by the CBC about his heroic work reported that he has saved about 400 individuals from ISIS forces. Explore more positive stories like this on healing the war machine and ending human trafficking.
Highly controversial since it opened in 2002, Guantanamo prison was set up by President George Bush in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks to house suspected "terrorists". Why would a former Guantanamo Bay prison guard track down two of his former captives - two British men - and agree to fly to London to meet them? The last time Ruhal Ahmed met Brandon Neely, he was "behind bars, behind a cage and [Brandon] was on the other side". The location had been Camp X-Ray - the high-security detention camp run by the US in Guantanamo Bay. Mr Ahmed, originally from Tipton in the West Midlands, was among several hundred foreign terror suspects held at the centre. Mr Neely was one of his guards. Mr Neely, 29, ... left the US military in 2005 to become a police officer and was still struggling to come to terms with his time as a guard at Guantanamo. He felt anger at a number of incidents of abuse he says he witnessed, and guilt over one in particular. "The news would always try to make Guantanamo into this great place," he says, "like 'they [prisoners] were treated so great'. No it wasn't. You know here I was basically just putting innocent people in cages." This led to a spontaneous decision last year to reach out to his former prisoners. [Shafiq Rasul:] "At first I couldn't believe it. Getting a message from an ex-guard saying that what happened to us in Guantanamo was wrong was surprising more than anything." To Mr Neely's astonishment he received a reply and the pair began an exchange of e-mails. It was at this point that the BBC asked if both sides would be prepared to meet in person. They agreed. Each say they had genuinely found some sort of closure from meeting. The sense of relief in all their faces speaks volumes, and they leave the meeting closer to one another.
Note: The video of this reunion at the BBC link above is quite extraordinary for what it represents. How did these innocent men end up suffering so much? For a possible answer and wake-up call, click here. For another touching story of a Guantanamo guard and detainee reuniting, read this article.
This week, the nonprofit Veterans Community Project (VCP) broke ground on its sixth tiny home village, this time in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to offer more military veterans a fresh start with housing and individualized care. Each 240-square-foot home is part of a larger community designed to help residents regain stability and independence. Since its founding in 2018 when they welcomed their first residents in Kansas City, VCP has helped hundreds of vets transition out of homelessness. VCP has set a new standard for how cities can address veteran homelessness, with its 85% success rate for vets who complete the program successfully and transition to sustainable permanent housing—all in an average of 335 days. Army combat veteran Dave Myers ... had never heard of VCP when his life was spinning out of control three years ago, addicted to drugs after returning home from war. He now smiles recalling a judge’s words ordering him to become a volunteer after he got clean in prison: “He told me, ‘You’re going to spend so much time with these guys that they’re either going to love you or hate you ... I hope it’s the former, and that they offer you a job after.’” Dave is now a full-time operations employee at VCP and is fulfilling his dream to help Veterans. “I was able to connect with our residents in some ways that not a lot of other people can. I’ve been in their shoes.” “This place saved me,” he said proudly.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on healing the war machine and reimagining the economy.
By the early 1990s, extremist Hutu propaganda had started to spread in newspapers and on the radio, radicalizing Rwandans. Over the course of just 100 days [in 1994], about 800,000 Rwandans, primarily Tutsi, were killed. On April 22, 1994, [Hussein] Longolongo recounted, he and an armed group of men entered a chapel where dozens of Tutsi were hiding. “We killed about 70 people,” he said. “I was brainwashed.” Eventually, more than 120,000 Hutu were arrested on charges of participating in the genocide. In prison, [Longolongo] was forced to take part in a government-sanctioned reeducation program. He initially dismissed much of what he heard. “But as time went on, I became convinced that what I did was not right,” he told me. Longolongo also participated in more than 100 of what were known as gacaca trials. Gacaca—which roughly translates to “justice on the grass”—had historically been used in Rwandan villages and communities to settle interpersonal and intercommunal conflicts. Now the government transformed the role of the gacaca court to handle allegations of genocide. Many survivors were initially reluctant. “They would say, ‘How can you forgive those people?’” [Albert] Rutikanga told them that these conversations weren’t something they should do for the perpetrators. “Forgiveness is a choice of healing yourself,” he would say. “You cannot keep the anger and bitterness inside, because it will destroy you.”
Note: Read how a Rwandan woman forgave the man who killed her husband during the 1994 genocide and allowed his daughter to marry her son. Explore more positive stories like this on healing social division.
Last week, the International Court of Justice issued a preliminary ruling that the charge brought by South Africa that Israel is guilty of genocide in Gaza is "plausible." The court called on Israel to take all measures to prevent the killing of civilians in the Palestinian enclave. The war began after Hamas struck southern Israel on October 7, killing some 1,200 people and taking more than 200 hostages. The day of the attack has been described as the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust. When [Holocaust survivor Estelle] Laughlin was a schoolgirl in Warsaw, children regularly pelted her and the other Jewish kids with pebbles. "We were so frightened," she recalls. "The antisemitism was right in front of me — it was so visceral." For Laughlin, besides luck, it was her mother and sister who helped her make it out of the camps alive. "Love maintained us," she says. She says she survived with an enduring sense of compassion and love for humanity, including for the Germans. "Without those values, survival would be hardly meaningful," she says. Laughlin says she's holding the Jewish pain of this war alongside the Palestinian pain. "When the dignity of any human being is diminished, the dignity of all humanity is diminished," she says. "Not only in relationship to my community but to any community of innocent people being attacked." When Laughlin considers the Palestinians living in Gaza, she says, "I identify with their plight ... with their isolation that the rest of the world keeps on going on as though nothing happened, and their world is crumbling." "I feel their pain," she adds. She longs for a better way forward.
Note: Check out the 12 organizations working for Israel-Palestine peace. Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive inspiring news articles archive focused on solutions and bridging divides.
Until 2014, Abdullah Shrem was a beekeeper in Iraq. Then Islamic State forces arrived, announcing their terror in symbols daubed on the doorways of the homes they raided: “They wrote the letter Y on our homes and on our stores and built a barrier like the Berlin Wall – N for the Christians, and Y for the Yazidis. S for the Sunnis, and Sh for the Shi’ites,” Shrem recalls. The Yazidis met the worst fate: men were marched into mass graves and shot, while women were separated – young from old, mothers from children, wives from virgins. The younger were taken to a “marketplace” to be sold as sex slaves or sabaya; the older were killed or sold as domestic slaves. Shrem’s response was extraordinary: he left beekeeping to create a network of rescuers – modelled on the female-led fortress of the beehive – who would return the kidnapped women to their families. “I cultivated a hive of transporters and smugglers from both sexes to save our queens,” he tells Dunya Mikhail, an American-Iraqi journalist, whose book is centred on the women Shrem rescues. The women form the book’s heart. Their stories, however courageous, read like a litany of horrors, some painfully detailed. What is striking is the unaugmented record of experiences, transcribed in first-person testimonies and knitted together with Shrem’s words. The multiplicity of voices creates a verbatim record – a chorus of experience – rather than following the ... narrative arc of heroic exceptionalism.
Note: A 2021 news article by the CBC about his heroic work reported that he has saved about 400 individuals from ISIS forces. Explore more positive stories like this on healing the war machine and ending human trafficking.
After Bob Nevins, a medevac pilot for the 101st Airborne during the Vietnam War, returned home to the U.S., he found that working with horses was the thing that soothed him best. "I realized then that there was some kind of deep emotional connection that actually opened people up," said Nevins. For the last three years, Nevins has been giving veterans and victims of trauma a chance to connect with world-class racehorses - and themselves - through the Saratoga Warhorse Foundation. "We're creating an experience for the veterans that creates a very deep, emotional bond with the thoroughbred. That's a catalyst for a very traumatic transformation, healing-wise, for the veteran," Nevins said. "We teach them the horse's language. What they're able to do then is communicate in this silent language. That experience is so emotionally powerful that the walls just tumble for the veterans." Spc. TJ Hawkins, a former National Guardsman, said he'd completely shut down after watching his best friend die in action. "He meant a lot. The best brother anybody could ask for," he said. "[I] didn't want anybody to ask me about any good experiences in Iraq, any bad experiences." He said his time in the corral with a horse felt "amazing." "I'm on the top of the world," Hawkins said. "It brought back the happiness I had lost from going to Iraq. This is the first time I've truly been happy since I've been home." Nevins said his program was about helping veterans, not just talking about it.
Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.
Not long after Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Oksana Sokhan found herself in an evacuation minibus, wedged between two stricken soldiers in the dark, as the vehicle tried to safely get away from the front line. She began singing Ukrainian lullabies to the wounded fighters, and stroking them as a mother would. Their anxiety eased. If she stopped the soothing singing for a moment, she saw their anxiety surge again. “I was surprised myself that it worked – surely it worked on a subconscious level for both of them,” recalls the nurse. Ms. Sokhan still laughs about that moment of serendipitous support with the lullabies in the minibus, and about how – after they had all arrived safely at the hospital – a nurse came out to report that one of the men was convinced his mother had been with him during the evacuation. Ms. Sokhan may be just one senior nurse, but she is emblematic of the legions of Ukrainian military medics devoted to preserving the lives of the country’s outnumbered forces. For years a member of the 128th Separate Transcarpathian Mountain Assault Brigade, she has seen a whirlwind of casualties at different points along the front line since Russia’s all-out invasion. “We want to save everyone,” she says. “Of course, it’s very important to see the results of your work, because when they come here” the soldiers are traumatized, in pain, “and when they leave ... they are already waving sometimes.”
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on healing the war machine.
By the time the sun casts its first beams on war-ravaged Yemen, hundreds of men will have taken their positions across the park, and the workout begins. Enthusiastic chants of “Ahsan Fareek”, or “Best Team”, boom across the park as members of this daily, free, open-to-all sports club begin a set of 33 exercises designed to work the whole body. For the next hour, they temporarily put aside the stressors they’ve accumulated from the devastating eight-year civil war that has claimed 377,000 lives, touching their toes, standing on one leg and reaching for the sky. By 6.30am the crowd disperses, and everyone goes about their day, rejuvenated and energized, ready to meet again the following morning. “It is a sports club for everyone, but it’s particularly vital for the elderly, who suffer from illnesses and anxiety and for whom treatment is unaffordable,” says Najy Abu Hatem, co-founder of the initiative. “Being part of Best Team lifts their morale and gives them free exercise classes in a healthy and social setting.” In a country of 33 million people, there are only 59 psychiatrists – one psychiatrist per 500,000 people – and the total number of mental health workers is just 304. Although Best Team can hardly tackle this huge, ongoing mental health crisis, the twin benefits it provides of camaraderie and physical exercise – under the guise of a more socially acceptable men’s sports club – is nonetheless quietly improving people’s mental wellbeing across the capital and beyond.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive inspiring news articles archive focused on solutions and bridging divides.
To heal you must love - so believes a woman who not only forgave the man who killed her husband 28 years ago during Rwanda's genocide, but allowed his daughter to marry her son. Bernadette Mukakabera has been telling her story as part of continuing efforts by the Catholic Church to bring reconciliation to a society torn apart in 1994 when some 800,000 people were slaughtered in 100 days. "Our children had nothing to do with what happened. They just fell in love and nothing should stop people from loving each other," Bernadette told the BBC. [In 1994] thousands of Hutus ... began well organised killings - turning on their Tutsi neighbours. One of these was Gratien Nyaminani, whose family lived next to Bernadette's. After the massacres ended, with a Tutsi rebel group taking power, hundreds of thousands of people accused of involvement in the killings were detained. Gratien was taken into custody and eventually tried by one of the community courts, known as gacaca, set up to deal with genocide suspects. At these weekly hearings, communities were given a chance to face the accused and both hear and give evidence about what really happened - and how it happened. The final reconciliation happens in public where the accused and the victim stand together. The victim stretches their hands towards the accused as a sign of forgiveness. In 2004, Gratien told Bernadette how he had killed her husband and apologised - and at the same hearing she chose to forgive him. This meant that he did not have to serve a 19-year jail term, but a two-year community service sentence instead.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive inspiring news articles archive focused on solutions and bridging divides.
Colombia's version of the hit TV contest "Dancing with the Stars" hopes to show millions of viewers that former battlefield enemies can live side by side. John Pinchao, a policeman held captive in a jungle camp, often in chains, by rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) until he escaped in 2007, is now sharing the dance floor with ex-FARC child soldier Ana Pacheco, who joined the rebel group aged 14. The prime-time show comes at a time when the three-year-old peace talks between the Colombian government and the FARC are approaching the goal the two sides have set of signing an accord by March 23. If successful, this would end half a century of war that has killed 220,000 people and displaced 6.5 million, and would lead to some 7,000 FARC fighters handing in their weapons. As the March deadline for signing a peace deal looms, Colombians are considering to what extent they are ready to forgive FARC and accept former combatants back into society. For Pacheco, who left the rebel ranks when she was 16, the TV show is an opportunity to show the human face of former fighters. The producers of the TV show ... hope the unexpected line-up can foster empathy among Colombians with people who suffered during the years of conflict. "We want the show to awaken solidarity. We weren't just looking for great dancers and celebrities, what inspired us was to show the reality that faces Colombia, it's about living together," said Fox Colombia executive producer Oscar Guarin.
Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.
The German government has announced plans to convert 62 disused military bases just west of the Iron Curtain into nature reserves for eagles, woodpeckers, bats, and beetles. Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks said: "We are seizing a historic opportunity with this conversion many areas that were once no-go zones are no longer needed for military purposes. We are fortunate that we can now give these places back to nature." Together the bases are 31,000 hectares that's equivalent to 40,000 football pitches. The conversion will see Germany's total area of protected wildlife increase by a quarter. After toying with the idea of selling the land off as real estate, the government opted instead to make a grand environmental gesture. It will become another addition to what is now known as the European Green Belt. A spokesperson from The European Green Belt told The Independent: "In the remoteness of the inhuman border fortifications of the Iron Curtain nature was able to develop nearly undisturbed. "Today the European Green Belt is an ecological network and memorial landscape running from the Barents to the Black Sea."
Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.
Only up close does it become clear that some of the bulky figures in armoured vests scouring the fields of southern Lebanon for unexploded cluster bombs are wearing hijabs under their protective helmets. Once local teachers, nurses and housewives, this group of women are now fully trained to search for mines and make up the only all-female clearance team in Lebanon, combing the undergrowth inch by inch for the remnants of one of the most indiscriminate weapons of modern warfare. Leading the women in the field is Lamis Zein, a 33-year-old divorced mother of two and the team's supervisor. She was one of the first recruits for the team, which was set up by the de-mining NGO Norwegian People's Aid. "We are good at what we do and we are showing that women can do any kind of job," [said Zein]. Their painstaking task became necessary five years ago this week, after Israel rained cluster munitions on southern Lebanon to a degree the UN condemned as a "flagrant violation of international law". The women's team works in tandem with other teams of searchers, all co-ordinated by the Lebanese army, to clear up the unexploded ordnance that still litters the countryside. "Women are more patient than men," said Zein. "That is why we are good at this job. We work more slowly and maybe we are a little more afraid than men."
In 2018, the military, struggling to meet enlistment goals, began invading gaming communities as part of a larger, digital-first strategy. Recruiters who had once stalked school assemblies and shopping malls began streaming games on social media and competing in tournaments to court new enlistees online. Since then, the military’s online recruiting strategy has expanded to the Amazon-owned streaming platform Twitch, which attracts 140 million active users per month. The Army, Navy, and Air Force churn out hours of Twitch content per week, including streams of popular first-person-shooter games. The Armed Forces claim their gamers ... aren’t technically recruiters. But anti-war advocates say they might as well be. To counter this, [Marine veteran Chris] Velazquez became a community developer for Gamers for Peace (GFP), the first peace organization formed to mirror the military’s online recruiting practices: While streaming popular games like Halo and Rocket League, its members—many of them veterans—offer career advice and mentorship to teens, talk politics, and discuss the realities of war. They also share information about online military recruitment tactics at in-person gaming conventions such as PAX Unplugged. These initiatives, members say, give prospective recruits the tools and knowledge to see other options and reconsider enlisting. The group has already accrued nearly 600 Twitch followers as well as 400 members on the popular messaging service Discord.
Note: The latest US Air Force recruitment tool is a video game that allows players to receive in-game medals and achievements for drone bombing Iraqis and Afghans. For more on this topic, read an article we've summarized about how one of the best-selling video games, Call of Duty, is a carefully constructed piece of military propaganda.
International Conscientious Objection Day took place this week, on 15 May, and in the UK, a ceremony was held at the CO Commemorative Stone in Tavistock Square, Bloomsbury. The UK has also recently seen the opening of a new memorial to COs, at The National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire. The earliest recorded incidence of conscientious objection was in 296AD, when a Roman refused to serve as a soldier because of his religious beliefs; he was killed, but subsequently canonised as Saint Maximilian. The term 'conscientious objector', however, only gained currency during the First World War, following the implementation of conscription in 1916. In Britain, over 16,000 men refused to fight. While it is well known that many with strong religious beliefs objected, interestingly some war-resisters refused on socialist grounds: they would not fight brother workers, feeling that the average soldier was but a pawn of the ruling classes. Few were given total exemption. Many were forced to join the army or the Non-Combatant Corps (NCC), to serve in a supporting role to the armed forces. Many 'conchies' refused either option, and were sent to prison as a result. The abuses they suffered for their stance make for extremely grim reading, [as] told by David Boulton, in his book Objection Overruled. But word got out about such experiences and public feeling did move towards respect. It became recognised that to stand up and be counted as someone who would not fight required its own, very high, degree of courage.
Note: For a treasure trove of great news articles which will inspire you to make a difference, click here.
This year’s winner of the Templeton Prize, which highlights discoveries that yield "new insights about religion" ... was given to Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, a South African scholar who has explored ways to nurture deep empathy between victims and perpetrators of conflict. Her particular focus is on the power of forgiveness to expunge hatred and historical harms. Such an approach is now widely acknowledged as essential because of wars – from Ukraine and Gaza to Myanmar and Sudan – that have resulted in extensive harm to innocent civilians. Serving on South Africa’s post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the 1990s, Dr. Gobodo-Madikizela gained insights into both the needs of those who suffered under decades of apartheid and the motivations of those who upheld racial separation through violence. Her life work, she said following the award announcement Tuesday, involves understanding “the conditions necessary to restore the values of what it means to be human.” “There’s no better time to shove away prejudices, pull up a chair with a supporter of that party you can’t stand, and talk with them about how we can work together for a brighter future,” wrote Ian Siebörger, a senior lecturer of linguistics at Rhodes University. Dr. Gobodo-Madikizela offers ways to avoid “the passing on of grievance and a sense of victimhood from one generation to the next.” The “reparative quest,” she told Time magazine this week, is “a constant journey to repair and to heal” through atonement and forgiveness. It is not a singular moment. Victims and perpetrators move each other beyond the boundaries of their own experiences.
Note: To explore more stories of forgiveness and healing in the face of atrocities, check out our powerful interview with Marina Cantacuzino, journalist and founder of The Forgiveness Project. Explore more positive stories like this about healing the war machine.
While the sad reality of violence and division dominates the media, countless grassroots organizations are working tirelessly to bring peace and reconciliation to the Israel-Palestine conflict. As the region continues to be ravaged by violence, Standing Together, Israel’s largest Arab-Jewish grassroots organization, brings together Jewish and Palestinian volunteers. They labor relentlessly to assist victims of continuous violence while also campaigning for peace, equality, social justice, and climate justice. Their message is clear: the future they envision is one of peace, Israeli and Palestinian independence, full equality, and environmental justice. The Parents Circle – Families Forum, which includes over 600 families who have lost loved ones in the conflict, is a symbol of reconciliation. This joint Israeli-Palestinian organization encourages conversation and reconciliation through education, public gatherings, and media participation, presenting a ray of hope for a future of coexistence. Integrated schools in Israel, where Jewish and Palestinian children attend classes together, serve as an example of a more inclusive future. Hand in Hand promotes understanding by bringing parents together for debate and shared study of Hebrew and Arabic. They are sowing seeds of oneness. Jerusalem Peacebuilders brings together Israelis, Palestinians, and Americans with the goal of developing tomorrow’s leaders. Their work highlights the futility of violent war and the critical need for nonviolence.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive inspiring news articles archive focused on solutions and bridging divides.
There are two people on the Zoom screen in front of me. One, a Palestinian man in the ancient city of Jericho in the West Bank. The other, an Israeli woman in Tel Aviv. They’re separated, literally and metaphorically, by a wall. And they’re united in loss: specifically, the loss of a child. Something else unites them: a determination to build bridges of shared understanding at a time when the gulf between their peoples seems deeper than ever. They’re both part of the Parents Circle – Families Forum (PCFF), membership of which has the grimmest of qualifications: that your child has been killed in the conflict. Their backgrounds could not be more different, and yet, partly because of their loss, they’ve arrived in the same place. The fighting has to end, and bereaved parents are better placed than most to achieve that. “Before you start to talk [in those meetings],” says [parent Bassam] Aramin, “you can see in their eyes the fear – even hatred – for this Arab, this ‘terrorist’. And after you finish your human story, suddenly there is no fear. Suddenly there is empathy. Some of them cry. Some of them want to shake your hand. This is, as Robi always calls it, our ‘emotional breakthrough’.” ‘Robi’ is Robi Damelin, now director of international relations for the PCFF. Born and raised in a comfortable home in South Africa, she followed in a family tradition – her uncle had helped defend Mandela in his first treason trial – by speaking out against apartheid.
Note: War destroys, yet these powerful real-life stories show that we can heal, reimagine better alternatives, and plant the seeds of a global shift in consciousness to transform our world. Explore more positive stories like this on healing the war machine.
In Colombia, compulsory military service has been a burden that generations of young men have had to face for more than 200 years. Since 1991, the Mennonite Christian Association for Justice, Peace and Nonviolent Action – Justapaz - has walked another path. We are a team that has been telling the country for more than three decades that young people were not born for war. That compulsory military service is not a patriotic duty, but an injustice. And, most importantly, that there is another way to serve the ‘homeland’. At first, we campaigned for young people to have the right to conscientious objection. In 2016, we decided to go further: to work together with other social, youth and political organisations for the creation of the Social Service for Peace – an alternative service that trades weapons for tools and military discipline for social projects that transform lives. In 2024, our campaign was successful, and the service will be gradually implemented from 2025. Imagine this: instead of an 18-year-old learning to shoot a rifle, you see him teaching reading in a rural school. Instead of long days in barracks, you see him helping to build houses in a conflict-affected community. Instead of preparing his mind for war, you see him learning about human rights, about reconciliation, about how to heal wounds that are not just physical. That's Social Service for Peace. This programme is now codified in law.
Note: War destroys, yet these powerful real-life stories show that we can heal, reimagine better alternatives, and plant the seeds of a global shift in consciousness to transform our world. Explore more positive stories like this on healing the war machine.
Duberney López Martinéz was only 13 when he joined the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in 2003. Today, Duberney, 33, lives with his wife and young son after spending more than a decade fighting in the FARC 32nd Front and two years in jail. As part of his reintegration into society ... Duberney got involved in the ecological restoration of the Colombian Amazon. He and another 23 ex-FARC members are promoting the ecological restoration of the Colombian Amazon. The Communitarian Multiactive Cooperative of the Common (Comuccom) ... aims to plant and care for 1 million native trees in order to counteract deforestation from illegal gold mining, cattle ranching, coca-growing and illegal logging. Despite the peace agreement, the conflict is still present in daily lives and memories, according to Kristina Lyons, professor of anthropology ... who has been working in the region. “In Putumayo, armed conflict and antidrug policies heavily impacted bonds among people, communities and their relations with the region’s ecosystems,” Lyons [said]. “The ecological restoration of the Amazon has deep significance for healing relations between humans ruptured by the conflict and among people and their territories. It can be understood as a form of reparation for war crimes and other kinds of violence in the wake of the peace agreements.” “To me, restoring the Amazon is the same process needed for healing the heart of a person,” [said Aroca Sanchez with Comuccom].
Note: Read how tourists in Colombia can now take jungle hikes with ex-FARC guerilla guides. Explore more positive stories like this about healing the war machine.
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