Human Rights Under Killers' Gaze

'Where are my children?'

She cried out that the killers had come to her town, taking away the people and burning homes.

It was a theatre piece on the Plaza del Ché on the campus of the Universidad Nacional, but the story was one which has been repeated again and again during Colombia's long armed conflict. Altho such atrocities were committed by all sides, this play was undoubtedly aimed at the right-wing paramilitaries, who for many years did the regular military's dirty work.

But the far left also produced millions of victims, both in Colombia and abroad. So, it was a bit ironic watching this play under the gazes of Marx, Lenin, Che Guevara and Fidel Castro, whose various regimes themselves committed wholesale human rights abuses.

The performance was part of the Summit for Art and Culture for Peace.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours