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SPEAKER_02: Hello, from Wonder Media Network, I'm Melten Burak. I'm the host and producer of the podcast, SESTA. We aim to harness the power of arts and culture to foster conversation and build peace in Cyprus. I'll be your guest host for this month of Womanica. This month, we're highlighting peace builders. In times of conflict, these women have stepped in, bringing their creativity and insight to help facilitate peace across the globe. Today, we're talking about a woman who organized mothers and confronted a corrupt government. Her own experience fighting for justice inspired her human rights activism and eventually led to real change. Hers is a story of perseverance, loss and hope in the face of conflict. Reminder that the search for peace is storied and often endless. Let's meet Luz Marina Bernal.
SPEAKER_00: If I have been killed, I can't help other people. But I know everything. If I have been killed, I'm a person of the past. I'm a person who is repeating this story in many parts of the country. And I have to tell you.
SPEAKER_02: Luz was born into a peasant family in Tormeque, Boyaca, Colombia. When she was young, she studied architecture but didn't finish her schooling. In 1980, Luz married her husband, a bus driver named Carlo. The couple lived in Bogota for the first few years of their marriage, while Luz worked as an architect's assistant. In 1980, life in the city came to an end. While the family battled rising rent and job uncertainty, Luz was hit by a car. She was five months pregnant with the couple's second child. The crash severed her unborn child's brain stem. Doctors couldn't guarantee his survival. But the baby pulled through and Luz gave birth to Faír Leonardo, the second of Luz and Carlo's four children. Due to a turbulent pregnancy and a sickly childhood, Faír had mental and physical disabilities that required greater attention than Luz could give him in Bogota. By 2000, the family moved to Soacha, a smaller municipality outside the city, and Luz dedicated herself entirely to housework and her kids. In years later, Luz would say, there was a bit of Faír in every corner of Soacha. He literally helped build many of the streets as a construction worker, but he was also a familiar face in the community. He grew up by Luz's side and helped neighbors carrying groceries. Yet, the background to this peaceful lifestyle was a tumultuous war. Once so deadly, Luz herself had turned a blind eye to it for 48 years. For decades, the Colombian government had battled the Faírquirilla movement. In the early 2000s, the Ministry of Defense began to offer rewards, job perks like medals, bonuses, and vacation time to military units that achieved high body counts of guerillas. But there was little in the way of proving a body's connection to guerilla movements. As a way to boost their numbers, soldiers were known to kill innocent civilians and pass off their deaths as guerilla combatants. Those who died were known as false positives. But the news of the war wouldn't reach the general population for years until activists like Luz, who could no longer ignore its consequences, brought the violence to light. On the evening of January 8th, 2008, each of Luz's children returned home one by one, except for Faírquirilla. There was no sign of him the next day either. Luz knew Faírquirilla wouldn't stay out alone for days on end, but when she called the police, they refused to open a missing person case until 72 hours had passed. Luz launched a search party, first asking neighbors and relatives for help, and then expanding her investigation to clinics, hospitals, and shelters. Each time she'd try to open a case with the prosecutor's office, the person on the other end of the line would tell Luz she was simply being an overbearing mother. In August, Luz received the call she'd been dreading for the last eight months. The coroner's office had identified Faírquirilla's body. When Luz reached the coroner's office, a group of prosecutors took her and her family in for questioning over Faírquirilla's death. The story they heard was quite different from the reality they knew. Authorities said Faírquirilla had died in a standoff against the military with a nine millimeter pistol in his hand. They believed he was the head of a narco-terrorist organization. Luz knew immediately that she was the mother of a false positive. She joined three other women whose children had gone missing. They protested in front of the coroner's office holding pictures of their children. One day, by coincidence, a media crew arrived to film a different segment at the building. One journalist took an interest in the women and their plight began to gain ground. Over the next years, Luz and the other women worked to get their message about false positives out despite countless threats to themselves and their families. They called themselves the Madres de Sowaca. Luz also began studying for a law degree to aid their efforts. The number of false positives were rising. By the 2010s, official reports acknowledging the crisis placed the number at over 2,000 false positives. In conjunction with the national movement of victims of state crimes, Luz and the Madres fought to make this invisible war clear. Five years after his death, the trial of Faír León Arbo became one of the first false positive cases with a conviction. But even today, Luz's search for peace won't rest. In 2013, the same year as Faír's case, Luz separated from the Madres of Sowaca after the Colombian government gave them 18 million pesos for each murdered child they represented. Luz told the government, I did not give birth to a child, neither for a war, nor to sell it to anyone. And you did put a price on our children. As a mother, I did not have my son for sale. In 2016, Luz was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. All month, we're talking about peace builders. For more information, find us on Facebook and Instagram at Womanica Podcast. Special thanks to co-creators Jenny and Liz Kaplan for having me as a guest host. Talk to you tomorrow.
