In his nine long years in the ranks of the Farc guerrillas, Diomedes saw and did things he would rather not remember.  Forcibly recruited when he was just 15, he deserted in 2009.  Related: Colombia: is the end in sight to the world’s longest war?  Today, Diomedes, 29, is trying to repair some of the damage he feels he did as an unwilling member of Colombia’s largest rebel army by working to clear landmines that the Farc (the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) laid near the town of Sonsón, in the mountains of Antioquia province.  “In the Farc I saw landmines being prepared and laid and now I have the opportunity destroy those mines that have caused so much damage to the community,” says Diomedes, who asked that his last name be withheld for fear of retaliation.  Diomedes is one of a handful of former guerrilla members now working as mine clearers for the Halo Trust, a British NGO that is charged with clearing 100 minefields identified in areas where the country’s 50-year conflict has died down.  He will soon be joined by current members of the Farc, who will help with efforts to locate and clear landmines the group has laid in conflict hotspots around the country – part of an agreement reached during peace negotiations with the government of Juan Manuel Santos.  The demining agreement is one of several recent measures taken by both sides to tone down the violence in Colombia while they talk peace in Havana.  Following December’s declaration of a unilateral ceasefire, the Farc announced in February a decision to stop recruiting minors, a practice that had earned the group widespread condemnation.  “I hope they really do that,” says Diomedes, a former child soldier himself, who was forced into the ranks of the Farc in 2000 together with two sisters aged 14 and 13.  The government reciprocated the Farc’s unilateral decisions by declaring a temporary suspension of air bombings on Farc camps, which has been one of the military’s most effective tactics against the guerrillas. That reprieve will send a strong message to the ranks of the guerrillas in jungle and mountain camps, according to a recently demobilised Farc member who asked to be identified as Arturo. “Those bombardments are what we feared most,” he said of his time in the rebel camps. “Ending those will convince the people still out there that things are starting to happen.”  That the Farc leadership agreed to collaborate on demining efforts “shows that they’re serious about peace”, Diomedes said.  Negotiations to end the country’s conflict have dragged on for nearly two and a half years and though the two sides have agreed on three of the five main negotiating points, tangible results on the ground in Colombia have been few.  The agreement on demining will change that. “For the first time the peace process will have a concrete impact in the country,” says Álvaro Jiménez, director of the Colombian Campaign Against Landmines, an NGO that had lobbied negotiators in Havana to begin clearing mines even before they reach a final peace accord.  Colombia is second only to Afghanistan in the number of landmine accidents, with more than 11,000 victims in the past 25 years. An estimated 800,000 Colombian civilians are at risk of stepping on a landmine as they walk to their fields, to school or to market, with 688 municipalities affected.  So far this year, at least 50 people have fallen victim to mines, with seven deaths – including five children.  Starting in May, active guerrilla members will work hand in hand with army soldiers to identify minefields in selected areas of the country where civilians have been most affected by recent landmine accidents. Though considered a pilot programme that will target a small number of minefields, both government officials and Farc spokesmen have said it could be a model for a post-conflict scenario.  “This is significant not only to eliminate the threat of landmines but it will put people who have considered each other the enemy for 50 years to work together,” says Jiménez.  The number of landmine victims in Colombia began to spike in 2005 as the Farc were being beaten back by a sustained military offensive against them. In a 2008 email intercepted by the military, the then top Farc commander Alfonso Cano ordered all fronts to halt the advance of the troops with mine fields “since we know it’s the only factor that stops and intimidates them”.  According to the International Campaign to Ban Land Mines, the Farc is the “most prolific” user of anti-personnel mines among rebel groups worldwide. Rather than using industrial mines, Farc troops fashion theirs out of readily available materials: coffee cans, fertiliser, and syringes.  “Whenever the commander felt we were surrounded they planted landmines,” Diomedes remembers. And even though he said commanders usually kept maps of the minefields they laid, one leader fell victim to a mine. “He forgot where the mines were and he stepped on one,” he says.  Where Diomedes and his coworkers at the Halo Trust work, there are no maps. Minefields are identified by where accidents have occurred or where residents of the affected communities remember seeing guerrillas plant them.  Once the field is identified, detecting the individual mines is a gruelling task. At a minefield in the village of La Quiebra, mine clearers protected by Kevlar vests and shatterproof visors, work metre by metre, sweeping the ground with metal detectors. A beep of the detector could mean a mine, or an old piece of barbed wire.  Not knowing which, workers proceed with extreme caution. At this particular field mine clearers have found three devices after covering nearly 3,100 square metres.  At that pace it could be decades before Colombia is mine-free, particularly since despite the agreement with the government to clear mines, the Farc have not committed to stop planting them.  The ELN, Colombia’s other guerrilla group which is not involved in peace talks also uses landmines widely.  But the decision to jointly clear some areas is an important start, says Jiménez. “What’s important is that they start with one. Already that’s a gain.”
Farc rebels were among the world’s most prolific mine layers but a tortuous peace process has brought hope for Colombians running the daily risk of injury or death