Educational Media Reviews Online

Gustavo Fernandez’ opens his Scars on the Ground with the 1957 betrayal and killing of guerilla leader Guadelupe Salcedo in Bogota at the hands of the Colombian National Police, and the theme of betrayal plays throughout the documentary.

After seventy years of bitter socio-economic strife that claimed over a quarter of a million lives, a country fed up with violence and war struggles with reconciliation and reintegration following the 2016 peace accord reached between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the Colombian government. The painful adjustments of this tenuous transition are shown in the stories of four former FARC soldiers.

Although their experiences are varied, they all describe journeys from desperately impoverished rural origins through indoctrination into a Marxist-Leninist revolutionary organization offering a sense of community and an alternative to a futile struggle for survival. While trained for combat by the FARC, they were all provided education and medical services, benefits the Colombian government seldom gave to those of their social status. As Johanna, the 18-year veteran put it, “life with the guerillas was beautiful, except for the war, because war is not pretty.”

Johanna’s is perhaps the most positive story of the four, with her Red Cross nursing school diploma and daughter’s birthday party celebration. She wears a FARC EP t-shirt over a pregnant belly while describing having to leave her wounded boyfriend behind after an army ambush, and watching other comrades die and be buried in the jungle, but she vows to pass on the principles of equality of the sexes and respect of life and nature as an antidote to the selfishness of capitalism that she learned growing up in the FARC to her own unborn child.

On the other extreme is William, 51 years old with no wife or children, alone but for a sick old dog after the death of the mother who he hadn’t been in contact with throughout his decades with the guerillas. Having joined the FARC at 25 with his only other options picking coca or joining the military, he seems close to despair since the disarmament has left him with no occupation.

Alberto recounts playing chess with a kidnap victim and how he learned to not befriend hostages because he never knew what might happen to them. Left behind in the jungle after having been wounded, he finally made his way home after six days, determined to take care of his mother. He tells of former comrades and social advocates murdered since the armistice and worries for his own safety as a former FARC soldier and dissident but bears a tattoo with his daughter’s name that he says gives him hope for the future.

Another man goes with his girlfriend to the city to vote and reads through his parole agreement with the government. His sister was killed in an ambush, and he doesn’t know where she’s buried. Visiting a museum of the revolution, he reveals that his rifle of twenty years was one of the weapons melted down to make the steel titles of the floor and feels betrayed by the government that promised social reforms.

While Colombia has seen a marked decrease in violence since the armistice of 2016, FARC dissident groups and right wing paramilitary organizations remain. Kidnapping and political disappearances persist even as former revolutionaries strive to reintegrate with society. It is to Gustavo Fernandez’ great credit that while putting very human faces on former members of an organization deemed a terrorist group, he neither glorifies their experience, nor demonizes their opposition. His film is an honest portrayal of people trying to reunite with society after years of war and isolation.

Awards:
"Truth, Peace and Reconciliation Audiovisual Award," The Peace and Reconciliation Memory Center of Bogotá; Official Selection, Latin American Studies Association Int’l Film Festival; Official Selection, Proyecto seleccionado en la Clínica de Proyectos Alados; Official Selection, Bogotá Int’l Documentary Film Festival; Official Selection, Santander Int’l Festival of Independent Cinema

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