Dancing for Peace? with Natalio Cosoy Our World

Is world-famous ballet start is returning to live in his home

country of Colombia for the first time in 16 years. What we need is

people like Fernando to show the Colombians were Colombians can do.

-- what Colombians can do. After more than half a century of Luddy

internal conflict, the nation stands on the brink of peace. But will that

piece last in such a troubled land, with millions of victims? -- peace.

I will be joining Fernando Montano as he comes back to his homeland.

Will he be dancing for peace, or will the bloodshed continue?

Fernando Montano, a soloist at the Royal Ballet in the UK, has come

back to his home country. He believes that artists have a vital

role to play in promoting and cementing that piece, and he wants

to play his part. Here, he is rehearsing for a peace ballet that

he has choreographed himself. It is a moving story about two families

torn apart and misunderstandings and greed in the civil war. They are

brought back together by a delve of peace, played by Fernando. He plans

to perform some of it within days. All these years of war, we have lost

this happiness and hope and joy of living, of life. Many people have

suffered so much that it is hard to maybe forget all those things. But I

feel that people need, like, to recuperate their hole in their

spirit, to make it filled again with life. And I think that is where I am

trying probably to put this ballet together or put this performance

together, because I think they deserve to have at least a moment of

joy and happiness after all this suffering, after all those years of

being suffering. Downtown Bogota, Colombia's capital.

It is a bustling, lively place where tourists rub shoulders with locals.

Peace talks between the government and the main rebel group, the

Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or Farc, have been going

on for years and Havana, Cuba. Now we have reached the end game where a

proposed signing of a peace treaty due soon. On the surface, Bogota is

a modern, thriving city which is embracing first world trappings. But

behind this modern exterior, the still recent history of a rouble

wall which has touched everyone in this country. Almost 250,000 people

have been killed, and more than 6 million are forced from their homes.

Do Bogota's people think this will come? I truly hope. This is really

huge for us, and I really think we are doing a great thing, it is the

best for us. We need to stop a war and I think it is going to be

really, really good for our country. On one side, I don't like it very

much because I see that there are too many people that they have

committed serious crimes. I think they should be imprisoned, right?

Because the things that they did here in the country were, like,

really, really bad. Colombia is a very complex and diverse country.

Still, there is a certain truth when people picture it as the land of the

three Cs. Copy, cocaine and civil war. This woman and her family

suffered terribly in the conflict -- coffee. She was driven out of her

home twice and came to Bogota with nothing five years ago. She has now

set up a small workshop in a poor area on the outskirts of Bogota. Two

of her brothers were recruited by the Farc. One was killed in

punishment for leaving the rebels and she herself was raped by

right-wing paramilitaries. It is a heartrending tale, and sadly

Erminda is just one of millions trying to rebuild their lives. I

wanted to find out more about the country's relationship with violence

so I accepted Fernando's invitation to visit him in his home city, Ely

500 kilometres south-west of the capital. Colombia is a vast, diverse

country. With the major cities in the high Andes, with jungle and

tropical coast below. This city was the base for one of the most

notorious drug cartels back in the 1990s. 20 years ago, it is estimated

that 80% of the world's cocaine came from this cartel. Despite the peace

process and the overall reduction of violence in places like this one,

drugs are still a very big problem in Colombia. Here, armed gangs

control the distribution. And at the national level, coca and cocaine

production have both increased in the past year. Fernando has

frightening memories of growing up here, in an area where he heard

gunfire on a daily basis, and people were kidnapped or shot. So you told

me used to live here? Yes, my house was that one. Me. This is the area

where he grew up. It remains a rough area, with shootings till a regular

occurrence. I remember there were many, many days that were, you know,

the police have this fight with the guys from the police, which probably

they were doing their own things. So yes, you couldn't go out. Fernando

is something of a local hero for this community. They treat him like

a big football player or a music staff. Sadly, there is still much

poverty in parts of Cali, as there is in much of the country, one of

the most unequal in the world, and there is little hope for these

children. I remember it was tough year, it was... And also their work

periods that people would come and try and make the place safe here, so

then there were fights. A lot of fights, and then people... Yes.

Although the major drug cartels have been broken up, they have been

replaced by a multitude of criminal gangs, funded mainly by drug money.

In the police station that serves Fernando's neighbourhood, there is a

map of the area with the word homicide scribbled around it. From

last year, murders have gone up. The city's police commander was briefing

journalists. This was just a day after police were shot at when

trying to enter an area close to Fernando's home. The commander told

me about the gangs and his fears for the future.

Before we left Cali, Fernando wanted to visit one recent victim of gang

violence. Alejandro was shot by mistake. A friend of his was the

target. Now he cannot move his legs, and is fighting to be able to walk

again. The country needs to help the peace

process moves forward, but there are still big challenges ahead.

One of the biggest challenges the peace process faces is the continued

production of cocaine. I visited this remote jungle area, one of the

main cocaine production areas in the country. The bushes are grown in

plain sight. The wealth of the Coke trade has made this land a disputed

one for armed groups. The right-wing paramilitaries and drug gangs have

fought for its control for decades. The river behind me divides

Venezuela from Colombia. Here, on the Colombian side, if this village,

which is at the forefront of this decade old conflict. So how do

people here, with their experience of war, feel about the peace

process? Simone work as a nurse and has had front-line experience of the

horrors of war. There has been a unilateral

ceasefire declared by the Farc for more than eight months now. But the

rebels have not handed over their weapons and the demilitarisation

process has yet to begin in earnest and there is a danger that Farc

fighters will join other insurgent groups or criminal gangs and

continue a life of violence. The authorities have not been able to

stop the cocaine and coke industry. Despite the large resources and

manpower invested on the war on drugs and the record seizures of

cocaine in 2015, production is still increasing.

APPLAUSE. Back in the capital, Fernando is a judge in Columbia's

version of stripper condenser, not the most popular TV shows in the

country. One of the contestants, whose performance he had to judge,

was a woman who was in the Farc for two years. She shared the stage with

a victim of the rebel group, a former policeman, who was hostage of

the Farc for nine years. Anna says the show allowed them to know each

other better and even become friends.

The couple represent the people who want to change the world, change the

country. They represent the hope for the future of Colombia.

But not everyone shares this feeling. Back in the suburbs, this

woman has been through so much and she cannot think about

reconciliation. She wants those who want her and her family's lives to

be punished and not reintegrated into society.

Even having been through terrible experiences, Erminda managed to

start rebuilding her life. She showed me the clothes she makes in

her workshop, where she also employs other displaced women to help her.

She even has a contract to supply a branch of the United Nations. But as

they left her... I could not help inking that the depth of the

bitterness towards the enemy is shared by hundreds and thousands of

others. -- help thinking. It was time for Fernando and I

commit the country's president. -- to meet. He has been single-minded

in his ambition to bring the opposing sides together. Hello, Mr

president. Begin the process of healing. Making peace is much more

difficult than making war. Making peace you have to change the

sentiments of the people, how they view their own lives, their future

and since we have been a country accustomed to war, any change

creates uncertainty. When you hear that people are worried, it's

because they don't know what peace is going to bring them. And that's

my challenge and the challenge of everybody who wants to end this

war, to be able to convey to the population that peace, by far, is

much better than war. This is the oldest armed conflict and the only

one in the whole of the Western Hemisphere, I think we finished this

-- finished this armed conflict nobody will be prone to take arms to

try to achieve political objectives. I think this is the last conflict of

the Cold War. Although President Santos is determined to make peace,

his popularity is low in part because of the country's troubled

economy and also because people are sceptical of the whole peace deal.

It is clear there is a huge challenge facing this country as it

starts slowly to move towards a peace deal. How will the growth of

the criminal gangs stopped when drug-trafficking is still so

profitable? How will the guerillas the reintegrated into society and

how will we, the people be convinced to support its government in its

peace efforts? -- how will the people. Back in a growth rate,

preparations were under way for the first public performance of a

section of Fernando's Ballet. The venue is his old ballet school and

the place is packed with an excited local audience. In human history, I

remember in Europe in the war there were artists who were trying to keep

the spirit of the people alive during performances, probably that

they put together a few hours before a bomb or something like this, and I

think that's probably like my mission, or what I am trying to

encourage people to do, because I know we cannot take those problems

that the people have been living, losing families and kidnapping and

all those things, we can't change it, but what we could do is just to

those people who are still alive, and are still here, to give at least

some moments of happiness. We can't stay always in this frustration of

being sad or what has happened because you have to move forward.

Perhaps more than anything the key to a peaceful transition is winning

over the people of Colombia from all sides. If the various factions can

be successfully brought together, after more than 50 years of being

torn apart, then Fernando will be down Singh for peace and Colombia

and look forward to an exciting future. -- will be dancing for.