Imagine being in Havana, Cuba, in perhaps the only room in the entire Caribbean city devoid of charm, with long beige curtains and particle-board tables set into a fixed rectangle. Seated at these tables, facing each other, are two delegations of eighteen people—nine in each delegation. They all have poker faces, changing their expressions only to issue an icy “Good morning”. Occasionally, someone rises and starts pacing, the steps measuring the tension like beats on a metronome. It is November 19, 2012, the beginning of the first day of the torturous negotiations between bitter enemies: the Colombian government of President Juan Manuel Santos and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
The half-century war brought unspeakable violence; more than 50,000 kidnappings, hundreds of thousands of deaths, and the displacement of a staggering eight million people. This negotiation is the fourth attempt to reach peace between the democratic government and the Marxist guerrillas