Colombia’s 50-year war is now a video game

Colombians will soon be able to sit around a virtual negotiating table as Marxist FARC rebels or the government to thrash out an end to 50 years of war in a video game mirroring complex real-life talks to restore peace to the country. “Adios a las Armas,” or “Farewell to Arms,” aims to raise awareness about a peace deal being negotiated in Cuba that voters will back or reject in a referendum. The game will be launched early next year and may be adapted for online play on social networks and mobile phones, as well as being sent to schools and peace-promoting institutions in a country striving to end the long conflict.

People think resolving the war is simpler than it is in reality … [but] negotiations take place in a complex context …

Javier Corredor, the game’s inventor and psychology professor at Universidad Nacional

The real talks in Havana have achieved partial deals on FARC involvement in politics, land reform and drug trafficking. Victim compensation and reintegration of rebel fighters into society are the outstanding issues on the agenda. Ending the conflict has eluded a dozen successive governments since the FARC formed in 1964 out of a peasant movement seeking land reform. Two previous attempts at peace talks broke down acrimoniously, the last in 2002. Colombians re-elected President Juan Manuel Santos in June to a second four-year term on his promises to ink a historic deal at the talks, which he launched in late 2012.

If I am killed by a victim, I think, well, if that’s how I have to pay for what I’ve done, I’ll pay. What I’m really afraid of is that people I have informed on will come after me.

Carlos Mario Ospina

Technology