My name is José Alfredo Mejía and I’m 33 years old. I was born in Aruba, but my whole family is from La Guajira. Twelve years ago, I joined the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) Their political discourse captivated me and motivated me to fight against the atrocities committed by the guerrillas in this country.
I demobilized on March 8th 2006, in Chimila, Cesar, under commander Jorge 40.
The first reason we had for demobilizing was Álvaro Uribe Velez’s government. He established the Democratic Security Policy which we agreed with. The second reason was that we had realized nothing was going to be solved through violence.
*Excerpts from the book
“Voices, Stories of Violence and hope in Colombia” 2009
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