BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — In the 1980s, peace talks to end Colombia’s long civil war instead triggered bloodshed. As the door opened for greater leftist power, thousands of former guerrillas, communist militants and trade unionists were gunned down by paramilitary death squads, sometimes in collaboration with state security forces, derailing the peace process and entrenching arguments for armed struggle.

Today, the government is pursuing peace again, and is promising leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia that it will protect them and their fighters once they’ve laid down their weapons.