Sitting at one end of the conference panel was a former veteran guerrilla commander flanked by armed prison guards. At the other end of the panel sat a woman whose husband had been murdered by the guerrillas. In the middle of the two, was a government official acting as chair of the International Conference on Reconciliation, the first forum of its kind held in Colombia last week.

These scenes, where victims of Colombia's armed conflict share the same stage as their aggressors in public, would be hard to imagine just a couple of years ago.

But in recent years, rising numbers of fighters from both sides of Colombia's armed conflict, which pits government troops and right-wing paramilitaries against leftist guerrillas, have laid down their arms.

A series of defeats by government forces in the past two years have prompted record numbers of fighters from the country's largest guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), to desert. Also, a controversial peace deal between the government and paramilitaries has seen 31,000 fighters demobilize in the past seven years.

The demobilisation of fighters has encouraged families of victims from both sides of the country's conflict to come forward and denounce war crimes. Colombia is slowly coming to terms with its macabre past while much soul-searching goes on.

Colombia's National Commission for Reconciliation and Reparation (CNRR) helps victims receive compensation. So far, over 250,000 civilians have filed compensation claims.

At the conference organised by the CNRR, the panel offered their views about how Colombia can break its 45-year cycle of violence and heal its war scars. Here's what they had to say.

Fabiola Perdomo, a leading spokeswoman for families whose relatives have been killed by the FARC, talked about forgiveness. Her husband, congressman Juan Carlos Narvaez, was held captive by the rebels for five years. He was then murdered by the rebels along with 10 other lawmakers two years ago.

"In this country there's no memory. While the victims cry, society revels. In the morning we bury the dead, and in the evening we celebrate winning a football match," she said.

"It's taken me two years to get to the stage where I can start to forgive. There're two stages in the grieving process. The first stage is self-pity and the need to seek vengeance to get over the pain. The next stage is about claiming our rights and making our pain visible to others, so that people don't forget.

"I don't want my daughter to remember me growing old driven by revenge. Instead, I want her to remember me for participating in Colombia's reconciliation process. We want justice, the truth and compensation."

Carmen Palencia, mother of three and a well-known human rights defender and spokeswoman for victims of paramilitary violence, spoke about the need for the government to do more to ensure victims receive compensation. Her husband was murdered by the paramilitaries over 20 years ago.

"Forgiveness should not be about hugs and kisses and photos in the local newspaper but be based around compensation. It requires a big heart to forgive," she said.

"After years, the truth has still not come to light. It's not enough to say that 125,000 people have been killed by armed groups but we need to ask who financed and backed them, that's finding the real truth. Around 7,000 hectares of land have been handed back to 800 families. But that's a drop in the ocean. Five million hectares of land were taken by paramilitary groups by force.

"We have the right to demand that what was taken away from us be returned. And we must show unbreakable persistence and insist that justice will be done.

"We must break the cycle that dictates 'I've been a victim and therefore I'll be an aggressor'."

Francisco Galan, a former guerrilla commander of Colombia's second largest guerrilla group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), urged fighters to lay down their arms. He has been a chief negotiator in ongoing peace talks between the Colombian government and the ELN.

"Never has there been a time in Colombia where there are so many people involved in and talking about reconciliation.

"In prison, I understood that the armed struggle was not the future. The first thing those who have been in the war must do is to renounce totally a life that means holdings arms. We have to say to other groups still fighting that the war has not produced what they wanted, namely social justice and land and wealth distribution.

"The best way of asking for forgiveness from victims is to work tirelessly for peace and reconciliation."

Olivo Saldana joined the FARC as a teenager and fought in rebel ranks for over 20 years. He was captured by government troops and is now serving a long prison sentence. He is one of a dozen of so-called "peace promoters", former guerrilla members chosen by the government to encourage other rebels to lay down their arms and help towards reconciliation.

"I'm paying for my mistakes. There're around 400 other FARC guerrillas in the prison, who have committed the worst crimes imaginable, like extortion, kidnapping, massacres. We're conscious of the damage we've caused in guerrilla-controlled lands. We regret the acts we have committed, and a thousand times, we ask for forgiveness.

"There're thousands of guerrillas, like me, who never again want to take up arms. The only thing we have is to tell the truth. The truth is painful. But we want to tell the country the whole truth about what happened," he said.

"We joined the FARC as boys. We were tricked. We thought we were contributing to social transformation. Children in Colombia are still being brainwashed and sent to war. Fifty percent of those fighting in the FARC are child soldiers.

"Colombia is full of people buried in unknown graves and we're working with the government to locate those graves. But it's important to help demobilised fighters - what future do they have if the only thing they know is how to hold a gun?"

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