REBEL NURSES WANT TO DON WHITE COATS
Armed with battlefield experience, they are aiming for scholarships to study medicine
COLINAS (Colombia)
AS a battlefield nurse for Colombia’s FARC rebels, Johana Japon helped stitch up wounded fighters as bullets whizzed past her.
And now that the rebel army is demobilising under a historic accord signed last year to end more than 50 years of war, Japon wants to study medicine, don the white garb of a bona fide nurse and tend to everyday patients.
Japon is among 500 rebel fighters assembled here, a town south of the country, one of 26 designated spots for members of the rebel movement to gather, surrender their weapons and start rejoining civilian life.
She is also among FARC members rushing to do the paperwork needed to apply for 500 scholarships Cuba is offering for exrebels to study medicine.
Mery Quintero, who spent 20 of her 47 years in the ranks of the FARC, said people like them had found a new purpose in life.
“We worked as nurses, and that gives us the possibility to help people,” said Quintero.
But like other applicants, Quintero said she might have a hard People participating in the ‘Solstice in Times Square: Mind Over Madness Yoga’ in Times Square to mark the summer solstice in New York on Wednesday. Around 12,000 yogis took part in six one-hour yoga classes beginning at 7.30am to celebrate the official start of summer and the longest day of the year. The event is now in its 15th year. time getting one of the scholarships because she only got as far as grade school in her education.
Mauricio Jaramillo, a FARC commander who schooled Japon in medicine, said the scholarships were a golden opportunity for rebels who served as doctors or nurses during the war.
Jaramillo — a nom de guerre, as his real name is Dr Jaime Parra — is known as “The Doctor” because he actually is one.
He is also one of the architects of the FARC medical care network, which at its war-time peak in 2000, boasted a 300-bed hospital in southern Colombia.
Japon, 35, recalled treating fighters with horrific wounds, like one who was shot in the gut and hip, which she said was practically blown away.
“Shards of bone kept piercing his small intestine. He was operated on three times. He ended up with his intestine sticking out of his body, and we had to douse it with water to keep it moist.”
Then the army came, the rebels had to flee and two days later that soldier died, she said.
The nurses had other memories haunting them, too — performing abortions on female rebels so they could keep fighting.
“Even though for everyone in Colombia we were the worst of the worst, with all that we did, we are leaving a mark that is different from what people imagined,” said Quintero. AFP