This year, 2014, is one of hope in Colombia. The national team has made it to the football World Cup, and peace talks have begun again with the main guerrilla rebels, both for the first time in about 15 years. While the former is a source of joy in this soccer-mad country, the second is a truly historic opportunity to end an armed conflict that, over the decades, has seen thousands of civilians slaughtered and millions more displaced, and has made any kind of normal politics impossible in a country desperately trying to edge its way into the modern world.
Despite having been defence minister under the hardline former president Alvaro Uribe, the current president, Juan Manuel Santos, has struck a different course, and his representatives are meeting rebel leaders in Cuba.
