Pope Francis prays for Colombia conflict victims

Villavicencio: Wounded and bereaved victims, former fighters and displaced indigenous people on Friday flocked to hear Pope Francis pray for reconciliation in Colombia as it emerges from decades of conflict.

On the third day of his trip to the country, Francis held a mass ahead of a separate "prayer for national reconciliation" for victims and former guerrilla and state combatants.

Among the congregation was Elizabeth Cometa, 57, whose son was forcibly recruited as a child by right-wing paramilitaries.

"An event like this leaves its mark in our hearts and lives," she said. "We hope that this first step towards reconciliation will help us survive."

Francis backed the contested peace process that has led to Colombia's biggest rebel group, the FARC, disarming and turning into a political party.

Colombian Vatican specialist Camilo Chaparro told AFP Francis had fixed a peace deal with the FARC as his "only condition" for visiting the country.

During the mass, Francis reiterated calls for the country to heal.

"Every effort at peace without a sincere commitment to reconciliation is destined to fail," he said.

"When victims overcome the understandable temptation to vengeance, they become the most credible protagonists for the process of building peace."

The government pushed the FARC accord through congress despite resistance from critics who said the rebels were getting off too lightly.

It has also agreed a ceasefire with the last active guerrilla group, the ELN.

Those are key steps towards ending a many-sided conflict which drew in rebels, right-wing paramilitaries and drug gangs as well as state forces.

FARC leader Rodrigo Londono, alias Timochenko, in an open letter yesterday asked for Francis for his "forgiveness for any grief or pain we have caused to the people of Colombia."

At the mass, Jesus Mario Corrales, 52, told AFP he was dislodged from his land by the FARC in the late 1990s and later also abused by paramilitaries.

"I have taken the first step by agreeing to be here beside one of my tormentors," he said.

The conflict has left 2,60,000 people confirmed dead, 60,000 unaccounted for and seven million displaced.

"Besides forgiveness, I want them to return the bones... so we can pray for our relatives," he said.

"For reconciliation and forgiveness there has to be truth, however hard that might be."

Villavicencio is the capital of the Meta department, the gateway to the remote eastern plains particularly hard hit by the war.

Among those present at today's mass was Alcides Mejia, a tribal guard from the Zenu indigenous community in a northeastern district fiercely fought over by different sides in the war.

For him, the struggle for indigenous rights dates back far longer than the war, all the way to the Spanish conquest.

He said he came to see the pope in Villavicencio to make a "demand" for their rights.

"The indigenous people will never kneel before the pope," he told AFP, with his ceremonial rod in his hand.

"We are fighting for our territory. There are many indigenous people who have been displaced over the past 500 years and today they are discriminated against by the Colombian people."

During today's mass, Francis beatified two Catholic priests killed during the conflict.

By doing so, he put Colombian priest Pedro Maria Ramirez and Bishop Jesus Jaramillo on the road to sainthood as martyrs.

He was also due to bless a mutilated Christ effigy that was all but destroyed by a deadly FARC bombing in the western town of Bojaya in 2002.