Operation Bethlehem’s key objective was to give the FARC guerrillas a guiding light that would lead their way to freedom and to their families at Christmas.

The strategy consisted in giving guerrillas a message that could only be read at night. The best time to escape in of the jungle was at this hour, but given the vastness of the jungle, guerrillas would become lost in their demobilization attempt. The message we would communicate to the guerrillas would say "FOLLOW THE LIGHT".

The campaign mixed:

Powerful beacon lights in town plazas. They illuminated the sky, giving the demobilizing guerrillas a direction to go to when they escaped from their camps at night.

10,000 LED lights were dropped from helicopters, along key guerrilla routes in the jungle, designed to guide them during their escape attempts.

We also created glow in the dark stickers, that were put on trees along strategic pathways. Furthermore, we installed glow-in-the-dark billboards carrying the message: "Guerrilla, Follow the Light.”

Radio broadcasts invited the families to tell their guerrilla relatives to demobilize by following the lights in Christmas time.

178 guerrillas demobilised throughout Christmas 2012.

The total amount of demobilised guerrillas corresponded to 16% of the year's demobilisations. It represents the largest proportion of demobilised guerrillas in December for the past 6 years.

Underage (child soldier) demobilisations increased by 11%.