Woman, Mother, and Conflict: the Case of “Sargent Matacho” (1933-1964)

Abstract

The interest in tracking the image of the guerrilla mother, Rosalba Velásquez, popularly known as Sergeant Matacho, triggers during the fieldwork of the “Childhood Memories of Former Guerrilla Children” project, supported by the Orlando Fals Borda 2018 sponsorship. There, we witnessed a meaningful reunion between members of the Velásquez family, native of Lebanon (Tolima), who after 49 years without seeing each other, enabled a runion and the emergence of a series of memories and narratives about the lost mother, Rosalba Velásquez, Sergeant Matacho. This paper inquiries about the image of the mother guerrilla, but also about the unknown mother, the woman, the affectionate caregiver, mainly seen by the third of Rosalba’s children, William Velásquez during his return along with other relatives, to Líbano (Tolima), in September 2018. The text also seeks to capture a unique event: The reunion of the son born of war, with the memories of his lost mother, who one day entered the Colombian mountains, to never return.