Guns to Guitars

[Guest guest]

By Patrick Markey

Thu Sep 14, 9:18 AM ET

 

 

 

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - Polished rosewood and an artist's deft

touch are all Colombian craftsman Luis Alberto Paredes needs to turn

tools of death into symbols of hope.

 

One of Colombia's top musical instrument makers, Paredes has branched

out from traditional methods to fashion electric guitars from

shotguns and AK47 rifles once used by fighters caught up in the

country's lingering guerilla conflict.

 

" This used to hit a target at 800 meters (yards), " Paredes said

holding up one of the guitars which still has a Kalashnikov rifle's

distinctive, banana-shaped magazine. " Now the target will just depend

on the concert stage. "

 

In a workshop above his modest family home in Bogota, Paredes has

created the " escopetarras " -- shotgun guitars in Spanish -- since he

was approached by local musician Cesar Lopez with the idea about

three years ago.

 

Colombian rock star Juanes has been given one. So was Argentine

singer Fito Paez and Paredes is crafting another for Carlos Vives,

the local pop star who has revived the popularity of the Colombian

Caribbean rhythm Vallenato.

 

Violence, crime and kidnapping linked to Colombia's lingering

insurgency has declined under President Alvaro Uribe who was re-

elected in May after voters applauded his U.S.-backed security

crackdown against left-wing guerrillas.

 

Thousands are still killed or forced from their homes yearly by

conflict with the rebels who control parts of rural Colombia, the

world's top producer of cocaine.

 

Lopez says the idea came to him after the 2003 rebel car bombing of a

Bogota social club that killed 36 people. Facing a soldier with a

rifle outside the wrecked club, the musician noted the similarities

between the weapon and his own guitar.

 

CONVERTING " BAD ENERGY "

 

A self-taught artisan who made his first guitar in 1959 while still

in school, Paredes now works with three of his four children in a

family business cluttered with tools and sawdust from partially made

guitars, four-string cuatros and violins.

 

His instruments are sought by musicians worldwide.

 

As part of a United Nations program to promote peace, Paredes

receives the decommissioned rifles with the working parts wielded

together for safety.

 

After stripping the soldering and gutting the trigger mechanism, he

crafts a polished wooden handle over the barrel and his son installs

microphones in the stock. The process takes a week to ten days.

 

" At first it was a challenge, " he said. " It's a paradox to take

something that kills and transform it into something to please

people. "

 

Under a peace plan initiated by Uribe, more than 30,000 illegal

paramilitary fighters have handed over their weapons and demobilized.

But the Marxist rebel group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of

Colombia or FARC still has 17,000 fighters.

 

Authorities say hundreds of demobbed militia combatants have returned

to criminal gangs dedicated to cocaine trafficking and extortion.

 

Musician Lopez, who plans a concert for peace with the shotgun

guitars in November, says seven of the instruments have been donated

so far. One is at the Bogota mayor's office and two more in U.N

offices. Several more are in the works.

 

" Weapons have a bad energy... and when we take one apart it starts to

change, when we put on the handle and installations, it changes its

energy, " Paredes said. " It is not what it was and that makes you

happy. "