Hi °C | Lo °C Back out of Colombia and into Belfast - the loyalists are back with a message that more help is needed.
The loyalists are David Ervine and Tom Roberts - both ex-prisoners, both able to talk about war and peace, talk about it in the context of our process - the killing, the ceasefires and now the business of the politics beyond conflict.
That's what the Colombians and specifically the ELN or National Liberation Army wanted to talk about in a dialogue in Medellin that Mr Ervine describes as "absolutely intense".
The priest, Father Alec Reid - witness to the IRA's decommissioning, and such an important figure in the making of the ceasefire of 1994 - was also there.
So, clearly there are those in Colombia who want to hear the voices of those who were and are part of a process that has worked.
Francisco Galan, out of jail - but technically not yet released - was part of those recent talks in Medellin as was Juan Carlos Cuellas, freed for one day to take part in the dialogue but then escorted back to prison.
Mr Ervine said he would not "define their ranks", but added: " We certainly met high level people in the ELN".
"Sometimes we don't realise the amount of knowledge we have accumulated over many years," Mr Roberts said.
"Only the Colombians can judge if we can be helpful."
They need help and clearly they are looking to this process.
"The magnitude of their problems puts ours into perspective," Mr Roberts said.
In a recent period spanning only a few months the ELN and another rebel group, the FARC, fought and killed each other in battles on the Colombia-Venezuela border.
It was a fight to control territory where there is oil.
Around 400 were killed, and that is only part of the story.
In the wider Colombian situation, Mr Ervine said they were told of "40 violent actions a day resulting in death or multiple deaths".
"The massive effect of the conflict is just everywhere," he says.
It is a country that has three million displaced people - about twice the Northern Ireland population, yet they are looking to here for advice, for information, for something that might give them a starting point, give them the confidence to begin a real peace process of their own.
According to Mr Ervine, the ELN now wants to talk to republicans. "They want to be in touch with the IRA and those who assisted the IRA's process," the leader of the Progressive Unionist Party said.
The last time the IRA was in Colombia it was secret and there were all sorts of suggestions about its activities.
Next time, if there is a next time, it will be different. My understanding is that the one peace process they (the ELN) are interested in is the Northern Ireland process," Mr Ervine said.
"And they need, I believe, to talk to all sides - loyalists, IRA, British, Irish, militant people, non-militant people, government people.
"If invitations come to people in Northern Ireland they should genuinely think about how we help others along the way."
In Colombia, the two loyalists were asked all the things they expected to be asked.
How do you structure a process? What "methodology" do you use for negotiations?
How do you manage expectations?
They talked about "victimhood" and "healing".
"People in Northern Ireland just don't realise how the world's conflict areas look to here; how high on the agenda in conflict regions around the world Northern Ireland is," Mr Ervine told the Belfast Telegraph,
This place is that high on the agenda because somehow it found its way out of a 30-year war - and not just one side but all sides.
That is why the ELN wants to broaden its dialogue with those who have been a part of this process.
It is why there will be more visits to Colombia.
"You find it a very humbling experience," Mr Roberts said.
And maybe it is in these far away places that people from here really begin to fully realise what we have achieved in our own peace process - that thing that we don't yet properly appreciate - certainly not like others looking in do.
Yes, it took a long time.
And, yes, the journey through ceasefires and broken ceasefires, decommissioning and non-decommissioning, politics and no politics has been long and sapping - far too long and far too slow.
Yet we are closer to an end than many others are to a beginning.
And that's what makes us different and wanted - wanted in those faraway places like Colombia, where the loyalists and Father Reid have just been.
It seems likely that others will follow them there - others from here to tell their stories, to give their advice, to maybe help organisations such as the ELN make some beginning towards a better end.
Do we really know what it is we have to offer, or do we still need others to tell us, to remind us, to convince us that having changed this place we can help do the same elsewhere?
