By Guillermo Galdos Video producer in Colombia

Eliana Gonzales Acosta joined the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) in the Uraba region 32 years ago.

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She was left orphaned after her mother died after a long illness and her father was killed in a political dispute.

"I am a daughter of the violence that has isolated this country for the last 40 years," she says.

Eliana is the oldest women in Farc and may be the oldest female guerrilla in the world. She has seen more than half a dozen presidents come and go.

The scar on her left leg is a reminder of what war is like in Colombia.

Female presence

She says that Farc has changed in the last 30 years: "We are a bigger army than we were before, but our objective is the same, to govern for the people and to install a Colombian-style socialist model."

Farc is estimated to have 18,000 fighters and was founded 40 years ago by 46 peasants and two women.

"Nowadays 45% of Farc are women, the female role has become increasingly more important for the our organisation."

An 11-year-old boy was killed just because he was the son of a guerrilla woman Eliana Gonzales Acosta

Eliana was 18 when she joined Farc, leaving behind two sisters, a husband and daughter. Years later her husband was killed and her daughter joined the Farc.

Eliana talks to me about her daughter. She says: "She has done well, she has learned a lot. Here you learn who you are. You feel fulfilled because in the civil life you are just one more on the misery belt around the cities."

Total commitment

In the 1980s Eliana married again, but the stigma of death continued to haunt her.

"Four years ago one of my sons was killed," she says. "An 11-year-old boy was killed just because he was the son of a guerrilla woman. He was killed by the paramilitaries in Barrancabermeja."

Eliana has lived most of her life at war, Farc has become her family and the jungle her home.

Although she would like to have a normal life around her son and sisters, her hopes for Colombia's war look bleak.

"The war will not end until the reasons for which we are fighting disappear, while you have the exploitation of man by man. While you have American aggression in our country, the fight is not going to end."

One Day of War was broadcast in the UK on Thursday, 27 May, 2004 at 2100 BST on BBC Two.