Talking About Colombia

Presidential Candidate Marta Lucia Ramirez said peace talks with the FARC cannot continue “while they continue to recruit children, plant bombs, and lay mines that affect our civil population.”

Ramirez is the sole presidential candidate for the Conservative Party.

“We cannot accept negotiations with the [ongoing] recruitment of 12-year-old children,” she told Colombia Reports.

Around 1,387 minors were in the ranks of armed drug groups between 2012 and 2013.

It takes a woman, it seems, to stick up for the rights of children.

Ramirez said one of her conditions for a new or reformed series of peace talks with the FARC is an immediate end to child recruitment.

YES! I believe any FARC-government negotiations must include immediately returning child soldiers to their families.

“President Santos has spoken much about peace, but he has not mentioned what is necessary for peace. He has spoken of peace, but he has abandoned justice and there cannot be peace without justice. He has spoken of peace, but he has abandoned rural Colombia and there cannot be peace if the rural Colombian is dying in misery,” Ramirez told Colombia Reports.

YES! YES! I believe undermining victims’ rights in any peace process will lead to further violence.

Child soldiers are being identified from mass graves.

Four of every ten in the FARC, ELN or Paramilitary are minors.

Ramirez was a minister of international commerce under President Pastrana, and a minister of defense under President Uribe. She studied law at the Javeriana University.

Related:

Colombian Prosecutor says FARC will be charged for child recruitment.