Conservative presidential candidate Marta Lucia Ramirez said she is planning to renegotiate peace talks with rebel group FARC in the event she is elected the country’s first-ever female president in May.
“I cannot accept such dialogues with such brutality,” Ramirez told Colombia Reports in an interview.
According to the presidential hopeful of the Conservative Party (Partido Conservador – PC), the ongoing talks in Cuba must be renegotiated as they “have not produced one concrete result” since dialogues between the administration of President Juan Manuel Santos and delegates of the country’s largest rebel group.
Ramirez told this website that the talks can not continue “while they continue to recruit children, plant bombs, and lay mines that affect our civil population.”
“I want dialogues that advance, that end terrorism,” said the candidate.
“No impunity for FARC”
Ramirez spelled out her conditions for a new or reformed series of peace talks with the FARC, which include time limits, demobilization, an immediate end to child recruitment, and no impunity for demobilized FARC leaders accused and sentenced for war crimes.
Ramirez concluded the subject insisting, “I do not accept dialogues that simultaneously make terrorism.”
Hard on Santos
The peace talks provided a natural segue into a discussion about what distinguishes Ramirez from Oscar Ivan Zuluaga, the Democratic Center candidate endorsed by former President Alvaro Uribe, and from Santos, who is promoting the continuation of the negotiations with the rebels.
Uribe’s party went from zero to 19 seats in the Senate in March’s Congressional elections while Ramirez remains far behind on Zuluaga in the polls.
To make Ramirez’ bid even more complicated, the conservative leadership decided to stay in Santos’ governing coalition and — unlike its candidate — has consistently supported Santos’ talks with the FARC.
The stand-off between Santos and Uribe, and her own party’s refusal to remove itself from the government coalition’s shadow has left
Ramirez concluded her diatribe against Santos saying that “if the farmer is dying in misery, there is going to be drug trafficking again, paramilitarism again, and the guerrillas will take hold of Colombian territory. The president has allowed the flourishing of corruption and this goes against peace as well, because the money that the corrupt steal, takes away the health and security of Colombians.”
…and soft on Zuluaga
When considering Zuluaga as a presidential candidate however, Ramirez’ tone was considerably less severe.
“Oscar Ivan Zuluaga is a very competent man. He has many capabilities, but he is still not working on a project for an institution, but rather a very personalized project,” she said, referring to Zuluaga running on a platform centered around the person of Uribe.
Ramirez added that while she believes “very much in the leadership of ex-president Uribe,” any political platform that is “dependent” on the now senator-elect “can have risks in the future.”
“My project is supporting a political institution: that of the Conservative Party. It has a base and an organization that has similarities with those of Oscar Ivan, because we are committed to security,” concluded the Conservative Party candidate.
Getting the word out
Facing consistently poor polling numbers across pollsters, Ramirez rounded out her interview with Colombia Reports saying that her campaign’s priority now is to get the word out to Colombians.
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“[Our biggest challenge] right now is to deliver our message to Colombians: our message of integrity, security, and liberty for each and every Colombian,” said Ramirez.
Ramirez wants to stimulate Colombia’s ailing manufacturing sector that has seen dropping output amid growing competition from other developing countries. Additionally, the conservative presidential hopeful wants to continue promoting the development of technology.
What Colombia needs, said Ramirez, is “
Ramirez served as a senator from 2006-2009, as former President Alvaro Uribe’s Defense Minister –the first woman to ever hold that position in Colombia and second woman to hold such a position in Latin America–from 2002-2003, and as the Minister of Foreign Trade from 1998-2002. Throughout her career, Ramirez also held a number of private sector positions as a successful lawyer, a bank director, and the CEO and founder of two self-named consulting companies.
Sources
- Interview with Marta Lucia Ramirez