Duque appoints Vice-President Marta Lucía Ramírez as Colombia’s foreign minister

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Colombia’s vice president, Marta Lucía Ramírez, was appointed this Wednesday foreign minister to replace Claudia Blum, who resigned last week in the midst of the crisis caused by social protests.

“I want to appoint our vice president, Dr. Marta Lucía Ramírez de Rincón, as the new foreign minister of the republic. Dr. Marta Lucía is a woman with a great trajectory in politics and the private sector”, said President Iván Duque in a statement.

The president assured that Ramírez will have as main tasks to strengthen bilateral relations and represent the country in “multilateral spaces where we want to reaffirm not only the democratic spirit of our country but also the conviction of being a country always respectful of human rights”.

“I have asked the new foreign minister also to take on the challenge of moving forward the entire migration policy of our country, to strengthen ties in security and defense, but also to open new borders for our country,” said Duque.

IMPORTANT MOMENT FOR COLOMBIA

Social unrest in Colombia has continued uninterruptedly in the streets for three weeks, dragging an extensive list of demands that include claims such as the cessation of police violence, which according to the NGO Temblores is responsible for 43 homicides during the demonstrations, and greater opportunities for young people.

The Foreign Ministry has had to deal with multiple criticisms and calls for attention in recent weeks from international bodies, the UN, and foreign countries over the images of police brutality during the protests that have leaped onto screens worldwide.

There have been several international criticisms for excessive use of force by the Police and the Mobile Anti-Riot Squad (Esmad) in the protests, especially in Cali, the epicenter of the protests and the third-largest city in the country.

In that sense, Ramirez affirmed that this “is a significant moment for Colombia in its international agenda”.

“It is an agenda that at the end of the day has to serve to develop domestic policy, the national development plan, to connect us much more with the world,” he said.

She recalled that she would not be the first vice-president to combine her position with a ministry since Gustavo Bell held that post and that of the head of the Defense Portfolio between 2001 and 2002 Andrés Pastrana.

“In this opportunity, it corresponds to me to maintain this position of the Vice-Presidency, but assuming now this foreign policy that the president leads”, said Ramírez.

LONG POLITICAL CAREER

Ramírez, who has been part of Duque’s government since it began on August 7, 2018, entered public life in 1990 to head the Colombian Institute of Foreign Trade (Incomex), which later became the Ministry of Foreign Trade.

In the new portfolio, she was appointed deputy minister a year later, being president of the liberal César Gaviria, and in 1998 she ended up assuming the direction of the Ministry during the Pastrana Government (1998-2002).

Her work in the government led her to become Colombia’s ambassador to France until she was called in 2002 by then-President Álvaro Uribe to take the leap to the Ministry of Defense, a portfolio she held for a year.

She was also a senator between 2006 and 2009 and a presidential candidate in the 2014 elections, in which she came third behind Juan Manuel Santos and Óscar Iván Zuluaga.