American Enterprise Institute

The future of US-Colombia relations: A conversation with Colombian Vice President Marta Lucía Ramírez

Introduction: Roger F. Noriega, AEI

Opening remarks: Marta Lucía Ramírez, Republic of Colombia

Discussion: Marta Lucía Ramírez, Republic of Colombia Roger F. Noriega, AEI

1:30–2:30 p.m. Monday, May 6, 2019

Event Page: http://www.aei.org/events/the-future-of-us-colombia-relations-a- conversation-with-colombian-vice-president-marta-lucia-ramirez/

Roger F. Noriega: Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you very much for coming to AEI. We welcome you here for this important session with the vice president of Colombia, Marta Lucía Ramírez. She has been Colombia’s vice president since August of last year, after a 30- year career in public service. Among other posts, she served as minister of defense, minister of foreign trade, and as a senator. She has served also as CEO of a number of companies and business associations in Colombia. Vice President Ramírez is a lawyer, educated in the prestigious Xavierian University in her native Bogotá. Her friends and colleagues know her to be a person of strong principles, who is both creative and fiercely independent. She has emerged as one of Latin America’s leading conservative voices, who is also a trailblazer for the empowerment of women. AEI is honored to welcome Vice President Ramírez as part of our expanded study of eco- nomic and security challenges in the Americas. Our distinguished guest will speak for about 15 minutes, making those opening comments, after which we’ll have a discussion and we’ll throw it open to your questions. We welcome [foreign language]. We welcome the vice pres- ident of Colombia, Marta Lucía Ramírez. Marta Lucía Ramírez: Well, I would like to thank very much Ambassador Roger Noriega for inviting me. I am also very glad to be here with our ambassador, Francisco Santos, the Colombian ambassador in the United States. And it’s a pleasure for me to see a lot of friends, a lot of old friends, here in the United States. So I just want to mention very short because I know, which is important in this audience, is to take your questions and also to take your comments. But I would like to tell you that we believe — we in Colombia, excuse me — we really believe that we have the most wonderful country, not only in the region but maybe in the entire world. Because this is a country of di- versity; it’s a country of richness; it’s a country of natural resources; it’s a country with beau- tiful people, smart, talented, committed people. But we have suffered a lot. And we have suffered a lot, first of all, because, as you know, we have, for more than 50 years, almost 60 years, we have had this Colombian guerilla, FARC guerillas, ELN guerillas. Those groups, they were involved in narco trafficking since almost 14 years ago. So they started the organizations with this idea to provide better conditions for poor people. But it was a leftist, communist guerilla. And then after 10 or 15 years, they were involved in narco trafficking for almost 40, 35 years. And that’s why for Colombia it was so difficult to defeat those groups. And for us, it’s clear that during the last 20 years, Colombia has improved a lot. Because af- ter different [inaudible] to have a peace agreement in Colombia, and it was a very important [inaudible] that President Pastrana did in year — in ’98, ’99. After all these [inaudible], it was clear that the only one way to defeat guerrillas and narco trafficking Colombia is through the state institutions, is through the rule of law, is through a stronger economy. And that’s why during [inaudible] administration, we were very committed with this recov- ery of the rule of law, with stronger institutions in that moment. Ambassador Francisco San- tos, he was the vice president of Colombia in that moment. I was defense minister. And we were very committed with this change in the attitude toward guerilla.

But of course it’s not easy, only through the military action, we were in that moment very clear that we need to strengthen not only the military but also the state presence in all the Co- lombian territory. And that’s why we started this policy toward the implementation of so many reforms in order to bring — to attract more investment, not only national investment but also foreign investment. And that’s why the Colombian economy and the Colombian se- curity improved a lot in the period 2002 until 2010. After President Santos arrived to power, he took the decision to organize this peace negotia- tions. Of course, everybody in Colombia, we all really want to have peace, a sustainable peace. And we were very, very clear that the risks were big. But also we were clear that if the negotiation and the peace negotiation has success, it will be so good for the entire country. Unfortunately, during the process, Colombia was very divided because of the process, be- cause of the quality of the negotiation, not because of peace negotiation but because of the quality of the negotiation. And that’s why all you know that we have this referendum, the no one — the referendum, and after we won the referendum we all were very committed again to help the country. And no matter that we want with no, we said presidents that we were ready to help you to fix this agreement because we believe in Colombia and peace. And we can fix the agreement because it has some problems, but we can help you to fix it. Unfortunately, the second part of this process was not very transparent. We were expecting to have the opportunity to amend the agreement. We were expecting to have the opportunity includes to discuss with FARC members, but the government never opened us this possibil- ity. And that’s why at the end of Santos’ administration, we were more divided than ever. And he imposed, at the end, the final version of the agreement. Because he said that he took all our recommendations and all our critiques, which is not true. And one of our main cri- tique about the agreement is — well, it’s having today one of the more difficult aspects of this implementation and which is related with the continuity of the narco traffic activity by the FARC members. Because, of course, for us it’s clear that Colombia cannot achieve peace if we are still in- volved in narcotics. We cannot achieve peace if after so many years fighting narcotics and coca crop production, we finally reduce to 40,000 hectares the coca crops in Colombia. It was in year 2010. But after the FARC negotiation, now we have 208,000 hectares of coca crops. So from 40,000 to 208,000, this is more than 260 percent increase of the coca cultiva- tion in only four years. And the reason why, it’s because the FARC members, they asked government to stop the fumigation against coca because they request that if government stops the fumigation, they will have and they will agree with a peace agreement. And it was big damage for the country. Because for us it’s clear that if we have narcotics, if we have coca in Colombia, we will have always violence. We will have corruption. We will have a damaged economy. So that’s why for us it’s absolutely unacceptable to say that in or- der to achieve peace, we have to stop our war against narcotics. Nowadays, what we have clear, again, is that these FARC guerilla, they use the — anguish, maybe, of President Santos to sign the agreement, but they were working at the same time with their allies abroad of Co- lombia. And one of the most important allies is, of course, Maduro regime. These people they have been in Venezuela for many years. The support that they have had in Venezuela for many years, the possibility to have the narcotics business and also to have sup- port for the guerillas in Venezuela. So now what we have is a big, big, big security and de- fense challenging for Colombia, but also for the entire region.

But on the other hand, we have been improving. We have been managing our economy. We have a very important group of Colombian businessmen. Some of you have met them. Some of you have advised them. And you know that the Colombian capability and the Colombian decision to have a positive growth despite of the problems and despite of the violence, this is something which is unbelievable. So that’s why we have this kind of a contradictory situation. We have the country very di- vided. It’s still divided because of the FARC agreement. But on the other hand, we have been recovering very much in terms of our economy, in terms of the institutions. And this is the challenge that President Duque and myself and our government we are facing nowadays. We have the decision to give Colombia the opportunity, the possibility to have a real leader- ship in our region. We know that Colombia could become a real medium-sized presence in our region because we have everything to have success. We have very good energetic re- sources. Now, we are improving, again, all the regulations for energy sector, for oil, for min- ing. So this is something that we have clear. Second, we have big opportunities in the agricultural sector and agribusinesses. Colombia has the capacity to, say, 20 million hectares in food, and we have only seven million hec- tares. So we have big room to increase food crops in Colombia. But what we are very fo- cused with President Duque is to have the value chain, to have processed food, to have food to become, Colombia, one of the most important exporters of processed food in our region. Third, we have a very good manufacture sector. We have very diversified industries, and some of them have been exporting goods for many years. What we need is to increase right now our capacity to export not only to the United States but to some other countries. Because Colombia has 15 free trade agreements right now that give us access to more than one billion people in different countries and regions. So, what is the clear for President Duque is that we have to be very focused in the importance of the Colombian economic recovery and also in the opportunities for all the Colombians. So that’s why we have developed these three pillars for our national plan. And let me say that this national economic plan was approved in Congress last Saturday. And this national plan is one of the very few national development plan which is based in the 17 sustainable goals that the United Nations has mentioned as a condition in order to have, in year 2030, countries that improve not only in their quality of their institutions but also the quality of life of their citizens based in this idea of sustainability. So our national development plan, it was designed with these 17 goals of — the sustainable goals, but it’s based in three pillars, as I mentioned before. First is the pillar of legality. Eve- rybody’s clear that if you have a country where the rule of law is a priority, you’re going to have opportunities to have advance and to have a better condition of life for your citizens. Unfortunately, in Colombia, because this mess that we have suffered for many years because of the guerillas, the rule of law is not — the rule is sometimes the exception. So that’s why, with President Duque, we are very committed to have the rule of law as one of the priorities for all the Colombians. And it means that we are demanding to the businessmen to pay their taxes, to comply with workers. We are demanding from Colombians to do good in terms of having this commitment with the rules and with the law in our country. The second pillar is entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship, it’s all the idea that we have in order to promote private sector in our country. We want not only to increase the size of the current

companies, but what we want is to increase the business, the small and medium-size compa- nies in Colombia. We want to promote that every single young who are studying at universi- ties, at college, they could become an entrepreneur. And that’s why we have been working so hard in order to provide not only good regulations but also a very good institutional support for new entrepreneurs, the Chambers of Commerce, the Ministry of Foreign Trade, universities. We have developed a system in order to become a really entrepreneurial government, a really entrepreneurial society. And also, as I men- tioned before, to promote these different sectors of the Colombian economy that has a lot of opportunities: manufacturing, agricultural, agribusinesses, of course, energy. We have been working so much in order to develop the renewable energy. And there are some very good regulations in order to develop solar energy and, of course, wind energy. So, in order to have these natural resources but also with some kind of better conditions for the sustainability. And something which is very, not very new, but it’s so important in Colombian economy, is the orange economy. And the orange economy is all the economy based in culture, based in entertainment. It’s all the entertainment industry, which is growing very much in so many countries. We believe that the orange economy — there are some analysis from IDB and oth- ers that says that probably — they say entertainment industries could become 25 percent of the GDP in the world in the future. So that’s why we are also very focused in promoting that in the youth, they can develop these musicians or the talent, the arts, performing, whatever, and what we want is that they really become entrepreneurs. So this is something, just to tell you, that we are 100 percent secure that we are going to have an important recovery of the Colombian economy. In the year 2002, we believe that we are going to have 4 percent of the GDP growth again. And again, it’s because for the last 15 years, the Colombian average GDP growth has been 4 percent. But we have the decrease, not only because of the Santos administration — this is not true. It start reducing the speed of the economic growth, and in the last years, of course, because of the oil prices, it was the main reason. So the Colombian economy decrease the speed of the growth. But now, with all these efforts and also very focusing increase the productivity of our economy, we believe that we are going to have 4 percent of the GDP growth in the year 2002, as I mentioned before. So for us is — we are convinced that we have a bright future in our hands, but there is only one big, so, so big uncertainty — is how can we afford to have this based in the rule of law, based in the importance of entrepreneurship? How can we move in order to reduce inequal- ity? Because at the end of this equation, entrepreneurship, legality — but we want to reduce inequality in our country. Colombia is a country with 53 percent of people informal. Infor- mality means, as you know, that they have no social security. They have no security for noth- ing. So what we want is to reduce this inequality. What we want is to close the gap between Co- lombian citizens and mainly to close the gap between the regions. Because there are so many regions in Colombia, very poor, they live like in century 19th or the beginning of the century 20th instead of living in century 21st. So what we want to close this gap, but the uncertainty that we have is: What’s going to happen in Venezuela? And Venezuela is definitely, not only for us, I believe that Venezuela is the most important question that we have to do for the future of our entire hemisphere. But mainly, I believe, for the north part of our hemisphere. Because it’s true — it’s true that there is a plan that was de- veloped during the last 20 years since Chávez arrived to government in Venezuela. And this plan means that what they want is that these leftist, socialism, populism can take control of

Venezuela, with this very rich country in natural resources. And what is also clear is that they have been working very close with Colombian guerrillas, with Colombian narco traffickers, with terrorists from abroad, from different places. Let me say, when I was minister of defense, it was year 2003 — I don’t know if Ambassador Santos remembers or not. I came to Washington, and I was in a private lunch. It was a jour- nalist — I saw one of our friends who is also a journalist, but it was an American journalist. And he said, “We are — this is out of record so you can say the truth.” And he asked me, “Do you have any evidence that Chávez is supporting the Colombian guerilla?” And I said, “Yes, of course. We are clear through intelligence and through different sources that Chávez is giving the Venezuelan nationality to some members of the Colombian guerilla.” It was year 2003, and it was a big scandal. And I had, of course, some trouble when I came back home because I was not supposed to say this, and I was supposed to be saying this in a — not a kind of secrecy but it was out of record. Now I know that out of record doesn’t exist. So I can say again, yes. I can say again, since that time it was clear for us that Chávez was having this goal to convert this part of the region, the north part of South America, as a place to do businesses like they like to do businesses. And what we have been seeing during the last 20 years, it’s part of this plan. And it was year 2003, but year 2015 or ’16 when all these discussions were about the FARC agreement, some of us said many times, “There is a linkage between Cuban regime, Vene- zuelan regime, and we are at risk.” And many people said, “No, you’re crazy. This is not true. This is something that you are inventing, all of you who are against the peace agree- ment.” Now it’s clear. There is a plan in order to make that so many countries in our region become part of this socialism, populism, whatever the name is. It’s risky, very risky for all of us. So, again, we know that President Iván Duque has been wonderful leadership. He said many times how Colombia is committed with Venezuela, with Venezuelan people. Of course, for us, it’s difficult because this horrible humanitarian crisis that Venezuela is living nowadays is something that you cannot imagine because you never can imagine how much suffer you can see in a very small place, like we have seen many times in Cúcuta or Arauca or some other municipalities in the border with Venezuela. So, the Colombia leadership, President Iván Du- que, that’s why he said we are going to have the Colombian doors open to Venezuelans. They are living a tragedy. This is a humanitarian crisis that we have to help them, to support. But of course it’s very difficult for us. Nowadays, we have received 1.4 million people that immigrate from Venezuela. Some of them, of course they are Colombians, or they are sons or daughters of Colombians because their parents went to Venezuela 20 years ago or 25 years ago, whatever. But almost one million of them, they are Venezuelans who came to Co- lombia to live in Colombia. And the idea for many people was okay, they are going to be here for 15 days and then they are going to leave. That’s not true. They have installed in Co- lombia. So that’s why President Duque decides to give them the authorization to stay in Co- lombia legally, to be part of our society, to have a job, to have all the conditions like other Colombians. And what is clear is, for us, this is costing a lot of money. The health system is suffering so much because — can you imagine 1.5 million people arriv- ing without any medicines? So many women pregnant. There are so many women that arrive when they have only one or two weeks more to have their babies. And they come without any medicines, any kind of assistance, medical assistance, during all their pregnancy. So it’s costing a lot of money. But we have the decision to support them and to maintain these very

high and clear voice in the international community, in the international scenarios, in the United Nations and mainly in the American States Organization, in order to ask the entire re- gion that the Venezuelan crisis is not only Venezuelans’ crisis. It’s a regional crisis that is af- fecting and it’s going to affect the entire region if it’s not solved in the short term. Of course, we are not the only one country. We have been working so much and President Iván Duque with his minister of foreign affairs and, of course, ambassadors, they have been working in different — on the regional basis and some are subregional actors, for example, Grupo de Lima and others, but moving also, the Europeans, the United Nations. And hope- fully, we will see a final solution of this in a short term because the humanitarian reasons, but also because of the risk for Colombia or for some others. We are clear that the situation that Nicaragua is also suffering, that some of the Central American countries are suffering. This is something that can split over the entire region, and it’s going to be threatening for every- body. So, in terms of what we believe that it’s legality opportunities, entrepreneurship oppor- tunities, and to reduce the inequality, we have this big challenge for Colombia. We are clear that the United States has been a very good partner for us. The bipartisan sup- port to Colombia for these 20 years was definite in order to have these successes that we had at the beginning of the century, this reduction of coca crops and the reduction of illegal activ- ities. Of course, there was no perfect — it’s so difficult when you have all these gangs and violence and terrorism. Like in kidnapping. Let me say that at the beginning of this century, we used to have 3,000 people kidnapped every single year. And we were working so hard in order to reduce kidnapping. And the next governance, Santos, he continued working in order to reduce kidnapping. And this is one of our successes. We have very few kidnapping nowadays in Colombia. I don’t know exactly but maybe less than 100, and we used to have 3,000 people kidnapped in Colombia. So that’s clear evidence that this support that we received in that moment, it was a key factor in order to strengthen some of the Colombian institutions, like the police, the military army, the very specialized groups, in combating the kidnapping and extortion, this kind of criminal activities. We improve very much the institutionality in order to fight narcotics. But, of course, this is not enough while we still have this big huge demand of narcotics here, unfor- tunately, in the United States and now in Venezuela. Venezuela is becoming the most im- portant demand for narcotics, not because of their national consumption. It’s because they are exporting through Venezuela and through other allies to different countries and regions. So again, we need to maintain this bilateral, bipartisan, and very clear affinity with the United States. So that’s why I’m here, and that’s why it’s a pleasure, Roger, to have the op- portunity to share with this important audience. Thank you so much. Roger F. Noriega: Thank you very much for that terrific set of comments, comprehensive, covering all of the issues that you’re confronting. I don’t want to dwell on the Venezuela front, but the fact is, we had conversations about this early on in your term, that this is something that had to be dealt with by the entire commu- nity. Because for your president, he was going to become the Venezuela refugee president, and overwhelmed by the number of people taking the jobs, even taking the new jobs that are created in your economy, driving down wages, causing citizen security problems. But on a positive note, you mentioned that you were able to pass the National Development Plan in your country and based on those three comprehensive or progressive pillars. On the

domestic front, as you see the challenges, what are your, say, top one or two next priorities in terms of tackling the issues that the Colombian people confront everyday — education, budget, taxes? Marta Lucía Ramírez: Well, I think that economy is a priority. And economy is a priority because for the last 20 years there were so many subsidies that the Colombian population de- mand from government and both governments — the previous government with President Uribe and President Santos. They gave some subsidies because there were necessary for a very important of the Colombian population. Nowadays, it’s clear for us that we have to give the people, the Colombians, the opportunity to have a job or to become an entrepreneur instead of asking for subsidies. Because this is the Venezuelan history. This is so many countries’ history, that when you start giving subsidies and subsidies, it makes the state capacity to reduce room for the private sector. It reduces the opportunities for people who are investing. So we have this priority. The Colombian economy this year will be 3.5 percent of GDP growth. We hope that it’s going to be like that. The International Monetary Fund and some different analysts said that this is going to be true, 3.5. So if we can continue this recovery of the economy, if we have some more investments in all these sectors that I have mentioned before. Renewals, for example, is a very important sector, and there is a lot of demand and new products and people coming to Colombia. So if we can continue improving the conditions of life for Colombians, we will also have bet- ter success in order to improve conditions of life in rural areas. And we believe that in order to stop forever narcotics in Colombia, we need both. We need to apply the strength of the state, the strength of the military, the strength of all the capabilities that we have in order to fight narcotics. But the most important tool is to provide development, is to invest in rural areas, is to have infrastructure, is to have these value-added chains through the investment in different compa- nies of food, in order to give more and more the opportunity to peasants to improve their conditions of life. So for us, it’s economy. But again, it’s not only economy as a result of GDP growth. It’s the economy as a tool to provide better income, to reduce inequality, and to reduce informality. So it’s going to give us the real possibility that we have to become a more important econ- omy, one of the most important economies in Latin American region. Roger F. Noriega: Certainly. And I heard a staggering data point — I’m not sure if this is accurate or not — but that 40 percent of the Colombian economy was in the informal sector. Marta Lucía Ramírez: Informal? Roger F. Noriega: Informal. Marta Lucía Ramírez: No, it’s more — 55 percent. Roger F. Noriega: Yeah. I was trying to be polite. Marta Lucía Ramírez: It’s worse.

Roger F. Noriega: And quite frankly, I was shocked by that. Because this is — there are many reasons, President Duque has literally written a book on these reasons. How do you get people into the formal economy? So not only can they spread their wings and grow and get capital and create jobs and pay taxes, because you have a rather — I mean, you could probably name the people who pay taxes, you know, off the top of your head. It’s such a small list. And so if you don’t have that broad-based tax base, you really can’t — you don’t have stakeholders in society that are part of your economic plan and the future. So how do you — what are the first two or three things you would do to deal with informality, lower- ing the barriers? Marta Lucía Ramírez: First of all, we made a financial reform — financial law. This is a tax reform, but the name is not a tax reform. It was a financial reform. And it reduces the cor- porate taxes to 30 percent, which is not very low. We would like to have lower, but it’s not possible right now because we are also very committed with the strength of the fundamentals of the economy. And we are committed with the idea to have a good macro economy, sus- tainable, credible that provides confidence to investors. So that’s why we cannot reduce taxes up to 20 percent or whatever. But it was a positive because now we are seeing some more investment because the condi- tions are more attractive. But for small and medium enterprises, there is a very simple tax code with only one tariff. So we believe it’s going to change. The real opportunities for peo- ple to become small and medium entrepreneur and also to be committed with the law and to pay their taxes. Because on the other hand, we are strengthening very much the taxes offices. It’s called DIAN, the [foreign language]. So we are strengthening through technology, through data mining, through everything. And we are going to be very tough. When people is not paying their taxes, they are going to have big sanctions. So it’s both: It’s a carrot, and it’s also a threat, in order to become more formal. But there is a problem also with people on the streets. And this is very common in Latin America. People living on the streets, pay and doing their activities on the streets. We are working in some specific cities, Cartagena, maybe La Guajira, those cities that are very good for tourism, and they have very nice beaches and whatever. So we are working in order to develop these kind — I don’t know how to say cooperativas. Roger F. Noriega: Cooperatives. Marta Lucía Ramírez: Cooperatives? Okay. So this is in order to make so many informal people to become associate and to regulate them and in order to help them, to give them loans to become formal and to help them to have these better conditions of life. Of course, they will have some regulations. They cannot be in any square meter of the streets. They have to be regulated. So we are going to do this. And what is so important, it’s also how to formalize people in the rural areas. And we are working on that. For example, Peruvian government, they did a very good change like seven years ago. And that’s why the Peruvian agriculture has been growing very much. Because the cost of human labor, it’s more realistic. You cannot have the same wages in Bogotá than in very poor rural area, in Putumayo or in Cúcuta.

So this idea to have a different regulation for labor in order to help these people to have a job, but also to help companies to recruit people without all these very high costs of labor in the cities. So this kind of changes. And third, we are going to have a pension reform, which is also very important because we, in Colombia, have right now very few people with pension. Because the system permits that you have no to pay for your pension so at the end you have no pension. You have no pay, but you have no pension. So there are so many people who are in this subsidized system, which is not sustainable for the Colombian state. Very few people are paying for the pensions, and very few people is paying for the health system. Colombia we have 100 percent of health coverage for everybody, but only 35 percent of people is paying for their health. The rest are subsidized. So we have to introduce some changes in order to facilitate people — that they pay a small amount, but they become more and more formal in order to do what is good for everybody. We want to have an economy-based informality, and we also want to give the very slow — yes, very slow recovery of these lower classes. And we want then to have better improve- ment, more rapid improvement to become formal and to improve their quality of life. Roger F. Noriega: Absolutely. The state certainly can apply the rules of the game without favor. Marta Lucía Ramírez: Yes. And that’s why legal — legalities is so important for us. Roger F. Noriega: Essentially. So, we started a little bit late. I managed to talk your staff, and they’re letting us have a little more time but not much. Let’s throw it open to questions. Gentleman there at the front. Just state your association and the question. We’re interested in your opinions, but not as much as we are interested in hers. Q: [foreign language] I’ll switch back to English for the benefit of our non-Spanish speaking audience members. My name is Christian Orr. I’m a donor to this fine organization. Roger F. Noriega: Can you please just ask the question. Q: Sorry, I’ll cut to the point. Given the close ties between FARC and the Maduro regime and their common socialist agenda, do you foresee the possibility that former FARC guerilla is going to start acting or serving as mercenaries to prop up the Maduro regime, kind of like we see with Russian mercenaries propping up Assad in Syria? And if so, might they even re- sult to such an extreme as attempting an assassination on Juan Guaidó or any of his pro-free- dom allies? Roger F. Noriega: Good question. Marta Lucía Ramírez: Well, I said that I know that there are no off-the-record answers, but let me say that, frankly, this is a very serious situation, and we cannot take this like a Colom- bian position. We need to work with the entire international community. So that’s why, for the first time, we have 60 countries that are supporting Guaidó’s presidency. And we hope that these 60 countries are going to be very active in order to have a real solution. What the real solution will be, I’m not sure. But what is clear is that we cannot maintain this situation forever. We cannot have another coup in Venezuela. Because if we have another coup in Venezuela, it is not going to be Colombia. It’s not going to be Panama. It is not going to be Central America, and who knows what’s going to happen with the United States.

Roger F. Noriega: Huge challenge. The young lady right here. And please, again state your association and your question please. Q: Thank you, Vice President. My name is Santa [inaudible]. My question is also about Ven- ezuela. There is only one person, only one opposition leader from Venezuela who believes in freedom, free enterprise, rule of law, and free markets, and that person is María Corina Ma- chado. And I would like to know what you think about her important role in Venezuela and the whole region. Thank you very much. Marta Lucía Ramírez: Let me say that I admire very much the process that they have suffer in the last month because it’s so sad, it’s that the division of the opposition make possible to Maduro to stay for the last two or three years. And she was the only one who said in that mo- ment that if they are not working together, they were going to lose that opportunity, and they lost. But of course, I believe that now all of them are important. I believe that not only María Corina, [inaudible], of course, Julio, Antonio Ledezma, and Guaidó. I think that what is impressive in this process is that, all of them, they were clear that they cannot think in their own political interest. They have to think in the only one interest, which is important, and it’s Venezuela. So that’s why in January they all agreed to give Juan Guaidó the responsibility to assume the presidency because it was the only one way to have these 60 members of the international community supporting Venezuela. Everybody who wants to defeat [inaudible]. Everybody was asking for a constitutional solution. So it was a perfect constitutional solution. The head of the National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, he took the presidency the 10 of January when Maduro cannot be in the office again. María Corina has been the whole time — been very active and also very clever. She is my favorite political leader, let me say. It’s because she has no double faces. And for many years, people were trying to manage that, yes, there are some members of Ma- duro and [inaudible] regime, they are criminal, but don’t care. We can be with them. There is one specific moment when you know that you cannot be seated with these kind of people. And that’s why you are looking that this very criminals that are part of the Maduro regime, they are not going to be working with faith, never. Not with the United States, not with the international community. So she’s clever and she’s the most — how do you say valiente? Roger F. Noriega: Brave, courage. Courageous. Marta Lucía Ramírez: Yes, courageous. The most courageous because she’s alone there. Her children left the country. She is with her two parents, very old, 90 years old, and she is facing this regime every single day. And she’s on the streets, and she is very active. So I know that maybe she’s going to have a more important role. I hope so that she’s going to have a more important role in the future in Venezuela, free and democratic. Roger F. Noriega: Well, all of her friends are terrified because she risks — she’s running every day, and she’s very bold. I’m going to honor my commitment to stop now, and I appreciate the questions very much. I noticed that —I couldn’t help but notice that your military aide is a woman. And one of the things you did, stop — one of the things you did as minister of defense was changing the reg- ulations where women can ascend to be generals. Are there any women generals now? Marta Lucía Ramírez: Let me say that —

Roger F. Noriega: Might she be the first? Marta Lucía Ramírez: — I didn’t mention women during my speech because I got to stay here for four hours or six hours, or I don’t know. But I really believe that the entire humanity has lost a lot because women have not been in the roles of leadership that we deserve to be. I know that if — in terms of the economy, if there were some more women active in the econ- omy, active as entrepreneurs, if we can have some more women as members of boards of di- rectors, whatever, believe me that the GDP in the entire world can grow at least 1 percent or 2 percent more than the current situation. The military is the same. When I arrived as defense minister, I asked her one day, “How many women are going to be generals?” And the commander of the military forces told me, “No one.” And I said, “Why?” He said, “Because women are okay until they arrive to colo- nels, but we cannot have women as generals in the Colombian military.” And I said, “I don’t understand the reason why.” He said, “Because those are the rules.” And I asked [inaudible] you cannot have me as a defense minister, a woman, if they are not able to to become gener- als. Of course, if they are capable, if they have all the requirements, if they are good, if they are better than men in all their exercises. But if they are good, they have to be — they have to have this opportunity. And it was a fight. And President Uribe supported me. And that’s why when I left the ministry like three years later, it was the first women general in Colombia in the police. Now we have both, in the police and in the army. But what makes me feel really proud is that, some years later, in year 2008, I was a senator. And I present a bill in order to allow women to be part of the military career because they were allowed to become generals in the intelligence, in the financial, in health, in those ad- ministrative aspects of the military. Now, for the first time, we have women in a linear man- ner, in the command line. So we are going to have first general maybe in 20 years. Maybe I’m not going to see that woman, but it’s something that makes me feel so proud that now we have women — and she’s very smart and talented. She’s a lieutenant in the army. Because they are very capable and very disciplined and very — they are workaholics so many of them. So we know that this is one of the strengths that we have in the Colombia military forces. Roger F. Noriega: Well, you can inspire us all even more by becoming the first woman commander-in-chief. Of course, we won’t endorse you here today, but we’ll talk later. Thank you very much, Madam Vice President. Marta Lucía Ramírez: Thank you, Roger. Thank you so much. Roger F. Noriega: God bless. Thank you very much.