Francia Márquez

"If there weren’t economic interests in these territories, we wouldn’t have to get up and fight in order to have a decent life. We’re risking our lives to stop harmful extractive industries, because the latter are enjoying benefits at the expense of the many people who have died."

"This situation of armed conflict and abandonment in terms of no social investment, that needs to be brought to a halt. It’s not going to be brought to a halt by the privileged elites of white men who have historically governed our country. It’s the people who need to step forward to press their grievances."

"That is a history that is repeated day after day. Mothers go to work in the homes of other families, and they come home to bury their children. That is the history of our country."

"I have been proposing a program of agroecological productive projects and with the idea of food sovereignty being the top issue. There’s more than 21 million people in Colombia who don’t eat enough, who go to bed hungry every night."

"We’re tired of having to bury our family members and seeing women, mothers, burying their children. That is not just. We deserve a more dignified nation, a nation in peace, a nation with social justice, and an antiracist nation."

"Right now I’m here in the United States. And I know that the Black people here are assassinated, especially Black youth, in the same way as Black, impoverished Black youth, racialized impoverished Black youth, are assassinated in Colombia. Because of the color of our skin, they see us as criminals. But we are human beings. Our dignity must be respected and recognized."

"when I announced that I wanted to be president of Colombia, people said, “Francia, you’re crazy, because you think that” — they can’t imagine it. They think that’s reserved for white men who are privileged elites. But today, those of us who are nobody, those of us who haven’t had a voice, those who have been historically silenced and subjected to violence, are standing up to say that we are going to go forward from resistance to power until dignity becomes something that our country becomes accustomed to."

"The strength of my ancestors and the women who gave birth to freedom and taught us the path of dignity motivated me to start on this road to the Colombian presidency."

"We must dispel the myth that the main cause of violence is the “absence of the state.” On the contrary, in many territories where social leaders have been assassinated, the state, especially the armed forces, has been present defending the multinationals that extract our resources, carrying out forced eradication of crops, and displacing communities that are victims of the armed conflict. The elites have created this myth to avoid taking responsibility for the systematic violations of human rights."

"We want the peace we make to have opportunities for our economies so they can be strengthened by knowledge and productive applications based on our ecological and cultural diversity. This is so we can advance and transform global energy and decarbonize the planet."

"Restructuring an anti-drug policy is a task for our nation and the region of Latin America. The “zero tolerance” policy to combat drug trafficking must end because it has failed. Complete criminalization has not diminished production, consumption, money laundering, or dismantled the political mafias that dominate our state, flooding the economy with illicit activity. We promote a social epidemiological approach to addictions, the regulation of the existing market, and the use of sacred plants for health and industry. We will embrace a new paradigm to face the phenomenon of the production, distribution, commercialization, and consumption of psychoactive substances since the current, stale paradigm lacks coherence, planning, and understanding of the problem."

"It is not enough to promote more jobs; there needs to be a guarantee of training, remuneration, and stability."