A Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, commander in the southern province of Tolima ordered the execution of a 13-year-old girl who had been turned over to the guerrillas by her mother on two occasions, an army spokesman said.

The mother turned over the girl the first time in a rural part of the municipality of Chaparral, Gen. Guillermo Suarez, the commander of the Southern Task Force in Tolima, said.

The girl fled the ranks of the FARC’s Gabriel Galvis column some time later because she had been subjected to bad treatment and sexual abuse, but once again her mother put her at the disposal of the subversive group.

“We set our units about the task of finding the girl and unfortunately … the mother once again, in an irrational act, turned her over to the terrorist ‘Teofilo’ with the Gabriel Galvis column, who ordered them to murder the girl,” the general told RCN Radio.

In this area of Tolima province, an important FARC enclave, the guerrillas have a plan to recruit minors between 12 and 14 years old, in exchange for whom they provide farmland to the children’s families, the general said.

“This is a wake-up call for all parents in southern Tolima. They cannot be delivering their children to the war, nor fostering forced recruitment practices,” Suarez told Caracol Radio.

Authorities should conduct a rigorous investigation and appropriately punish the mother of the murdered girl for putting her at risk, the director of the Colombian Institute of Family Welfare in that region, Carlos Eduardo Buenaventura, said.

The social welfare agency said it had received dozens of complaints about child and teenager recruitment by the FARC in southern Tolima.

Source: Latin American Herald Tribune