he validity of such a position in international law.[207] In June 2000, FARC-EP Commander Carlos Antonio Lozada told Human Rights Watch that the minimum recruitment age of fifteen years was set in 1996 but admitted that "this norm was not enforced" until recently. Lozada said, however, that it had become an obligatory standard after Commander Jorge Briceño's statements on the matter in April 2000.[226] A 2001 Human Rights Watch report considered FARC-EP's refusal to admit children under fifteen years old into their forces to be "encouraging" but added that there is "little evidence that this rule is being strictly applied" and called on the group to demobil

he validity of such a position in international law.[207]In June 2000, FARC-EP Commander Carlos Antonio Lozada told Human Rights Watch that the minimum recruitment age of fifteen years was set in 1996 but admitted that "this norm was not enforced" until recently. Lozada said, however, that it had become an obligatory standard after Commander Jorge Briceño's statements on the matter in April 2000.[226] A 2001 Human Rights Watch report considered FARC-EP's refusal to admit children under fifteen years old into their forces to be "encouraging" but...

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t and former guerrilla León Valencia has estimated that FARC's numbers have been reduced to around 11,000 from their 18,000 peak but cautions against considering the group a defeated force.[250] In 2007 FARC-EP Commander Raúl Reyes claimed that their force consisted of 18,000 guerrillas.[251] From 1999 to 2008, the FARC-EP, together with the ELN guerrilla group, was estimated to control up to 40% of the territory in Colombia.[252] The largest concentrations of FARC-EP guerrillas are located throughout the southeastern parts of Colombia's 500,000 square kilometers (190,000 sq mi) of jungle and in the plains at the base of the Andean mountains.[253] FARC's organized hierarchically into military units as follows:[254][255] Alfonso Cano, former FARC Co

t the hostage release, raising concerns about the application of national and international law guaranteeing their autonomy, self-determination and self-government. The indigenous organization also demanded the immediate end of all violence and conflict within indigenous territories and called for a negotiated solution to the war.[241]Official Colombian government statistics show that murders of indigenous people between January and May 2011 have increased 38% compared to the same timeframe in 2010.[242] Colombia is home to nearly 1 million indigenous...

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assassinated indigenous Colombian leaders for attempting to prevent FARC incursions into their territory and resisting the forcible recruitment by FARC of indigenous youth. Between 1986 and 2001, FARC was responsible for 27 assassinations, 15 threats, and 14 other abuses of indigenous people in Antioquia Department.[64] In March 1999 members of a local FARC contingent killed 3 indig

]According to HRW, those extrajudicial executions would qualify as forced disappearances if they had been carried out by agents of the government or on its behalf, but nevertheless remained "blatant violations of the FARC-EP's obligations under international humanitarian law and in particular key provisions of article 4 of Protocol II, which protects against violence to the life, physical, and mental well-being of persons, torture, and ill-treatment."[230]The Colombian human rights organization CINEP reported that FARC-EP killed an estimated total...

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