By Reuters | February 21, 2019 at 8:53 pm By Anastasia Moloney | Thomson Reuters Foundation PASTO, Colombia — When Colombia’s FARC guerrillas turned up at the home of Cristian Camilo Gonzalez nearly two decades ago and shoved him into a truck when he was just 14, his happy childhood ended abruptly. Growing up in a rural hamlet, Gonzalez knew from an early age he was different from the other boys. He did not play football and was attracted to boys and women’s clothes. And despite being raised as a Catholic in a conservative home, his parents allowed Gonzalez to be different. But once forced into the ranks of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla group, he quickly learned that being gay can have fatal consequences. “Under their rules, homosexuality was banned and punished even by death,” Gonzalez, now 33, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “For the FARC, homosexuality was seen as a Yankee affliction and a crime. My sexuality was incompatible with their rules.” Fighters who disobeyed the rules were punished, and their fate was decided by the FARC’s council. “Once there was a council to rule on two women who were found kissing each other. One… Read full this story
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