2023-07-08 05:01:00
Iván Márquez, head of the Segunda Marquetalia – a dissident of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla group that took up arms despite the fact that he had been the chief negotiator at the signing of the peace agreement in 2016 – reportedly died as a result of injuries received on June 29, 2022 when he suffered an attack with explosives in his camp in the Caicara del Orinoco area, Bolívar state in Venezuela, 198 kilometers from the border with Colombia.
The information has not been officially confirmed by the Colombian State or by the rebel organization. But the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo has been reporting since Thursday that state agencies are trying to confirm the data – they assure that he was alive at least three days before – in the face of strong versions coming from Venezuela that this would have happened.
The attempt
This is actually Luciano Marín Arango –alias Iván Márquez– 68 years old, who had health problems due to a splinter lodged in his brain from the moment of the bomb attack in which he almost lost an arm and a leg. would have been severely injured. But what would have caused the commander’s death was the splinter in his brain. His situation would have been so serious that they would have taken him by helicopter from his camp to a hospital in Caracas.
According to El Tiempo, the guerrilla leader had long ago recovered his speech, the mobility of his hands and even the ability to walk, after being treated in Caracas. They would have released him from the hospital last December to take him to some secret area on the Colombian border. The attack had been attributed to another leader of the dissidents facing the Márquez group, which today calls itself the “Central General Staff.” The Segunda Marquetalia group, led by Márquez, would have some 1,048 armed men and 598 in support networks.
what the government says
The official statement so far has been from Iván Velásquez, the Defense Minister: “The verifications have not yet allowed us to prove (his death). You have seen contradictory versions that have been presented publicly. We do not want to compromise an opinion because we are not certain that ‘Iván Márquez’ has died”.
The high commissioner for peace, Danilo Rueda, said that he does not know the status of Iván Márquez and that it must be the Second Marquetalia that “comes out publicly.” And he added: “We do not know the life situation in which Luciano Marín or ‘Iván Márquez’ finds himself, what we can say is that we met him healthy, lucid and we do not know what has happened these days. We can say that he was alive ago a few days, from then on I don’t know what happened”. In an interview he stated that he is aware that three days before his alleged death “he was in perfect health.” He added that he has consulted the Government of Venezuela, where in theory he was recovering from the attack, but they could not confirm his death.
doubts and certainties
Commander Márquez – who had become number two in the FARC – reported that he was taking up arms again in August 2019, almost three years after the signing of peace, due to breaches of the agreements by the Colombian government . In July of last year, he revealed the information about the attack against Márquez, in an alleged dispute with another guerrilla group with which the border area between Colombia and Venezuela was disputed, where drug trafficking also operates. It was said that he had been killed but Segunda Marquetalia denied this, while the Colombian government confirmed that Márquez was “sick, convalescent.”
Iván Marquez never stopped negotiating with the Colombian government and the same high commissioner for peace, Danilo Rueda, met with him in Venezuela a few days ago within the framework of President Gustavo Petro’s plan called Total Peace. That is why the national government was surprised by the version about his possible death.
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