The Peace Commissioner, Otty Patiño, indicated last Tuesday that the leader of the opposition known as Second Marquetalia, Luciano Marin Arango alias Iván Márquez, died in Venezuela during medical intervention.
“The only information is that he died as a result of an operation, nor military, but a surgical operation“said the commissioner.
Although the information is not precise, the official explained that his death could be related to the problems that came from an attack suffered several years ago in which he lost his arm and an eye. “He was a survivor,” Patino said.
With the Second Marquetalia, a dissident group created by Márquez after the demobilization of the former FARC, the Government of Gustavo Petro is leading in talks about its eventual disarmament; For that reason, Patiño asked the members, despite the fact that their leader may die, “to continue in peace, of course.”
This is not the first time that the death of this bloody former general has been talked about. During the former president’s government, Iván Duque was presumed dead in a bombing in the Venezuelan jungles. However, months later he reappeared at an event in Puerto Carreño, Vichada.
Then, he spoke to those present to express his support for the Government’s proposal for a National Assembly. A week later he was seen, together with Otty Patiño, the Peace Commissioner and others, in a photo with which the two delegations announced the beginning of the peace talks. Márquez was said to have been seriously injured in the 2022 bombing attack. They said his right side was immobilized as a result of the impact received on the skull.
His latest appearance was in Last June in Caracas, Venezuela, at the beginning of the peace talks. It was then confirmed that he had paralysis in his right arm and a prosthesis in his arm. As well as some vision problems. Thinner and thinner, he was seen alive celebrating his fourth peace process in 40 years of criminal life.
Ivan Marquez He was part of the defunct FARC Secretariat that signed the Peace Agreement with the Government of former President Juan Manuel Santos in 2016. Three years after total disarmament, he betrayed what had been agreed and returned to arms alongside Jesus Santrich, another peace signatory.
After returning to the insurgency, he hid for a long time on the border with Venezuela. He then founded the Second Marquetalia, a criminal group that five years later expanded to 300 municipalities in Colombia and has more than 1,751 men and women in arms in its ranks. Of these, 1,162 are part of the armed wing and 589 in support networks.
Read more: This is the negotiating team delegated by the government to the Second Marquetalia
He had four peace negotiations during his criminal career. The first was in 1984, during the government of Belisario Betancur. He became a member of the party born from that process: the Patriotic Union. He was even a counselor and a representative of Caquetá later. Three years later he returned to hiding after the destruction of the UP.
Ivan Márquez’s bloody and criminal past
EL COLOMIANO consulted the criminal record of the alleged subversive commander who died. If his entire sentence were added, he would be in prison for four hundred and six years.
The list includes a 40-year sentence for a three-day terrorist attack in 1995, which left five police officers and one civilian dead in several towns in Cundinamarca; and another 40 years to the killing of five soldiers in the municipality of La Uribe, Meta, in 1997.
Because of the guerrilla takeover of the municipality of Miraflores, Guaviare, in 1998, which left 19 dead, as well as 75 military personnel and 54 police officers kidnapped, he was sentenced to another four decades in the shadows.
He spent 40 years in prison for the takeover of the municipality of Puerto Lleras, Meta, in 1999, where the guerrillas killed 10 civilians and 11 police officers, and kidnapped 28 uniformed officers.
One year more than 40 for the armed takeover of Mitú (Vaupés) in 1998, with 43 dead and 61 police officers kidnapped; and 34 years for the construction of Gigante, Huila, in 1999, with three dead and one captive.
The list continues for 40 years for the massacre of seven people in Puerto Rico, Caquetá, in 2000 (before the hotel-bomb case); Councilor Diego Turbay Cote was one of the victims, according to the judicial dossier. Among others.
These sentences are added 80 arrest warrants in relation to terrorism, drug trafficking, kidnapping, murder, extortion, forced recruitment, arms trafficking, conspiracy to commit a crime, rebellion, forced displacement, illegal use of insignia and uniforms; as well as an Interpol Red Notice and a request for extradition to the United States.
The crimes sponsored by Iván Márquez have filled Colombia with pain for four decades, and yet, the State has given him the opportunity to sit at the table of peace.
As of now, official confirmation from the insurgent group about his death is awaited.
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