The Colombian government announced that the guerrilla chief Néstor Gregorio Vera Fernández, alias “Iván Mordisco”, one of the dissident leaders of the FARC, He died last weekend in a military operation in the Colombian department of Caquetá, in what they called “a final blow to dissidence” in the words of Defense Minister Diego Molano.
It was in an attack by the Colombian armed forces, where nine other members of the group also died.
“This operation, which allows the neutralization of nine individuals from that first front of the FARC dissidents and the neutralization of alias ‘Iván Mordisco’, also allows us to point out that this is an operation in which the last great leader of the FARC falls. FARC and it happens a final blow to dissidence“, Minister Molano said at a press conference in Bogotá.
According to the Colombian newspaper El Espectador, the National Police would have managed to surround Mordisco in the southern department of San Vicente del Caguán. Over the weekend, after a bombardment, they raided two dissident camps.
According to the information that intelligence sources entrusted to the RCN Noticias chain of Colombia, Mordisco’s assistants would have taken the lifeless body of their commander from the scene of the attack.
The Colombian forces managed to locate the body of Mordisco’s sentimental partner and that of his communications specialist, “with signs that they were dragged”, reports ‘El Tiempo’, “which would ratify the version that the body of Bite was removed from the site.”
They were also able to seize two rifles, pistols, magazines, grenades and even a drone.
According to the Armed Forces, this war material was intended to intimidate the civilian population and plan some terrorist actions. Front 1 “Armando Ríos”, which was led by Iván Mordisco, It was financed through drug trafficking, extortion and kidnapping. It had axis of operations in Meta, Caquetá and Guaviare.
A dissident leader specialized in kidnapping
Ivan Mordisco, dissident leader of the FARC (Colombian Ministry of Defense / AFP)
The “Armando Ríos” is an organization that has some 400 members according to intelligence estimates. He had recently suffered a severe blow with the death of Miguel Botache Santillana, alias Gentil Duarte, who was one of the most prominent leaders of the dissidents. Without Duarte, Mordisco presented himself as the main head of the organization at the national level.
The Colombian government estimates that Mordisco also He had ties to drug cartels in Mexico.
An expert sniper and explosives expert, Mordisco had joined the FARC during the 2000s. Since 2008 he had grown strongly in his forced recruitment tasks, where the victims were mainly the indigenous populations. Mostly children and peasants.
When the peace negotiations began in Havana, in which the Colombian government and the FARC-EP participated, Mordisco had been one of the dissidents who announced that they were not going to demobilize. He even released a statement, in which he invited more guerrillas to “continue with the armed struggle.”