One of Colombia’s most prominent rebel leaders, “Ivan Marquez,” has died in Venezuela, reported news program CM&.
Sources close to Marquez, whose real name was Luciano Marin, have confirmed the death of the founder of the “Segunda Marquetalia” guerrilla group to other news media.
Defense Minister Ivan Velasquez said that the security forces were trying to verify the claim that Marquez had died of injuries he sustained as a consequence of an assassination attempt in July last year.
Local media initially reported that the former peace negotiator of the now-defunct had died in this attack.
These reports were denied by Marquez’s subordinates and Peace Commissioner Danilo Rueda, who met with the former FARC commander to negotiate a new peace deal.
Marquez was believed to have been seriously injured as the rebel leader has not appeared in public since the assassination attempt.
Unidentified sources told CM& and magazine Cambio that recent complications caused by a splinter that was left in Marquez’s brain caused his death.
Who was Ivan Marquez?
Marquez was born in southern Colombia in 1955 and joined guerrilla group FARC and the clandestine Communist Party in the late 1970’s.
The guerrilla was elected into Congress in 1986 after a peace agreement between the FARC and the government of late President Belisario Betancur.
Marquez left his position and became a major leader of the FARC after the military and paramilitary forces embarked on an extermination campaign of the Patriotic Union party.
The FARC division commander led the guerrillas’ successful peace talks with former President Juan Manuel Santos in 2012 and demobilized in 2017.
Marquez abandoned politics again in 2018 after attempts by the US Government and the Prosecutor General’s Office to extradite late FARC commander “Jesus Santrich” on fabricated drug trafficking charges.
The two announced the formation of the Segunda Marquetalia in 2019 and began an offensive to regain control over territories that had been abandoned by the FARC.
This offensive was violently opposed by the Colombian military and rival guerrilla group EMC.
