( Spanish) – Colombian authorities are investigating the alleged death of Luciano Marín Arango, alias “Iván Márquez”, a leader of the demobilized guerrilla of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), who in 2019 took up arms and leadership of the dissidents of that armed group and took refuge in Venezuela, according to the Government at the time.
The Foreign Minister of Colombia, Luis Murillo, reported this Thursday that the Venezuelan authorities claimed not to have any information about Iván Márquez, given media reports about the alleged death of the Colombian guerrilla leader in that country. The peace commissioner, Otty Patiño, said to local media on Wednesday, which so far is just a “rumor.” This is at least the third time that a rumor about his death has been addressed by government officials since Márquez resumed insurgent activity.
Iván Márquez is currently a fugitive from Justice. In 2016, he was one of the main negotiators of the peace agreement with the Government of Colombia. Previously, he was considered number two of the former guerrilla when it was under the command of alias “Timochenko” and was the most visible head of the group abroad.
He was born in Florencia, Caquetá, in 1955. From a very young age he joined the communist youth, after studying law in the Soviet Union, according to information from the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation (Pares), a center for studies on armed conflicts based in Bogotá. He added that Márquez joined the FARC in 1977, first as a “member of the support network” for several fronts, then he was leader of the 14th Front and commander of the Caribbean bloc. According to the same source, he was an ideologue and political instructor of the guerrilla. Furthermore, in 1980 it was congressman for Caquetá—replacing Henry Millán, who was murdered— under the Patriotic Union party, at that time considered the political arm of the subversive organization.
During the presidency of César Gaviria (1990-1994), Márquez was a FARC negotiator in the Caracas and Tlaxcala Dialogues, and during the presidency of Andrés Pastrana (1998-2002) he participated in negotiations with the government in the failed zone of distension.
In 2008, after the death of FARC leader Luis Edgar Devia, alias “Raúl Reyes”, on the border between Ecuador and Colombia, he took on the international spokesperson for the organization.
Iván Márquez was a member of the FARC secretariat before its disarmament in 2016, and was one of the guerrilla’s chief negotiators during the first talks held in Oslo and when the talks moved to Havana in 2012.
Márquez was one of the most critical ex-combatants of the implementation of the agreement, so much so that from the beginning he did not accept to take office as a congressman of Colombia, a position that corresponded to him as part of the pact with the Government, in which 10 seats were guaranteed to the representatives of the extinct FARC in the legislative body: five for the Senate and five for the House during two parliamentary terms.
According to a letter published by the FARC party (now the Comunes party), Márquez said that he would not assume the position of senator due to three “insurmountable” circumstances: the drug trafficking investigation against his partner Seuxis Pausías Hernández, alias “Jesús Santrich”, due to some modifications to the text of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) agreed upon in the Havana agreement and because it considered that the political reform agreement after the peace agreements was not fulfilled.
At the end of April 2018, Iván Márquez went to live in a so-called territorial reincorporation space in Miravalle, Caquetá, in southern Colombia, after the capture of Jesús Santrich, accused of drug trafficking by a US court. and who died in 2021 in Venezuelan territory.
Weeks later in 2018, he made one of his last public appearances in a video with another guerrilla leader, Hernán Darío Velásquez, alias “El Paisa”, renouncing his bodyguards provided by the Government. Neither the Government, nor Justice nor Comunes (founded as Fuerza Alternativa Revolucionaria del Común) had knowledge of his exact whereabouts.
In August 2019, Iván Márquez and other guerrilla leaders grouped in the FARC dissidents announced that they were taking up arms again. Then, he said in a statement that “the second Marquetalia had begun,” referring to the place where the FARC was founded in 1964, and spoke of “a new stage of struggle for the awakening of consciences.”
The guerrilla leader repeatedly expressed his frustration with the development of the peace agreements and has said that “it was a serious mistake to have handed over weapons to a cheating State.”
The then president of Colombia, Iván Duque, said in November 2021 that Márquez was in Venezuela “protected by the regime of Nicolás Maduro,” who In August 2019 he said that his country welcomed Iván Márquez. However, the Maduro government has not confirmed the presence of Iván Márquez in its territory.
As a signatory of the peace agreement, Iván Márquez had to submit to Transitional Justice with the commitment to recognition and reparation, but in 2019 the Special Jurisdiction for Peace excluded him of the agreement for breaching the conditionality regime.
The JEP explained that it excluded Márquez and other guerrilla leaders who rearmed as a result of “the serious non-compliance of those appearing” with the peace agreement. Until then, Márquez had suspension of arrest warrants and conditional releases, which were revoked for failing to comply with what was agreed in Havana.
In August 2019, the JEP ordered the capture of former FARC members who rearmed and notified the Directorate of Criminal Investigation and Interpol of the Colombian National Police of its decision.
In July 2022, after the spread of false information mentioning his death, the Government said that its intelligence services confirmed that Iván Márquez was in a hospital in Venezuela.
At that time, the Second Marquetalia claimed in a video that Márquez had been “the victim of a criminal attack directed from the Army barracks and police commands” in Colombia and that he “came out unharmed.”
In August 2023, then-Chancellor Álvaro Leyva denied another version of the death of “Márquez”.
Iván Márquez has an Interpol arrest warrant for “serious crimes committed between 2001 and 2002.”
The United States offers US$10 million for information that contributes to finding the whereabouts of the former FARC combatant, accused in this country of narcoterrorism and other crimes.
According to the Colombian Prosecutor’s OfficeMárquez is accused of several crimes, such as homicide of a protected person and extortionate kidnapping aggravated by the case of the kidnapping of National Army Lieutenant Wagner Harvey Tapias Torres, which occurred on May 28, 1997 in the department of Antioquia. Tapias Torres was murdered by the FARC in May 2003, according to the Prosecutor’s Office. He also has an arrest warrant for murder of politician Álvaro Gómez Hurtado in 1995.
In addition, he is accused of forced recruitment of minors, homicide and aggravated forced disappearance, specifically of a 16-year-old adolescent recruited by the FARC in the department of Antioquia. According to the Prosecutor’s Office, he was murdered three years later because “apparently he tried to escape on several occasions.”
In March 2024the Supreme Court of Justice made the conviction against Iván Márquez final 41 years in prison for aggravated homicide and aggravated terrorism in relation to the guerrilla takeover in 2000 in Roncesvalles, Tolima, in which a civilian and 13 police officers died, which was ordered by the insurgent leader.
As a fugitive, Márquez did not comment on the ordinary justice accusations against him.
With information from Melissa Velásquez, Ivonne Valdés, Fernando Ramos, Abel Alvarado, Kiarinna Parisi and Sebastián Jiménez.
Add Comment