A waiting period was opened in Colombia after news program CM&, a well-known national media outlet, reported that Luciano Marín, aka “Iván Márquez”, one of the former leaders of the extinct FARC guerrillas and leader of one of the main dissidents of this group, would have died in Venezuelan territory.
After Colombian intelligence confirmed the news to radio station RCN, Bogotá newspaper El Tiempo did the same, citing government sources.
According to France 24, Iván Velásquez, Colombia’s defense minister, called for caution pending “confirmation”. This allows “to speak properly on the issue,” adding that the latest available information on the guerrilla is that he “was at some point on national territory” after an attack he faced in 2022.
“We are attentive. As soon as we have confirmed news of this nature, we will inform you,” the senior official said during a meeting with journalists in the Colombian Pacific city of Buenaventura.
Márquez, one of the negotiators of the 2016 peace deal between the FARC and the Colombian government in Havana, lived in Cuba for years while he was part of the guerrilla delegation.
The guerrilla was the target of an attack in July 2022, in which he was seriously injured in a leg and the brain. At the same time, multiple media outlets reported that he was killed by another paramilitary group fighting with the FARC dissidents for territorial control and drug trafficking in the area where they were operating.
In August 2019, Márquez founded the Second Marquetalia in a nod to the FARC’s birth certificate in the 1960s due to failure to fully honor the peace agreement he signed with President Juan Manuel Santos.
His disappearance and resumption of armed struggle, accompanied by other leaders including Jesús Santrich, marked the break with Rodrigo Londoño, the guerrilla commander who had surrendered his arms.
The news of Márquez’s alleged fate comes at the same time as confirmation that the government and the ELN, the last guerrilla group operating in Colombia, will finally start the long-awaited ceasefire as part of the peace negotiations on August 3.