Colombian President Iván Duque speaks on the sidelines of the 9th Summit of the Americas, held in Los Angeles, on June 8, 2022. Photo: AFP.
Dissidents of the now defunct armed guerrilla organization Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) have accused Colombian President Iván Duque of exporting mercenaries to assassinate world leaders.
“Duque and his government not only destroyed the Havana Accords, but also dedicated themselves to exporting mercenaries to kill leaders in different parts of the world,” said the Segunda Marquetalia, a FARC dissident group, in a statement published by the Colombian magazine Cambio on Sunday, July 10.
“That is how a commando of mercenaries directed from Colombia, all of them supposedly retired military personnel—23 mercenaries—raided the residence of the president of Haiti, Jovenel Moïse, in the early hours of July 7, 2021, and assassinated him,” the statement continued. “So far the perpetrators of the crime have been arrested, but nothing is known about the masterminds.”
The Segunda Marquetalia further stated that the Duque government has been one of the most nefarious and ineffective governments to have governed Colombia in recent times, given that during Duque’s mandate “more than 700 social leaders have been assassinated, more than 300 signatories of the peace agreement have been assassinated, protests has been repressed, and false positives have returned.”
Segunda Marquetalia leader Iván Márquez survives assassination attempt
In its statement, the Segunda Marequetalia reported that its leader Iván Márquez is alive, discarding speculations that he had been killed in an attack in Venezuela.
On June 30, the top FARC dissident leader Luciano Marín Arango, alias Iván Márquez, “was the victim of a criminal attack directed from the [Colombian] army barracks and the police commands,” but “was unharmed” and “only suffered minor injuries,” said the Segunda Marquetalia in the recently published statement.
#ÚltimaHora | “Iván Márquez está vivo”: Segunda Marquetalia.https://t.co/msi1uGmxpu pic.twitter.com/7cjfZ3CsbF
— Cambio (@estoescambio) July 10, 2022
The Segunda Marquetalia believes that US agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Duque government, were behind the attack on Márquez.
It also claimed that the assassination attempt on Márquez emplyoed “the same modus operandi” that had been used to “assassinate [former FARC leaders] El Paisa Oscar, Edilson Romaña, Gentil Duarte, and Jesús Santrich, by different military garrisons and police commands.”
Iván Márquez is the most experienced person in the Segunda Marquetalia to participate in an eventual negotiation with the government of President-elect Gustavo Petro who, in his victory speech, assured that he would work for the consolidation of “complete peace.” Petro, like Márquez, is also a historical figure in the armed insurgency in Colombia.
Márquez has a long history of political negotiation with the Colombian state. He joined the armed movement in 1985, and was part of the Peace Accords of the mid-1980s that led to the formation of the Patriotic Union. Over the next few years, thousands of members of the Patriotic Union were systematically murdered by Colombia’s police, army, and paramilitaries. The victims included two presidential candidates, eight congresspersons, about seventy councilpersons, dozens of deputies and mayors, and hundreds of trade unionists, communists, party members, and peasant leaders. Colombian courts place the number of murdered Patriotic Union members at 5,733.
In 1986, Márquez was elected as a representative to the Chamber of Deputies, but he returned to arms after the assassination of a number of his comrades. He later joined the negotiating teams of Casa Verde, in 1990; and later the dialogues in Tlaxcala, Mexico, and Caracas, Venezuela, as well as the peace processes of San Vicente del Caguán, in 1998; and Havana, Cuba, in 2012.
Márquez laid down his arms after the Peace Accords of 2016, but returned to the movement again in 2019, citing lack of security guarantees after his companion-in-arms, iconic FARC leader Jesús Santrich, was arrested for extradition to the US for alleged involvement in crimes after the signing of the Peace Accords. Márquez has since abandoned the peace process and resumed his guerrilla life. In this context, the victory of Gustavo Petro in the presidential elections has opened the door to a new attempt for achieving peace through negotiations, in which Iván Márquez is sure to participate.
This was also the first time that the Segunda Marquetalia recognized the death of Óscar Montero, better known as El Paisa, a guerrilla leader of vast military experience who was the commander of FARC’s Teófilo Forero Mobile Column.
(HispanTV) with Orinoco Tribune content
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/SC/SL
