Iván Márquez
Encyclopedia
Florencia, Caquetá
Florencia is a municipality and capital city of the Department of Caquetá, Colombia. It is the most important city in southeast Colombia because of its population as well as its more than a hundred years of history....
) is a Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
n guerrilla leader, member of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People's Army is a Marxist–Leninist revolutionary guerrilla organization based in Colombia which is involved in the ongoing Colombian armed conflict, currently involved in drug dealing and crimes against the civilians..FARC-EP is a peasant army which...
(FARC), part of its Secretariat higher command and advisor to the Northwestern
Northwestern Bloc of the FARC-EP
The Northwestern Bloc of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, also known as the Iván Ríos Bloc has historically been a strong influence in the Medellín and Antioquia regions, and still is today. It has been among the blocs most seriously targeted by Álvaro Uribe's defense plan and the...
and Caribbean
Caribbean Bloc of the FARC-EP
The Caribbean Bloc of the FARC-EP is a medium-sized FARC-EP bloc which operates in the Northern areas of Colombia and along the Caribbean coast, with routes and access to the coast being strategically important, and is thus sometimes referred to as the Northern Bloc...
blocs.
According to the news agency Anncol it is likely that Márquez will be the new commander of the FARC-EP after the assassination of Alfonso Cano
Alfonso Cano
Guillermo León Sáenz Vargas , more commonly known by his nom de guerre Alfonso Cano was the commander of the militant group known as Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia...
.
Early years
Marín Arango joined the Colombian Communist PartyColombian Communist Party
The Colombian Communist Party or PCC is the legal communist party of Colombia. It was founded in 1930, as the Colombian section of the Comintern...
's youth wing in 1977. He later joined a support network for the FARC guerrilla group.
FARC membership
Luciano Marín Arango, adopting the alias "Iván Márquez", became a political commissarPolitical commissar
The political commissar is the supervisory political officer responsible for the political education and organisation, and loyalty to the government of the military...
for FARC's 14th Front in 1985.
Patriotic Union career
As a result of peace talks with the Colombian government, Marín Arango became part of the leftist Patriotic UnionPatriotic Union (Colombia)
The Patriotic Union or UP , was a leftist Colombian political party founded by the FARC and the Colombian Communist Party in 1985, as part of the peace negotiations that the guerrillas held with the Conservative Belisario Betancur administration...
(UP) party, coordinating the UP's activities in Department of Caqueta . Marín Arango first served as councilman and then as congressman in the Colombian Congress
Congress of Colombia
The Congress of the Republic of Colombia is the name given to Colombia's bicameral national legislature.The Congress of Colombia consists of the 102-seat Senate , and the 166-seat Chamber of Representatives ...
representing Caquetá.
The UP party was subjected to persecution by different paramilitary groups
Paramilitarism in Colombia
Paramilitarism in Colombia refers to the origins and activities of far right-wing paramilitary groups in Colombia during the 20th century.Right-wing paramilitary groups are the parties considered to be most responsible for human rights violations in Colombia during the later half of the current...
, drug lords and death squads that saw the party as a threat as the political branch of the FARC.
FARC commander
By 1988, Iván Márquez had left the UP and returned to FARC as block commander, overseeing activities in the departments of Huila, Caquetá and Putumayo.After the 1990 death of Jacobo Arenas
Jacobo Arenas
Jacobo Arenas was a Colombian guerrilla and ideological leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia . He was also one of the FARC figures involved in the organization and creation of the Patriotic Union political party in 1985...
, Márquez joined the Secretariat, the highest command of the organization. During the mid-1990s, he was transferred to Colombia's northwest in order to reorganize FARC forces after paramilitary attacks.
Recent documents obtained from the computer of slain FARC chieftain Ivan Rios revealed that he also led FARC's efforts to infiltrate universities and high schools. "Through the creation of two student federations, some academics and other secondary officials, and by the infiltration of already existing university movements" the FARC sought to penetrate centers of learning, [Colombian DAS intelligence director María del Pilar] Hurtado told Spanish news agency EFE. Colombian armed conflict
Colombian Armed Conflict
The Colombian armed conflict or Colombian Civil War are terms that are employed to refer to the current asymmetric low-intensity armed conflict in Colombia that has existed since approximately 1964 or 1966, between the Colombian government and peasant guerrillas such as the Revolutionary Armed...
.
FARC negotiator
Márquez was a FARC negotiator during the 1999-2002 failed peace process between the FARC and the government of Andrés Pastrana.Humanitarian exchange
In November 2007 Márquez was sent to VenezuelaVenezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
to meet with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez
Hugo Chávez
Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías is the 56th and current President of Venezuela, having held that position since 1999. He was formerly the leader of the Fifth Republic Movement political party from its foundation in 1997 until 2007, when he became the leader of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela...
. At the time, Chavez was mediating between the government of Colombia and the FARC to agree on a deal to liberate the hostages held by the FARC and the liberation of some 500 guerrillas imprisoned by the government of Colombia, after years of combats in the Colombian armed conflict
Colombian Armed Conflict
The Colombian armed conflict or Colombian Civil War are terms that are employed to refer to the current asymmetric low-intensity armed conflict in Colombia that has existed since approximately 1964 or 1966, between the Colombian government and peasant guerrillas such as the Revolutionary Armed...
.