Guerrilla leader Iván Márquez Petro resurfaces with a video in support of the Constituent Assembly after being declared dead

He was considered dead and buried. It was later thought that he lost one eye, one hand, and mobility of the right side of his body. No one knew for sure what happened to guerrilla leader Iván Márquez after he was brutally attacked at a camp in the middle of the jungle in July 2022. A year later it was reported that he had died and that his body was on its way to his hometown, where a gravedigger was waiting for him with a pick and shovel. Those who consider him a terrorist and not a leftist fighter celebrated that his time had come, but he acted hastily. A few days later, the other Marquetalia, a dissident of the extinct FARC, of ​​which he is the leader, assured that he was alive, that he had been raised like Lazarus. Marquez was returning to a non-place, to the mist. That mystery lives on to this day, with Márquez reappearing in a recorded video in which he offers his support for the Constituent Assembly proposed by President Gustavo Petro and which has deeply troubled Colombian society.

“We protect the rights of ordinary people to health, employment and housing. There will be no privatization of public services, which has today become a dirty business of national and foreign companies. We are going to save the glory of the primary component, which is the people. He is the legitimate authority. All state institutions will have to follow his wishes. It must never be forgotten that the sovereign is the people, and the rights of the people prevail over the wealth ambitions of oligarchs and transnational corporations,” Marquez says in the video, which runs for 16 minutes and is superimposed with images of Petro. Simón Bolívar and Manuel Marulanda Vélez, pseudonym sure shotFounder of FARC.

The deliberate removal of Timoshenko, the guerrilla’s last commander, led to a deal with President Juan Manuel Santos in 2016 that led to the removal of 13,000 fighters. Márquez, who became neither more nor less the chief negotiator in the process that took place in Havana, reneged on what had been agreed and returned to arms. For them, Timoshenko is nothing more than a traitor. Marquez did not even hold office as a senator. Instead, he took to the mountains and announced in a video that he would try to seize power through rifles, as the FARC had always envisioned. When Petro was named president, he said he would initiate a series of processes simultaneously with all armed groups in the country – known as Total Peace – but Marquez’s second Marquetalia did not benefit from those gains. Could be found because they were fugitives from the previous process. Marquez was vetoed out of negotiations.

However, with the passage of time the government has decided to include this guerrilla in peace talks. And, given the message Iván Márquez has delivered, the reconciliation with Petro is complete. In serious problems in negotiations with the ELN, Petro tries to save total peace with this agreement which also has a great impact on the public. Márquez has strongly defended Petro: he supports him in reforms, especially in health, in the idea of ​​implementing a Constituent Assembly, in the fight against climate change and in almost all the issues of the President, no less. In the video, Marquez appears somewhat hesitant: he reads the speech to his left and sometimes has problems with pronunciation. It’s mahogany in color and you can see the results of the attack on his face and one of his eyes.

The video broadcast took place in a small coliseum in Puerto Carreño, the capital of the Vichada Department, during the Binational Peace Forum, an event organized by the Departmental Assembly. After speeches by the municipality’s mayor, Jaime Rodríguez, and the governor of neighboring Vaupés, Luis Alfredo Gutiérrez, the recording was projected on a screen located on one side. The first to see him were the 350 attendees, mostly farmers from the area, who ate empanadas and juice distributed by the event staff while Márquez spoke and confirmed his survival. It was real: it was alive and well.

When the video was played and caught the attention of those present at Vichada, a group of six soldiers who were part of the stage turned their backs towards the screen with an unfriendly expression. Senator Gloria Florez, the only congresswoman attending on behalf of the ruling party, said the video took her by surprise. “I found out a few minutes ago. He didn’t know”. On the stage, microphone in hand, Marie Luz Herrán, President Petro’s former wife and national coordinator of his party Colombia Humana, celebrated Márquez’s words and did not miss the opportunity to condemn the actions of the previous administration. “We must remember that they had to return to the mountains because it was not possible to (make peace) with the Duque government and they started killing them. I thank Iván Márquez for coming here and showing this through that video. I salute that it is possible to talk about peace.

Follow all the information from El PAÍS America Facebook And xor in our weekly newspaper,