Iván Márquez

Luciano Marín Arango (born 16 June 1955), better known as Iván Márquez, is a Colombian guerrilla leader, member of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), part of its secretariat higher command and advisor to the Northwestern and Caribbean blocs. He was part of the FARC negotiators that concluded a peace agreement with President Juan Manuel Santos. On 29 August 2019, Márquez abandoned the peace process and announced a renewed armed conflict with the Colombian government.

Early years Marín Arango was born in Florencia in 1955. He joined the Colombian Communist Youth (JUCO), the Colombian Communist Party's youth wing, in 1977. Between 1977 and 1979 Marín Arango (Marquez) was a teacher in biology at the school 'Corazón Inmaculado de María' in El Doncello, Caqueta. He was described as a calm disciplined teacher and requested from his students to talk for 15 minutes on the current problems of Colombia. In 1986 he became a member of the Colombian Parliament for UP, but in October 1987 he left Bogotá and went to Casa Verde in La Uribe on orders from the FARC leader Jacobo Arenas. According to El Tiempo, the presidential candidate of the UP Jaime Pardo Leal was murdered the same day, Márquez left Bogotá.

FARC membership Luciano Marín Arango, adopting the alias "Iván Márquez", became a political commissar for FARC's 14th Front in 1985.

FARC commander By 1988, Márquez had left the UP and returned to FARC as bloc commander, overseeing activities in the departments of Huila, Caquetá and Putumayo.

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 Venezuela to meet with President Hugo Chávez. At the time, Chávez 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 combat in the Colombian armed conflict.

Peace agreement Since 2012, Márquez took part in peace negotiations with the Government of Juan Manuel Santos in Havana, Cuba. In August 2016 he signed a peace agreement with the Colombian Government on behalf of the FARC.

Leader of the Segunda Marquetalia Márquez took up arms anew after his nephew was arrested and extradited to the United States. In 2019, he eventually appeared as the leader of the Segunda Marquetalia, a group of FARC dissidents. On 30 June 2022, an attack on Márquez life was made by a group suspected to be of the 'Gentil Duarte' front of the FARC dissidents. Márquez was accompanied by a security detail of about twenty militia members at the time of the attack in Caicara del Orinoco in Venezuela.

Reports of death Iván Márquez was reported dead in July 2022, by the Government of Iván Duque after an assassination attempt by a group of mercenaries in Venezuela. A few days later, the Segunda Marquetalia announced that Márquez was not dead but in a hospital. However, in August 2023, Marquez denied reports of his death in an audio recording. In 2024, the Government of Gustavo Petro stated that they were investigating the claim that he had died in Venezuela.

Personal life In the 1990s, his mother and sister were abducted by Colombian paramilitary forces, but were eventually released.