Video of rebel commander Marquez is a real Colombian government

A video released this weekend of Colombian rebel commander Ivan Marquez, who reportedly died last year, is real, Defense Minister Ivan Velasquez said on Tuesday. Marquez, the high-profile leader of a faction of former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels who returned to arms after rejecting a peace deal with the Colombian government in 2016, is believed to have died in Venezuela.

There were questions about the authenticity of the video, released on Saturday, in which Marquez appears to support the creation of a legislative body to weigh changes to the Colombian constitution and discusses South American revolutionary hero Simon Bolivar. “What I was told by the intelligence services is that the video is real,” Velasquez told journalists, adding that it was not known where the video was shot but that Marquez operates in the border areas with Venezuela.

Marquez was injured in an attack in June 2022, sources had previously told Reuters, and was treated at a hospital in Venezuela’s capital Caracas. Marquez, whose real name is Luciano Marin Arango, was one of the negotiators of the 2016 deal but left it after his cousin was arrested and sent to the United States.

He later reemerged as leader of the so-called Segunda Marquetalia, a group of former FARC that has rearmed itself. The government said in February it would begin

new peace talks with Segunda Marquetalia, but formal talks have not yet taken place.

Several major former FARC leaders who rejected the 2016 deal have been assassinated in recent years, including in Venezuela.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)