BOGOTÁ (AFP) – A former senior commander of Colombia’s now-defunct FARC guerrilla group, who was rumoured to be dead, appeared in a video released on Saturday expressing his support for government proposals to start talks.
Ivan Marquez, then the second-in-command of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), helped negotiate a key 2016 peace deal but took up arms again in 2019.
He leads a FARC faction known as Segunda Marquetalia which, according to military intelligence, has around 1,600 members. Colombian media speculated in July about his death after an attack in Venezuela in 2022 but the government dismissed the rumours.
Police announced in March that he was in Colombia.
Marquez can be seen wearing a T-shirt and glasses in an excerpt of the 16-minute video published by El Pais newspaper on Saturday.
