Former FARC commander Iván Márquez said that "it was a mistake to have handed over the weapons":

Former FARC commander and former peace negotiator Iván Márquez, whose whereabouts have not been known since August 2018, sent a letter rejecting the resumption of former guerrilla fighter Jesus Santrich and claiming that "this is the only way to go back. was a mistake to have made the weapons ". His colleagues in the political party of the late insurgency criticized his actions and rejected his statement.

Along with other former commanders of the old guerrillas, Márquez left Bogotá after Santrich was captured for drug trafficking, alleging political persecution and a risk to his safety. Since then, even his FARC party colleagues do not know where he is.

For this reason, he anonymously published a letter to reintegrating ex-combatants in which he claimed that handing over arms to a "mafia state" was a "serious mistake". This, in protest at the resumption of Jesus Santrich last Friday, which, after being released on the order of the Special Court for Peace (JEP), was conducted in a bunker of the prosecutor's office.

Santrich is accused of attending a meeting with members of the Mexican cartel in Sinaloa during which the shipment of 10 tons of cocaine was negotiated in the United States and in which a DEA officer was been infiltrated. For this reason, he was asked for extradition. However, the CEP established that there was no conclusive evidence to establish that the crime was committed after the signing of the peace in December 2016.

All ex-combatants who reoffend after the signing of the agreement will be brought before ordinary courts and will lose the benefits of the CEP so that they can be extradited. However, the PEC concluded that the case of Santrich could not determine whether it had occurred before or after that date and ordered his release. Despite this, the Office of the Prosecutor claims to have other evidence, which is why it took them back.

"Comrades of ETCR (territorial spaces of formation and reincorporation): on behalf of the military commanders of the former central staff of the FARC, commanders of fronts and columns affected by the violation by the IAF. State of the Havana Peace Agreement, We have self-critically reiterated that it was a grave mistake to have confided the weapons to an unfaithful state, confident in the good faith of its counterpart, how much we were naive about not remembering the wise words of our commander-in-chief, Manuel Marulanda Vélez, who had warned us that weapons were the only guarantee of compliance with the agreements.The sad reality is that they put us in rabbits ", explains Marquez in his letter.

He urged President Ivan Duque to end the media campaign against the peace agreement, to implement it and to respect the division of powers. "It is time to make our voices heard against the human meanness led by Uribism and the US Embbady against the dream of peace," he writes in this letter, claiming that the resumption of his friend Santrich is illegal.

"No Colombian needs to be a lawyer to understand that no drug addict says – as it happened with Santrich – can not be legal. "was an illegality, an abuse of authority.The former Attorney General must respond (Néstor Humberto Martínez) and even the doctors who have lent themselves to this creeping infamy," said Márquez.

In this regard, the FARC (Alternative Common Revolutionary Force) party rejected the fact that Iván Márquez did not "put his face" in front of society with his critics and remained hidden. And they reiterated their commitment to the fight for the implementation of the agreements and the CEP.

"He makes statements without being here, ahead, leading as he would the process of the struggle for implementation, trying to add wills. (…) The difficult thing, that is. is to be there to make face and face the risks of peace building, "he told the news CM & Julián Gallo Cubillos, aka "Carlos Antonio Lozada".