Truth Commission asserts that Jesus Santrich was urged by the DEA to leave the peace agreement

Madrid, 22 (European press)

The Colombian Truth Commission has confirmed that the late leader of the disappeared FARC, Seuxes Bosías Hernández, nicknamed “Jesus Santrich”, was “incited” by the United States Drug Enforcement Agency and the Attorney General’s Office to commit crimes and then leave peace agreements, as he did in 2019 With other notable fighters to form the ‘Marquetalia II’ defection.

In its report titled “Obstacles to Continuing Peace Operations in Colombia,” which was announced last week, the Truth Commission asserted that the operation was designed by the Drug Enforcement Administration, and that it was carried out in cooperation with one of them, retired Colonel Gustavo Calvace Prado. He is the nephew of “Jesus Santrich” Marlon Marlon.

The aim was to exploit the differences between the current Secretary-General of the Commons, Rodrigo Londono, nicknamed “Temoshenko”, and Luciano Marin Arango, nicknamed “Ivan Marques”, on how to reach peace agreements with the government of Juan Manuel Santos in Havana. .

When he was an MP, “Jesus Santrich” was arrested in April 2018 for drug trafficking, although he was released a month later. However, in August, he and other guerrilla leaders announced that he would return to the path of arms.

This arrest, according to the report echoed by Cambio magazine, “unleashed a new cycle of violence and jeopardized the implementation of the peace agreement. At the same time, it pushed hundreds of former militants to return to arms and sent a message to the public that the peace agreement had failed.”

Among these ex-combatants was Evan Marquez, who had been a DEA target since before 2016, and with whom he founded Segunda Marquetalia, a guerrilla defector still operating in Colombia.

The commission explains the legal repercussions of the arrest of “Jesus Santrich” on the Special Judicial Authority for Peace (JEP), the tribunal that emerged from agreements to investigate those involved in the conflict, with transcripts showing some of the phone calls from the then Attorney General, Nestor Humberto Martinez, who authorized the use of cocaine to carry out a preparation that would lead to the arrest of the former commando.

In this sense, the report also publishes a letter from 2017 in which Senator Evan Cepeda warns that some ex-combatants are “subject to technical surveillance and interception” by a special group of the Attorney General’s Office, coordinated by the Drug Enforcement Administration, “whose task is to collect evidence to link it to drug trafficking activity.”

The letter, which specifies that said private group has “full operational autonomy,” says they “are likely to conduct assemblies to associate them with organized crime behaviors and conspiracy to commit crimes,” and “immunity and protection from the United States.” It was directed by Mauricio Nieto, brother of the then Director of the National Police, Jorge Hernando Nieto.

In May 2021, FARC defectors confirmed the killing of “Jesus Santrich” after the Colombian army’s incursion into the Venezuelan part of Serrania del Pereja.