Miguel Botache Santillana, alias Gentil Duarte, the powerful leader of the guerrilla dissidents who, after demobilizing as part of the peace process with the FARC, failed to fulfill his commitments and resumed the weapons in mid-2016.
Time confirmed with sources on both sides of the border that the former guerrilla, who managed to be a representative of the FARC in Havana, was the target of an attack in his own camp.
It was learned that the former guerrilla sought the protection of Javier Alonso Veloza García, alias Jhon Mechas, designated head of the dissidents of the 33rd front and who is considered the author of the explosion of a device against a police headquarters in the south of Bogotá perpetrated at the end of March and that cost the lives of two minors.
According to sources, Jhon Mechas located him in a camp in Venezuela around 14 kilometers from the border line with Colombia. There, the former guerrilla stayed with a minor named Salomé, who would be his sentimental partner, and was protected by about 40 members of the dissidents.
That camp was infiltrated by unknown individuals in the early hours of Wednesday, May 4, and the area where the camp was located, where Gentil Duarte and Salomé were, exploded. This would have claimed the lives of both of them and other dissidents.
Time accessed exclusive photographs of the site of the explosion where the damage caused to the shack in which the former guerrilla slept can be seen.
The traditional cap that he wore all the time was found, as well as several of his personal items, clothing, toiletries, and a uniform badge with the initial SLS that would correspond to part of the alias Salomé uniform. In the photographic records, those elements burned by the explosion are observed, as well as the mattress and pillow of the ex-guerrilla’s resting place. The dissidents would have taken the body of the people killed in the explosion
This newspaper consulted high-ranking sources in Colombia who indicated that verifications of the facts are being carried out. However, the version known by El Tiempo coincides with the silence that has been detected in the communications that this illegal organization had traditionally been carrying out, in which the orders of the criminal network’s leader were transmitted.
hypotheses
In the face of the group responsible for the explosion in which Botache Santillana would have died, several hypotheses are woven, since it is not the first time that former Colombian guerrillas have died in the neighboring country, even in similar situations.
The Gentil Duarte dissidents wage a war for control of illegal income such as drug trafficking and illegal mining with Iván Márquez’s group that calls itself ‘Segunda Marquetalia’ and with the ELN. This confrontation takes place on both sides of the border and while in Colombia the three groups are persecuted by the authorities, in Venezuelan territory some of them have the protection of the Nicolás Maduro regime.
In fact, in March of last year, the Venezuelan authorities deployed a gigantic operation in the state of Apure against the FARC dissidents, which generated the massive displacement of thousands of people to Colombian territory.
The operation focused on hitting the partners and tokens of Iván Mordisco, who is part of Gentil Duarte’s group, who compete directly for control of the area with Iván Márquez’s group.
The war between the two dissidences and the ELN has been intensifying to the point that emissaries from drug cartels in Mexico have been known to try to seek mediation to stop the confrontation that affects the illegal business and the departure of the drug shipments to international markets.
According to official figures, some 1,100 men from the ELN, less than 200 from Iván Márquez and around 350 from Gentil Duarte, would be committing crimes in the neighboring country. They remain in constant confrontation.
It transpired that after the attack against the latter, Néstor Gregorio Vera Fernández, alias Iván Mordisco, the former head of the first front of the guerrilla who was the first member of the FARC who ignored the peace agreements and for whom the authorities offer a reward of more than two billion pesos.
Second Marquetalia lost 3 of its leaders
Last year, three members of the first line of command of the ‘Second Marquetalia’, of former guerrilla chief Ivan Marquez, were killed on Venezuelan territory.
In May 2021, former guerrilla fighter Seuxis Pausias Hernández Solarte, alias Jesús Santrich, died in the neighboring country, who left the peace process and was fleeing an extradition request from United States courts that requested him on drug trafficking charges.
The dissidents confirmed his death in a combat registered in the Venezuelan part of the Perijá mountain range, between the areas known as El Chalet and the Los Laureles village.
The version of the dissidents indicates that Santrich would have been attacked with rifle fire and artillery when he was traveling in a truck and that the group that carried out the action, supposedly, was picked up by a helicopter.
In December of the same year, the death of Henry Castellanos, alias Romaña, and Hernán Darío Velásquez, el Paisa, who were considered two of the most “bloody” leaders of the disappeared guerrilla, were known.
The two deaths occurred on the other side of the border, where the former guerrillas were hiding from persecution by authorities in Colombia.
El Paisa died along with his trusted man, alias Lulo, when they were returning to their camp. As he passed, explosives were activated, installed on the road, which destroyed his truck, causing his immediate death.
And ‘Romaña’ died in a confrontation with an armed group in what would have been another chapter in the war for territorial control in the neighboring country and the management of drug trafficking routes to the United States.
@JusticiaET / El Tiempo
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