BOGOTA, Colombia — Colombia’s Defense Ministry said Saturday that it has information that the legendary leader of Latin America’s largest guerrilla army is dead.
In a statement, the ministry said, “we have learned through different military intelligence sources” that the commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, Manuel “Sureshot” Marulanda, died March 26.
“We know that inside the FARC, the version is that he died of natural causes, specifically from a heart attack,” the ministry said.
Marulanda was thought to be about 80.
First word of Marulanda’s possible death came earlier Saturday when the newsmagazine Semana quoted Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos as saying he had information that Marulanda died in the guerrillas’ southern Colombian stronghold at the time of three bombing raids.
“Whether the death of Marulanda came in a bombardment or from natural causes, this would be the most serious blow this terrorist group has suffered,” the Defense Ministry statement said.
In the Semana interview, Santos said that the government had been told of the rebel leader’s death from a “source who has never failed us.”
A senior defense official told The Associated Press that the military’s main intelligence source is human and that communications intercepts support the claim — but he cautioned that Marulanda’s actual death remains to be confirmed. The official, who was not authorized to discuss the issue, spoke on condition of anonymity.
Marulanda, whose real name is Pedro Antonio Marin, has led the peasant-based FARC since its founding in 1964. Colombia’s government has announced his death various times over the past 15 years, but each time proof that he was alive cropped up months later.
Manuel Marulanda
Youth: A farmer’s son with a sixth-grade education, Marulanda took up arms in 1949 after Conservative Party henchmen began slaughtering supporters of the peasant-backed Liberal Party.
The FARC: Marulanda co-founded the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, in 1964, after government troops overran the agrarian enclave he and other communist refugees called home. It would grow into a 15,000-strong guerrilla army.
Sureshot: He earned the nickname “Tirofijo,” or “Sureshot,” for his skill with a rifle in ambushing army patrols.
Failed peace talks: Marulanda gained international fame when the government withdrew troops from a Switzerland-size swath of southern Colombia in late 1998 for peace talks. The negotiations collapsed in February 2002.
