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Colombian high court withdraws ex-rebel’s parliament seat
BOGOTA, June 15, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – A Colombian high court on Friday
withdrew the parliament seat for a former left-wing guerrilla leader who
never assumed office after negotiating the country’s historic peace deal.
Ivan Marquez renounced his seat 11 months ago and went into hiding,
claiming the 2016 peace deal that ended more than a half century of conflict
was being “disfigured.”
The State Council, the highest administrative court in Colombia, said it
was stripping Marquez of his seat because he never took office and didn’t
provide “just cause” for the move, court president Lucy Bermudez told
journalists.
When the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) gave up their arms
and signed a deal with then-president Juan Manuel Santos, they formed a
communist political party that goes by the same acronym and were guaranteed
10 seats in Congress.
Marquez gave three reasons last July for his decision not to take up his
seat, one being the arrest three months earlier of a fellow former rebel
leader, Jesus Santrich.
The blind Santrich is wanted by the United States on charges of drug
trafficking but was released from detention on May 31 following a Supreme
Court order.
He was sworn in as a member of Colombia’s Congress on Tuesday.
Marquez has previously complained that changes have been made to the peace
agreement that were a “betrayal,” and lamented the fact that the FARC handed
over its weapons “without the prior implementation of the economic and social
re-integration of the guerrillas.”
Former State Council president Gustavo Gomez told AFP that the withdrawal
of Marquez’s seat amounted to his “political death.”
Marquez responded on Twitter saying: “As long as I’m breathing, I will
always have a political life.”
High court judges will now decide whether the withdrawal of Marquez’s spot
means the FARC political party loses one of its Congress seats, or whether it
can propose a substitute.
BSS/AFP/SSS/0918 hrs