Seuxis Pausias Hernández Solarte, aka Jesús Santrich (31 July 1967 – 17 May 2021) was a guerrilla leader of

Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People's Army ( es, link=no, Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de ColombiaEjército del Pueblo, FARC–EP or FARC) is a Marxist–Leninist guerrilla group involved in the continuing Colombian confl ...

–People's Army (FARC–EP). He was a member of the

Chamber of Representatives of Colombia The Chamber of Representatives (Spanish: ''Cámara de Representantes'') is the lower house of the Congress of Colombia. It has 172 members elected to four-year terms. Electoral system According to the Colombian Constitution, the Chamber of Re ...

until August 2019 and was the FARC's delegate in the

Colombian peace process The Colombian peace process is the peace process between the Colombian government of President Juan Manuel Santos and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC–EP) to bring an end to the Colombian conflict, which eventually led to t ...

Havana Havana (; Spanish: ''La Habana'' ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of the La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.

Life

He was a member of a Communist youth organization as a teenager and studied Social Sciences at the University of Atlántico. He was a wanted by US Government on allegations of drug trafficking, carried out six months after the peace process. A

Truth Commission A truth commission, also known as a truth and reconciliation commission or truth and justice commission, is an official body tasked with discovering and revealing past wrongdoing by a government (or, depending on the circumstances, non-state act ...

report released in 2022 showed that the charges against Jesús Santrich and his arrest were a plot by the

DEA The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA; ) is a United States federal law enforcement agency under the U.S. Department of Justice tasked with combating drug trafficking and distribution within the U.S. It is the lead agency for domestic en ...

and Colombian Attorney General Néstor Humberto Martínez to jeopardize the

colombian peace process The Colombian peace process is the peace process between the Colombian government of President Juan Manuel Santos and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC–EP) to bring an end to the Colombian conflict, which eventually led to t ...

, incite the FARC to take up arms again, and send a message to the public that the peace agreement had failed.

Death

Santrich was assassinated on 17 May 2021 during a shooting in

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

. Five other people died in the incident. Following his death several versions were put forward by the media on who was responsible, with some blaming mercenaries, the

Venezuelan National Guard The Bolivarian National Guard of Venezuela ( es, Guardia Nacional Bolivariana de Venezuela - GNB), is one of the four components of the National Armed Forces of Venezuela. The national guard can serve as gendarmerie, perform civil defense roles, ...

and the FARC blaming Colombian commandos illegally operating in Venezuela.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Santrich, Jesús Members of FARC 1967 births 2021 deaths Members of the Chamber of Representatives of Colombia Deaths by firearm in Venezuela