Ivan "the Terrible" Marino Ospina (16 April 1940-28 August 1985) was a Colombian guerrilla and co-founder of M-19.
Biography[]
Ivan Marino Ospina was born in Roldanillo, Valle del Cauca, Colombia in 1940. He studied history in college before joining socialist guerrillas in Venezuela. In 1970, he returned to Colombia to cofound M-19 with Jaime Bateman Cayon, and he became the group's second-in-command. A few days later, he was arrested in Cali and tortured in Bogota. Six months later, he escaped while disguised as a Colombian Army major. On Bateman's death in a plane crash in 1983, Ospina took command of M-19, and, in 1984, he negotiated a truce with President Belisario Betancur in Madrid. In December 1984, during a reunion in Mexico, he applauded the Medellin Cartel's threats to Americans living in Colombia, leading to Marino being deposed as M-19 leader and Alvaro Fayad taking command. He was killed in an army operation in Cali in August 1985; his home was besieged on the morning of 28 August, and he and his bodyguard were gunned down. His son Jorge Ivan Ospina and future Nariño governor Antonio Navarro Wolff were wounded during the shootout.