Manuel Pérez (guerrilla leader)

Gregorio Manuel Pérez Martínez ( born May 9, 1943 in Alfamén, Zaragoza, Spain; † 14 February 1998 in Colombia) was a Spanish guerrilla leaders in Colombia.

Biography

Pérez Martínez, who was originally a Spanish national, first studied Catholic theology and was after his ordination in 1966 as worker priests in France worked before he worked as a priest in Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Colombia. For all three countries, it was reported in each of the governments after they checked his work with workers and the poor.

In 1968 he came to Colombia, where he worked in the Caribbean port city of Cartagena as a preacher in the slums. There he came in contact with several priests of liberation theology, and was particularly inspired by Father Camilo Torres, a courageous religious and political leaders, the 1966, the guerilla movement Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN ) joined, and shortly thereafter on February 15, 1966 in combat with government forces was killed.

In 1969, he returned shortly after being deported back to Colombia illegally and began after contact with the two priests and later leaders of the ELN Domingo Laín Sáenz and José Antonio Jiménez Comín life as a guerrilla fighter. After the beginning of its armed struggle he was excommunicated, but carried the fight name Padre Cura Pérez Pérez and El.

From 1982 until his death from hepatitis in hiding in the jungle, he was leader of the ELN.