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Colombian ambassador to Mexico, José Gabriel Ortiz, just declared in Mexico City that the writer's remains might be "divided" between Mexico and Colombia. An act, we think, of cruelty. But Colombians are good at that, it seems.

 "In Mexico, of course, one part of him will remain, and it's thought that they can take another part to Colombia ... and that some of his ashes will remain there," said Ortiz, in a quote from McClatchy News Service.

 The sad paradox is that García Marquez, who back in the 1980s had nightmares of being tortured by the government of his own country will, in death, be subject to the victimizers he feared the most: The people in uniform (or not) in charge of "preserving law and order" in what is known as the oldest democracy in Latin America — the country of Colombia.

 The two governments may well initiate a dispute to split in two parts (or more) the innocent ashes of the Nobel Prize Winner, sparking a quarrel that might yet become another chapter in the Macondo sequel — surrealistic enough to make some cry and others smile — unless his widow, Mercedes Barcha de García Marquez, finally breaks her dignified silence and tells both the President of Colombia and Mexico to, please, stop. Especially the president of Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos, who 33 years ago was part of the junior staff of the influential daily EL TIEMPO, owned (at the time) by his family in Bogotá, Colombia.

 That same daily, as influential in Colombia as the New York Times is in the United States, utilized powerful ammunition against García Márquez in 1981, in an attempt to ruin his reputation and crush his will (or so they believed) when the writer, fearing imprisonment by the Colombian military, took a bold step and sought asylum in the Embassy of Mexico in Bogotá.

 This episode took place exactly 33 years ago. In other words, nobody remembers.

 "What a privilege it is to call my compatriot the man who imagined 'Macondo' and who wrote about the power of love,"  Santos announced publicly this week in Mexico City while attending García Márquez's funeral on Monday night.

 One hopes the words are sincere.

 But knowing the history behind them, faith in that sincerity is hard.

 As somebody put it, "to tell the truth is hard."

 But it is way harder not to tell it.

 The full story: When García Márquez was forced into exile

 The date was March the 28, 1981. He was about to launch his new book, "Crónica de una Muerte Anunciada" (Chronicle of a Death Fortold) and he was in Bogotá for the occasion.

 It was the first book by García Márquez to be published in his own country, after achieving fame and fortune overseas, in a self-imposed exile.

He wanted to return to publish in Colombia, his homeland, using Colombian labor, and "even paper made in Colombia," as he put it. It was meant to be a glorious return to his own country after an absence of several decades.

 He lived in Mexico City, and had a house in Barcelona, Spain, but he wanted to live in his new apartment "al Norte de Bogotá," the city where he lived when he was a cub reporter in EL ESPECTADOR in the 1950s — a daily that competed with the more powerful EL TIEMPO, owned by the Santos family.

 It was at that Bogotá apartment that the writer was tipped off that the Colombian military was going to arrest him and take him in for interrogation  as a suspected "collaborator with Colombian guerrillas," specifically the M-19 armed movement.

The military had recently seized a shipment of weapons destined for the guerillas — allegedly coming from Cuba — and García Márquez, a known friend of Fidel Castro's immediately became a suspect.

Interrogation in Colombia at that time, was conducted by the military justice system, which prevailed over the civil courts in matters of "national security," and had the right to arrest and keep a person incommunicado for up to 10 days. 

Allegations of torture, kidnappings and disappearances pointed to the government and its armed forces.

"No me hizo mucha gracia" (it didn't amuse me), García Márquez said about making up his mind in about a minute, and by the next he was walking out his door to sleep that same evening under the roof of the Embassy of Mexico in Bogotá, an emergency refuge in his own country.

The political class in Colombia didn't forgive him. Certainly not the Santos family — Hernando, Rafael, Enriquito, "Pachito" (Francisco, former vicepresident of Colombia), and Juan Manuel (current president of Colombia) — who were still running the powerful EL TIEMPO.

Rafael Santos penned a column against the writer for having staged such a "cantinflesca" and "ridiculous" and "propagandistic action" to create sales for his new novel, while fulfilling its main objective which he said was to "tarnish the prestige of Colombia and its government." (Which, had, at that time already being accused of systematic torture and human rights violations by international organizations.)

García Márquez left in shame, kicked by his "compatriotas," the same ones who now publically mourn his death in exile.

Those same compatriots, with all the country's political class on board  — including President Juan Manuel Santos, who will be running for reelection next month — will host a ceremony memorializing "Gabo" at the Catholic Cathedral in that country's capital, Bogotá.

"The ceremony will be televised," McClatchy News Service reported, without offering the context and background that makes this a final — and absurdly ironic — chapter in Gabriel García Márquez's tale.