According to the December 19, 1830 "Gaceta de Colombia", Issue No. 495, a power-hungry, ambitious General Obando paid an assassin to kill Sucre by falsely informing the assassin that Sucre was a traitor and had to be stopped because Sucre's intentions were to go to Quito and separate the Department of Cauca and the three southern departments of Colombia and unite them with Peru. In reality, Sucre, a protégé of Bolívar, was going to Quito to stop the separation of the District of Ecuador from the Gran Colombia and to retire as soon as possible in Quito to live a quiet life with his wife. Some have argued that Sucre was ordered assassinated by General Obando so as to leave no clear successor to Bolívar in the Gran Colombia. Before his death, Bolívar believed Sucre to be the only man who could have reunited the Gran Colombia; however, Bolívar's generals and the majority of the politicians running the separate departments of the Gran Colombia had other selfish and ambitious plans. Sucre represented, according to historian Tomás Polanco Alcántara, "the indispensable complement to Simón Bolívar". Upon hearing the news of Sucre's death, Bolívar said, "Se ha derramado, Dios excelso, la sangre del inocente Abel..." ("The blood of the innocent Abel has been spilled, oh, Most High God..."). Bolívar later wrote ("Gaceta de Colombia", July 4, 1830):