Manuel Belisario Suárez y Vargas (1833–1910) was a Peruvian colonel and politician that was notable for serving in several battles of the War of the Pacific as well as holding several offices within the Congress of the Republic of Peru.

Suárez was at a crossroads, since the Supreme Director of the War, General Mariano Ignacio Prado, had issued precise orders before the landing and these were to concentrate the allied troops and once the terrain had been chosen, launch them into a single decisive battle.

And he was also Chief of Staff of the Southern Allied Army, when at the end of that November 2, 1879, Pisagua changed ownership and received the last message from Major General Juan Buendía: Good Suárez, Clothing, boots, highway, girdle, how much Iquique's costume has been lost in the fire; If I am in bad luck, Dancourt will take care of my luggage and deliver it as is, to my family.In the march through the dreaded Tamarugal towards San Francisco, Colonel Belisario Suárez commanded the Second Division, made up of Colonel Velarde's First Division and the Villamil Division (Bolivian), apart from twelve guns with the Chief of Artillery, Castañón.

On this journey to San Francisco, Suárez attacked the Chilean cavalry of Captain Barahona which had decimated the Peruvian horsemen of the Húsares de Junín Regiment commanded by José Buenaventura Sepúlveda and had abandoned them in the desert to serve as food for the vultures; Of this squad of Peruvian hussars, only the Chincha soldier Tarsilio Ramírez survived but sustained serious wounds.

Frankly inconceivable, Señor Cáceres [4] During the Battle of San Francisco, the Peruvian cavalry, under the command of Colonel Ramírez, had chopped spurs towards Arica and the nearly four thousand Bolivians from the "Olañeta" and the "Illimani" divisions in the Allied Army of the South, abandoned the battlefield back to Oruro, Bolivia, with "leaving scattered accessories, ammunition, and good rhemingtons on the pampas".

For the second time, since the Chilean invasion of Peruvian territory began until the Battle of San Francisco, Colonel Belisario Suárez was in command of the Army of the South, in the absence of General Juan Buendía.

On November 27, 1879, at the Battle of Tarapacá, the then Chief of the General Staff of the Army of the South, Colonel Belisario Suárez, imposed his authority and his coherent orders against the contradictory orders of General Juan Buendía, to organize the withering Peruvian counterattack, which the civil guard Mariano de los Santos fully fulfills until he snatches from a Chilean, the banner that was the pride of the Zouaves.