History of FARC
[6][7] There is more repression of individual freedom here than in any country we've been to, the police patrol the streets carrying rifles and demand your papers every few minutes ... the atmosphere here is tense, and it seems a revolution may be brewing.
[10] In 1958, Liberal and Conservative party elites, together with Church and business leaders negotiated an agreement that created an exclusively bipartisan political alternation system, known as the National Front.
[11][12] This enabled a consolidation of power amongst Colombian Conservative and Liberal elites, while simultaneously strengthening the military and preventing radical political alternatives and popular reforms.
A very large number of small landholders were pushed off of their land, and forced to migrate to urban centers, where they formed a cheap labor pool for the burgeoning industrial economy in the Colombian cities.
[20] Much of this land was consolidated in the hands of urban industrialists—which had seen marked increases in profits due to the influx of landless, displaced peasants, willing to work for very low wages—and cattle ranchers.
[21] Malnutrition and lack of basic medical care were almost universal amongst rural workers in the early 1960s, leading to extremely high rates of preventable disease and infant mortality.
The Lleras government attempted unsuccessfully to attack the communities to drive out the guerrillas, due to fears that "a Cuban-style revolutionary situation might develop".
[27] In October 1959, the United States sent a "Special Survey Team" composed of counterinsurgency experts to investigate Colombia's internal security situation.
Among other policy recommendations the US team advised that "in order to shield the interests of both Colombian and US authorities against 'interventionist' charges any special aid given for internal security was to be sterile and covert in nature.
[28] In a secret supplement to his report to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Yarborough encouraged the creation and deployment of a paramilitary force to commit sabotage and terrorist acts against communists: A concerted country team effort should be made now to select civilian and military personnel for clandestine training in resistance operations in case they are needed later.
This structure should be used to pressure toward reforms known to be needed, perform counter-agent and counter-propaganda functions and as necessary execute paramilitary, sabotage and/or terrorist activities against known communist proponents.
[26][31][32] Doug Stokes argues that it was not until the early part of the 1980s that the Colombian government attempted to move away from the counterinsurgency strategy represented by Plan Lazo and Yarborough's 1962 recommendations.
"[43] Third, the report determined that the DEA "has no evidence that the FARC or ELN have been involved in the transportation, distribution, or marketing of illegal drugs in the United States.
Before the break off of dialogue, a letter written by a group of Colombian intellectuals (among whom were Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez) to the Simón Bolívar Guerrilla Coordinating Board was released denouncing the approach taken by the FARC–EP and the dire consequences that it was having for the country.
In March 1998, in southern Caquetá, with the help of local sympathizers and informants, FARC–EP forces annihilated an elite Colombian army unit, the 52nd counterguerrilla battalion of the 3rd Mobile Brigade.
[citation needed] After a series of high-profile guerrilla terrorist actions, including the hijacking of an aircraft, the attack on several small towns and cities, the arrest of the Irish Colombia Three (see below), the alleged training of FARC–EP militants in bomb making by them, and the kidnapping of several political figures, Pastrana ended the peace talks on February 21, 2002, and ordered the armed forces to start retaking the FARC–EP controlled zone, beginning at midnight.
A 48-hour respite that had been previously agreed to with the rebel group was not respected as the government argued that it had already been granted during an earlier crisis in January, when most of the more prominent FARC–EP commanders had apparently left the demilitarized zone.
[58] Shortly after the end of talks, the FARC–EP kidnapped Oxygen Green Party presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, who was traveling in guerrilla territory.
[59] The IRA/FARC–EP connection was first made public on August 11, 2001, following the arrest in Bogotá of two IRA explosives and urban warfare experts and of a representative of Sinn Féin who was known to be stationed in Cuba.
The Colombian authorities had received satellite footage, probably supplied by the CIA, of the men with FARC–EP in an isolated jungle area, where they are thought to have spent the last five weeks.
[62] Tánaiste Mary Harney said no deal had been done with Sinn Féin or the IRA over the three's return to Ireland adding that the Irish government would consider any request from the Colombian authorities for their extradition.
For most of the period between 2002 and 2005, the FARC–EP was believed to be in a strategic withdrawal due to the increasing military and police actions of new president Álvaro Uribe, which led to the capture or desertion of many fighters and medium-level commanders.
[63] In 2002 and 2003, FARC broke up ten large ranches in Meta, an eastern Colombian province, and distributed the land to local subsistence farmers.
and had his throat slit while FARC was fleeing from government military forces[83][84] Notable escapes and raids include: Fernando Araújo, who was later named Minister of Foreign Relations and formerly Development Minister, and who escaped his captors on December 31, 2006;[85] the escape of Colombian Conservative Party congressman Óscar Tulio Lizcano, on October 26, 2008;[86] a July 2, 2008, Colombian military operation called Operation Jaque, where the FARC–EP was tricked by the Colombian Government into releasing 15 hostages to Colombian Intelligence agents disguised as journalists and international aid workers in a helicopter rescue; the June 13, 2010, raid which released Police Colonel Luis Herlindo Mendieta Ovalle, Police Captain Enrique Murillo Sanchez, Police Lieutenante William Donato Gomez and Army Staff Sergeant Arbey Delgado Argote.
[68] Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez urged European and Latin American governments on January 11, 2008, to stop branding Colombia's guerrillas as terrorists, a day after welcoming two hostages released by the rebels.
Álvaro Uribe later issued a statement saying the insurgents are indeed terrorists who fund their operations with cocaine smuggling, recruit children and plant land mines in their effort to topple a democratically elected government.
Morales, along with other young professionals created a Facebook group called "Million Voices against the FARC", which quickly gained over 200,000 members from around the world.
[96] Shortly before the rallies took place thirteen demobilized AUC paramilitary leaders, including Salvatore Mancuso, had expressed their support of the protest through a communique.
[98] Others said that right-wing paramilitary leaders played a role organizing the protests, businesses and government offices shut down for the day, bosses pressured workers to attend the gatherings and the mass media gave free advertising to the mobilization.
[101] The opposition Alternative Democratic Pole (Polo Democrático Alternativo) party leadership voted 18 to 3 against participating in the main protest, rejecting an initial proposal by Senator Gustavo Petro, but unanimously accepted his subsequent request to hold a separate rally on the same date with the support of labor unions and human rights organizations.
