Military structure of the FARC–EP

The Colombian Army claimed they were cleaning the last remnants of "bandolerism", a mob justice system for displacement of adversaries, developed in the 10-year struggle for power between the Conservative and Liberal parties, during La Violencia (The Violence).

This, of course, was opposed to the vision that the farmers had of themselves, as a demobilized Communist self-defense and guerrilla force, refugees from the government of Gustavo Rojas Pinilla, working in a peaceful community.

Following this attack, the scattered rebels reunited and eventually founded the FARC in 1966, establishing the beginnings of the internal structure and strategic outlook.

According to internal regulations, every member of the FARC–EP's military forces has to take a vow in which they formally assume the commitment of fighting to establish "social justice" in Colombia.

FARC members consider the necessary path to achieve this goal is through Marxism and Leninism, additionally influenced by the ideas of the Cuban Revolution and Che Guevara.

The three colors in the background are yellow, blue and red, common to the flags of Ecuador, Venezuela and Colombia in northern South America.

Towards the end of the period the group had settled in the Marquetalia area inside the Tolima department together with some of the fighters' family members, continuing to weapons and occasionally establishing a form of defensive perimeter.

The construction of a form of primitive "commune" was attempted in practice, trying to organize an autonomous settlement under collective Communist ideals, combining military concerns with daily activities.

Still, during the 1970s the FARC kept a low profile by staying inside its traditional heartland areas, while newer guerrilla groups, such as the 19th of April Movement, appeared and achieved a greater degree of national influence as well as a more active urban presence.

The Seventh Guerrilla Conference in 1982 represented a significant change in outlook, as the FARC changed its structure to better suit the needs of an ambitious rebel army (the initials -EP, Ejército del Pueblo, or "People's Army", were added to the group's name), for the purposes of increasing its recruitment and financing, as well for eventually achieving an international "status of belligerence" in its fight against the more numerous forces of the Colombian state's security apparatus.

For some of those analysts, an allegedly problematic aspect in Marulanda's profile concerns the fact that he has limited educational background, due to the poor economic conditions that his family and many others had to face when growing up in rural Colombia.

In theory, a properly organized and trained guerrilla army would thus meet the international requirements for the recognition of a "state of belligerence", contained within the Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949 and its additional protocols.

[1] Their opponents and the Colombian government claim that the practice of civilian kidnapping for ransom and the tax levied on coca crop buyers makes it an illegitimate army and point to a wide rejection of the guerrilla policies in national surveys.

According to the FARC's military operational strategies, which take into account factors such as the size of the area and its population, each block is composed of between 5 and 15 of fronts.

At the beginning of the FARC's military campaign in 1964 they employed a diverse assembly of weaponry, most of it captured or bought from individual sellers, and this generally continued to be the case.

[2] Colombian and regional authorities believe that the FARC has bought possibly greater quantities of such weapons from black market dealers in Peru and Central America, as well as corrupt military officials.

However, this weapon is considered to be extremely hard to aim with a decent degree of accuracy, causing a large quantity of collateral damage and many potential civilian casualties.

Human rights organizations, the Catholic Church and the United Nations have repeatedly demanded that the FARC abandon its use of this particular weapon, which they condemn.

Low income Latin American women, while culturally belonging to the same Western civilization, often do not have the opportunity to continue their studies up to higher education due to poverty and unemployment.

Some poor Latin American women are involved in illegal activities such as prostitution and gang criminality from their childhood, in order to support themselves and their families.

However, lately, there have been reports of combatants abandoning their ranks, who complain of cases of AIDS, as boredom and lack of goals in the jungle has led them to decadence and low spirits.

In a situation considered to be similar to that of the Iron Triangle in Vietnam, communist families can be established throughout the regions of Colombia where the FARC has semi-permanent bases.

Critics point to a development of a "Nordic capitalist society" in which the families related to FARC reap all the benefits that could be achieved in the middle of a modern armed conflict, and that circumstance perpetuate the state of low intensity war transforming it into a viable economic enterprise.

After experiencing a decade of warfare with an increasingly higher profile, the FARC needed another conference to establish a more sophisticated military plan for its future operations.

The FARC identified several difficulties that made the situation increasingly complex due to the growing threat of the enemy, and decided to take a step forward in a different form, through maintaining a policy of advanced military training.

The survival of the FARC–EP's Eastern and Southern blocks, when faced an 18,000 strong Colombian Army force supported by UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, can be considered to depend on the operations of such military intelligence units.

The training of the members of military intelligence units is difficult as it takes more time for them to learn to adapt to the necessary aspects of modern warfare.

After 1982 establishment of the FARC training school for these intelligence fighters, their main role is to take part in recon operations, gathering data from guerrillas and their informants, useful for the purposes of developing tactical and strategic military plans.

FARC operatives that participate in these units usually are also intellectuals which can concentrate in studying military science, as another part of their service is to introduce newer weapons to the guerrilla group.

In a March 2006 United States Department of Justice indictment, $5 million US dollars were offered for information leading to the capture of 47 key FARC figures that remain at large, including the members of the Secretariat.