TERRORIST GROUP PROFILE GROUP PROFILE:
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – Ejercito del pueblo - FARC)
History and Motivation:
The FARC is a left-wing revolutionary militant group operating in Colombia. It is designated as a terrorist entity by the governments of Colombia, the United States, Canada, New Zealand and the European Union. Founded by the Colombian Communist Party in 1964, under the leadership of Manuel Marulanda, in the wake of the country’s civil conflict between the Conservative and Liberal militias– a period known as La Violencia - the group consists of a ‘peasant’ army which claims to defend and promote the interests of Colombia’s rural poor, support the redistribution of wealth and oppose the influence of international corporations in the country. The group is organised along military lines, led by Alfonso Cano – real name Guillermo Leon Saenz Vargas.
Tactics:
Kidnapping for ransom, extortion and narcotic cultivation and trafficking (principally cocaine and heroin) – all of which are carried out to fund its operations: Kidnapping for political negotiation; bomb attacks, murder, hijacking and warfare against Colombian political, military, and economic targets.
Strength: Colombian government estimate: 8,000 – 10,000 combatants, including women and children.
Links with other groups:
Around the same time as FARC was founded, another left- wing ideological group was formed; the National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional - ELN). ELN is much smaller than FARC; in some parts of the country the groups cooperate, but in other parts they have directly clashed. Colombia’s rightwing paramilitaries – principally the United Self-Defence Forces (AUC) umbrella group – are direct enemies of the group. The AUC was formed in 1997 to counter left-wing insurgents. There were allegations of a connection between the Irish Republican Army (IRA) terrorist group and FARC, after the arrest and conviction in 2001 of three Irishmen in Colombia, who were using false passports and found with traces of explosives on their clothes. Security sources in the UK identified the three as being IRA explosives experts. The IRA itself denied it was training FARC members in explosives.
Notable incidents:
In 1984 the Colombian government negotiated a ceasefire with FARC, but rightwing paramilitaries started to form around this time and the ceasefire broke down. In 1998, then Colombian President Andres Pastrana gave FARC a demilitarised zone (DMZ) the size of Switzerland in order to hold peace talks. Ongoing violence in 2002 resulted
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in the collapse of peace talks. FARC hijacked a domestic flight and kidnapped senator Jorge Eduardo Géchem Turbay and days later French-Colombian senator and Presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt was kidnapped while attempting to meet with FARC inside the DMZ. Also in 2002 Alvaro Uribe was elected president on a hardline platform to confront the rebels militarily.
In February 2008
Turbay was released and in March that year Colombian troops conducted a crossborder raid on a FARC base in Ecuador, killing FARC number two Raul Reyes and sparking a diplomatic crisis between the governments of neighbouring Ecuador and Venezuela. Founding leader Marulanda died later in March of natural causes. In July 2008 Ingrid Betancourt, three US contractors and 11 Colombian hostages were freed in a raid by the Colombian army. During the presidency of Alvaro Uribe – who handed over power to his successor Juan Manuel Santos in early August 2010 – the FARC was significantly weakened by the government’s hardline policy towards the group. Their numbers were substantially reduced, however they remain an active threat to the country.
Latest News:
In early July 2010, the Colombian military killed 13 FARC rebels in an operation on the country’s Caribbean coast. In mid-July, the Colombian government said it had clear evidence that Venezuela – long suspected of harbouring FARC and ELN militants a charge denied by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez – was giving shelter to leaders of both groups. Also in mid-July, the army arrested the FARC guerrilla in charge of Alfonso Cano’s security. On 29 July, Cano said he would be willing to talk to incoming President Santos to find a solution to the 46 year conflict, saying the group was looking for a political way out. Santos said he would be willing to talk if FARC laid down its arms and released all hostages.
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