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FARC History
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia (FARC) was born from the civil war that devastated
Columbia from 1948-1958. The war between the Liberal and Conservative
political parties was sparked when agents of the conservative
government assassinated liberal party leader Jorge Eliécer
Gaitán. The ensuing civil war resulted in the deaths of over
200,000 Columbians and spawned a plethora of guerrilla groups.
One such group, headed by Manuel Marulanda, broke off from
the Liberals and in 1966 and became the Marxist-oriented FARC.
FARC gained some influence in the country's remote rural areas
but remained a marginal group throughout the sixties and seventies.
In the eighties however, FARC's power increased dramatically
as it began extorting taxes from Columbia's flourishing drug
trade. Income from the drug taxation, now estimated to be
around $300 million per year, resulted in a sharp increase
in the group's ability to acquire arms and new recruits.
In 1984 the government of conservative president Belisario
Betancur negotiated a cease-fire with FARC and two smaller
insurgency groups, M-19 and EPL. Amnesty was granted to many
FARC prisoners and the group renounced its armed struggle.
The cease-fire allowed the formation of right-wing paramilitary
groups who began to mount attacks against FARC that eventually
led to a breakdown of negotiations. By 1986 all efforts to
find a peaceful solution were abandoned by both sides and
the guerrillas retreated into the mountains to face a new
campaign from Colombia's armed forces. Around this time FARC
confronted a new threat from drug traffickers who wanted to
cut the group out of the action. The drug traffickers formed
their own paramilitary groups and, in some cases joined existing
paramilitaries to fight FARC for control of coca-growing regions.
In 1985 FARC attempted to establish a legitimate political
party, known as the Patriotic Union (UP), but the right-wing
death squads began a campaign to assassinate UP members. Over
3,000 UP members, including several prominent politicians,
were reportedly killed and FARC effectively gave up any efforts
to join the mainstream after the assassination of UP's 1990
presidential candidate, Bernardo Jaramillo Ossa.
Andres Pastrana was elected as Columbia's president in 1998
with the promise to make peace with FARC. His most dramatic
move was to cede to the rebels a large portion of territory
in the southeast with the condition that FARC enter into peace
talks with the government. The peace talks began in January
1999 but limped along for three years as mutual distrust between
the two parties hindered any real progress.
The government halted the peace talks several times; usually
amidst accusations that FARC was giving safe haven to terrorists.
At various junctures FARC suspended the talks when it felt
that the government had not done enough to stop right-wing
paramilitaries. The talks stuttered along until January 2002,
when an escalation of violence brought the negotiations to
the breaking point. One last attempt at a cease-fire on January
20th failed, and Pastrana seemingly ended the negotiations
for good on February 20 when he ordered the guerrillas out
of the demilitarized zone and then commanded government forces
to invade the FARC safe haven. The army, bolstered by an infusion
of arms and money from the U.S., took control of the main
rebel town, San Vicente del Caguan several days later.
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