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Colombia The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
In 1988 the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
(Fuerzas
Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia--FARC) remained the
largest of
Colombia's guerrilla groups. The FARC traced its informal
origins
to the late 1940s and early 1950s, when some of its
founding
members participated in the establishment of the
independent
republics
(see The Development of the Modern Armed Forces
, this
ch.). By the end of the first half of the 1960s, all of
the small
republics reportedly had been destroyed by the army.
The FARC was founded in 1966 by Manuel Marulanda
Vélez--known
by the nickname Sure Shot (Tirofijo)--and other members of
the
Central Committee of the Communist Party of Colombia
(Partido
Comunista de Colombia--PCC). At that time, the FARC
embraced the
PCC's Soviet-style Marxist-Leninist ideological
orientation. The
PCC reportedly also supplied the arms and financial
assistance that
proved critical during the early years of the FARC's
organization.
The early membership of the FARC consisted of communist
ideologues
as well as noncommunist peasants, many of whom had been
active
during la violencia.
The height of the FARC's early phase of operations came
shortly
after its founding, between 1966 and 1968. During this
period, as
many as 500 armed militants and several thousand peasants
were
recruited. FARC operations included raids on military
posts and
facilities, which enabled the organization to accumulate
weapons,
ammunition, military uniforms, and even telecommunications
equipment. Nonetheless, an effective military
counterinsurgency
campaign and the opening of diplomatic relations between
Colombia
and the Soviet Union in 1968 reportedly combined to weaken
the
organization. By the early 1970s, the FARC appeared
incapable of
mounting sustained operations.
Nevertheless, like the country's other guerrilla
organizations,
the FARC enjoyed a resurgence during the late 1970s and
1980s. The
organization turned to kidnappings in order to finance its
operations as well as gain publicity for its objectives.
By 1978
the FARC maintained operations on five fronts. In
September 1980,
the organization was regarded as the strongest of the
guerrilla
groups. Although the FARC attempted to carry out joint
military
operations with at least one other guerrilla group, the
effort
failed, reportedly because of difficulties caused by
ideological
differences.
In 1987 the organization's membership was estimated at
6,000
militants, who were active on at least twenty-seven
fronts. In
early 1988, one report maintained that as many as forty
FARC
guerrilla fronts were active throughout the country. Areas
of the
country considered to be FARC strongholds included
portions of the
departments of Huila, Caquetá, Tolima, Cauca, Boyacá,
Santander,
Antioquia, Valle del Cauca, Meta, and Cundinamarca and the
intendancy of Arauca.
The FARC's role in the peace process was spelled out in
the
accord signed between members of the group and the
government's
National Peace Commission at FARC headquarters in La Uribe
in March
1984. Following the truce agreement, which became
effective in May
1984, the main body of the FARC reportedly abandoned armed
struggle; in 1985 the FARC organized the UP as the
political party
through which the group would peacefully seek political
power. Yet
despite the FARC's continued adherence to the peace
process in the
late 1980s, various FARC fronts violated the terms of the
truce by
engaging in such activities as kidnappings and blackmail.
Some
analysts contended that the Ricardo Franco Front (Frente
Ricardo
Franco)--a hard-line splinter group that refused to
participate in
the 1984 truce--was responsible for many of these
activities.
Nevertheless, given the prevailing atmosphere of
violence and
uncertainty, some of the FARC's activities were likely to
have been
defensive operations. By mid-1988 the UP asserted that 550
of its
members and supporters--including Jaime Pardo Leal, the
party's
leader and its candidate in the 1986 presidential
elections--had
been murdered by right-wing terrorist groups and death
squads.
In mid-1987, following the FARC's ambushes of military
convoys
and attacks on small towns, the Barco administration
announced that
the truce had been broken in the departments of Caquetá
and Huila.
The Permanent Advisory Council on Political
Rehabilitation,
Reconciliation, and Normalization (established in October
1987 as
a permanent government organization and assuming what were
previously the responsibilities of the government's
Special
Adviser) continued efforts to achieve a lasting peace with
the FARC
as well as to build a dialogue between the government and
the other
guerrilla groups. At that time the FARC continued to
refuse the
government's call to disarm, an obligation that had not
been
incorporated in the terms of the truce reached with the
Betancur
administration. The FARC, in turn, called for a lifting of
the
state of siege, the elimination of the death squads, an
end to
alleged human rights violations by the armed forces, and
the
implementation of a number of political and economic
reforms.
Data as of December 1988
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