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Welcome to Colombia Reports' new video series called "Colombia Explained." My name is Danny
Freeman, and I am a journalist for Colombia Reports, and today I will unpack Colombia's
oldest and largest living rebel group, The FARC. In this video we will answer the questions
of "Who are the FARC?" "How did they begin?" "What do they want" and "Where are these guerrillas
now?" Furthermore we will dispel common myths about this notorious rebel group and we will
do all this, in a brief and concise way that will tell you what you need to know about
Colombia's 50-year old armed conflict--and bring Colombia into your homes.
In the simplest of explanations, the FARC or the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
are Colombia's oldest and largest living rebel group and they have been engaged in an armed
conflict with Colombia's government for half-a-century.
Now, how did the group get to this point? Contrary to popular belief, drugs and kidnapping
are not in fact at the heart of this issue. To this day, the core of the FARC's existence
is rooted in political persecution.
Let's go back to 1948 in Colombia's capital city of Bogota. Here there are two political
parties that have been deadlocked in political battle for decades. We have the liberals and
the conservatives. Though they had different beliefs, both parties were made up primarily
of a wealthy bourgeois elite from the country's capital. Approaching the 1949 elections a
young liberal leader named Jorge Eliecer Gaitan was emerging creating an enormous support
base in the youth and rural populations of Colombia. Gaitan was expected by most to be
the next president of Colombia. Though liberal, Gaitan's youthful and far left ideologies
threatened both liberals and conservatives alike.However in 1948 at the start of a normal
work day in Bogota, the well spoken, charming, liberal Gaitan was assassinated in broad daylight.
This ignited mass riots which ultimately started the period of time known as La Violencia,
or the Violence in Colombia.
During La Violencia, the conservative-run government would use the National Police and
the Army to intimidate liberal supporters in order to garner backing for their own conservative
cause. Many liberals would respond by boycotting the government, and by recruiting Colombians
to form "armed civilian groups" to defend themselves from the conservative army. For
10 years the liberals and conservatives violently fought causing thousands of deaths, and very
much earning the name "La Violencia." The country-sides were particularly effected by
this fighting. Finally in 1958, the two parties realized that the fighting could not continue
and they came together to form an agreement known as The National Front.
The National Front was an agreement that for the next four presidencies each party would
have claim over two presidents, and they would switch every four years. The National Front
relatively did stop the violence, mainly because the conservatives and the liberals were the
cause of the violence, and it ended La Violencia. There was just one problem, which would ultimately
lay the foundation for what would become the FARC.
The National Front was great, if you were a liberal or a conservative or belonged to
the upper-echelon of politics in Colombia's cities. If however you belonged to a hemorrhaging
rural community devastated from 10 years of unimaginable pain, suffering and death, and
were now shut out from government by those initial aggressors, this agreement did not
seem so great.
Enter the Colombian Communist Party, now they did not support The National Front, and to
most rural communities that were still very much in mourning, the communist party offered
a wonderful alternative to the status quo. Most distrusted liberals, conservatives, the
National Police, and the Army alike, and for good reason, since their fighting to control
political power inflicted huge lasting wounds on these rural communities. Finally, a once
liberal civilian soldier, Pedro Marin, known by his alias "Manuel Marulanda," led a group
of fed up rural citizens to form their own self-sufficient enclave, rooted in communist
ideals, called the Republic of Marquetalia. They declared themselves independent, and
were armed, but primarily just wanted to be left alone by the government.
Let's pause for a minute.
We now have a government controlled by politicians responsible for thousands of Colombian deaths;
we have The National Front preventing other political groups from gaining power; we have
a precedent for civilians to take up arms to protect themselves from a corrupt state;
and we have a group of Colombians declaring themselves separate from the nation. And that's
just in Colombia. You combine this with a fervor for communism in Latin America with
the world looking toward a recent cuban revolution; and a United States recommended plan to train
civilians to fight communists in Colombia using "terrorist activities" need be, and
one thing was clear. Colombia was about to blow.
In 1964, the government decided to storm the small village, the Republic of Marquetalia,
with 16,000 troops. Marquetalia had just 48 armed fighters. The 48 including leader Marulanda
fled--or escaped depending on who is telling the story--into the nearby jungle and founded
the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, or the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia,
known as the FARC. This is how the infamous guerrilla group began.
So, what happened next?
For the next 20 years, the FARC prioritized growth and spreading communism throughout
Colombia. Both came easy to the rebels since so many rural communities still distrusted
the government and The National Front alike. Hundreds of citizens were joining the FARC's
cause either as a fighter or just a sympathizer. Now even though the government did not initially
pay much attention to the FARC or other leftist guerrilla groups that formed at the same time,
they were still concerned about their security, and the FARC decided to keep to the jungles.
The only thing really inhibiting their growth now, was money.
This is where drugs and kidnapping first came into play. By the early 70's, the FARC needed
money to continue and the illegal drug market was just starting to boom. Now the FARC did
not sell the drugs, but rather they would impose taxes on those who were growing the
crops that made the illicit drugs. As Colombian drug dealers became more sophisticated, the
FARC started taxing *** laboratories, and other illegal drug making plants. Now
extorting the drug industry became a strong source of revenue for the FARC. This bothered
many of Colombia's drug traffickers, and the two sides would often fight over this issue.
Now, what was the FARC's weapon of choice in these fights? Kidnapping.
As part of their fighting, the FARC and other guerrilla groups began kidnapping family members,
friends, and other known associates of local drug traffickers. The FARC realized that ransom
money, was just as fruitful as extorting the drug industry.
So, kidnapping and extorting the drug industry began as a financial means of survival for
the FARC, and stayed that way for many years. By 1982, the FARC had almost 3,000 members
and they officially added the suffix "Ejercito del Pueblo" to their name, which stood for
"People's Army." Leading up to this point, the FARC was operating as the armed wing of
Colombia's communist party, and the two would actively help each other. The government,
now, decided to pay attention. In 1984, the FARC entered its first ever peace talks with
the Colombian government. These talks paved the way for the FARC to do what it had wanted
to do for decades: seek representation in the government.
The FARC, along with other leftist thought leaders, came together to form a political
group known as the Patriotic Union or the UP. Now the UP was strongly rooted in communist
ideals at its start, and sought to tackle issues such as better health care and education
for the poor, the nationalization of businesses banks and transportation, and greater access
to an increasingly government-controlled mass media.
The UP then did the unthinkable in the 1986 elections winning local council seats, congressional
seats, and an unprecedented 4.6% of the presidential vote; better than any leftist political group
had ever done in Colombia's history. Then between 1986 and 1990, thousands of members
of the UP including two of their presidential candidates were assassinated. Armed civilian
groups--or paramilitary groups-- and drug traffickers conspired with elements of the
state to eradicate the UP.
The FARC at this point retreated from public light, shocked that their first real attempt
of achieving political voice in almost thirty years had ended in massive bloodshed. The
FARC then began kidnapping members of private sector, whom they believed to be conspiring
against them with paramilitary groups. Then in 1990, the government and four major guerrilla
groups came together and entered into peace talks once again. Two groups decided to demobilize,
a success for the government. Yet the other two, including the FARC, rejected a peace
deal following an unannounced attack, on a FARC compound during those very talks.
This was the final straw for the guerrillas, and things got out of control.
The FARC, standing between 7,000 and 10,000 fighters strong went to war with the Colombian
government. This meant indiscriminate kidnappings of civilians and politicians, calculated bombings,
and coordinated assaults on military compounds with many, many civilian casualties. The Colombian
army was financially lacking in the 90's, and stretched thin because it was fighting
increasingly powerful drug cartels across the nation. Both the guerrillas and traffickers
took advantage of the army's vulnerability.
The FARC was strategically wreaking havoc on Colombia, and the FARC was winning. By
1998, the FARC had soldiers stationed just outside every major city, and Colombia was
nearly declared a failed state. Then, in 1999 something changed. The United States got involved.
In an effort to help Colombia out from the vice of the FARC and the drug traffickers,
the two nations came together to form "Plan Colombia." Now, Plan Colombia, though said
to be formed for the purpose of curbing drug trafficking, ended up providing crucial funding
and training for Colombia's military that aided in the fight against the FARC. By the
turn of the century, the FARC was facing imminent problems.
The paramilitaries were now a huge force that was sweeping the guerrillas across the northern
part of Colombia. While the newly funded military was preparing to push the FARC away from their
cities. Then after September 11, 2001, a terrorism fixated United States essentially wrote Colombia
a blank check to improve their military goal of fighting the FARC. This meant billions
of dollars in aid throughout this decade.
Then once Alvaro Uribe--whose father had been killed by the FARC--entered the presidency
in 2002, the FARC was facing an improved army, strengthened police intelligence, increased
security in nearly every municipality, and an Uribe specific plan that created incentive
programs for the rebels to turn themselves in.
The offensive was considered a military success, and the FARC was splintered apart and pushed
back to the periphery of Colombia's territory and into neighboring countries. Then 2008
arrived, the most disastrous year for the FARC. Original leader Manuel Marulanda died
of a heart attack, two other major leaders were killed in a government attack, and a
high profile former presidential candidate was rescued after having been kidnapped for
6 years. Marulanda's successor, Alfonso Cano then made the choice to go back to guerrilla
warfare, to preserve the struggling rebels from a continuing onslaught by the government.
Though Cano would ultimately be killed in 2011, his decision to shift tactics likely
saved many members of the FARC from being wiped out completely.
This allowed the FARC to have leverage approaching 2012, when the fourth historic round of peace
talks officially began under the supervision of President Juan Manuel Santos. By the start
of 2014, the FARC was at just 2/3 its military strength, with 8,000 members and 16,000 non-fighting
militia members.
Now you know what you need to know, about the FARC.
My name is Danny Freeman from Colombia Reports. I'll see you soon.