The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC–EP) was a Marxist–Leninist revolutionary guerrilla organization based in Colombia, which is involved in the ongoing Colombian armed conflict.Latin America by Robert B. Kent (), page 141Organized Crime: From Trafficking to Terrorism by Frank G. Shanty and Patit Paban Mishra (), page 323
FARC–EP is a peasant army which has proclaimed itself as a revolutionary agrarian, anti-imperialist Marxist–Leninist organization of Bolivarian inspiration.Miguel Urbano Rodrigues. April 7, 2004. "Las FARC reafirman la opción comunista y responden a campañas difamatorias.". Retrieved July 28, 2008.Transitions in Latin America and in Poland and Syria (Research in Political Economy) (Research in Political Economy) by Paul Zarembka (), page 109 It claims to represent the rural poor in a struggle against Colombia's wealthier classes, and opposes United States influence in Colombia (e.g. Plan Colombia), neo-imperialism, monopolization of natural resources by multinational corporations, and paramilitary/government violence.BBC News. September 19, 2003. "Colombia's most powerful rebels.". Retrieved April 7, 2007.International Crisis Group. January 27, 2005. "War and Drugs in Colombia.". Retrieved September 1, 2006.
La Violencia and the National Front
Following the murder of populist politician and Liberal leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, in 1948, large-scale violence broke out in what became known as La Violencia ("The Violence"), which lasted until about 1958. More than 300,000 people were killed in the violence, the large majority of whom were peasants and wage laborers living in rural areas.
In 1958, Liberal and Conservative party elites, together with Church and business leaders negotiated an agreement that created an exclusively bipartisan political alternation system, known as the National Front. The two parties agreed to hold elections, but to alternate power between the two parties, regardless of the election results. They decided that the pact would remain in effect until 1974 (however, it lasted with only minor modifications until 1990). This enabled a consolidation of power amongst Colombian Conservative and Liberal elites, while simultaneously strengthening the military and preventing radical political alternatives and popular reforms.
During the 1960s, under a plan known as "Accelerated Economic Development", conceived by a wealthy Canadian rancher Lauchlin Currie (who had extensive landholdings in Colombia), the Colombian government began to pursue the policy of promoting large-scale industrial farms producing for export, rather than small farms producing for local consumption. The government heavily subsidized large-scale industrial farm owners, while violently forcing peasants off of their land, claiming that they were using it "inefficiently". A very large number of small landholders were pushed off of their land, and forced to migrate to urban centers, where they formed a cheap labor pool for the burgeoning industrial economy in the Colombian cities. By 1969, there were over 400,000 landless families in Colombia, with an annual increase of 40,000 per year since 1961. By 1970, latifundio (large farms of over 50 hectares), held approximately 77% of the land in Colombia. In 1971, 70% of the farmland in Colombia was owned by 5.7% of the population. Much of this land was consolidated in the hands of urban industrialists—which had seen marked increases in profits due to the influx of landless, displaced peasants, willing to work for very low wages—and cattle ranchers. Malnutrition and lack of basic medical care were almost universal amongst rural workers in the early 1960s, leading to extremely high rates of preventable disease and infant mortality.
PCC and self-defense communities
Communists were active throughout rural and urban Colombia in the period immediately following World War I. The Colombian Communist Party (Partido Comunista Colombiano, PCC) was formally accredited by the Comintern in 1930. The PCC began establishing "peasant leagues" in rural areas and "popular fronts" in urban areas, calling for improved living and working conditions, education, and rights for the working class. These groups began networking together to present a defensive front against the state-supported violence of large landholders.Gomez, Alberto (1972) "Perspectives of the revolutionary armed forces of Colombia (FARC)". National Liberation Fronts 1960/1970: Essays, documents, interviews New York: William Morrow & Company, , p. 248 Members organized strikes, protests, seizures of land, and organized communist-controlled "self-defense communities" in southern Colombia that were able to resist state military forces, while providing for the subsistence needs of the populace. Many of the PCC's attempts at organizing peasants, were met with violent repression by the Colombian government, and landowning class. U.S. military intelligence estimates estimated that in 1962, the size of the PCC had grown to 8,000 to 10,000 active members, and an additional 28,000 supporters.
In 1961, a guerrilla leader and long-time PCC organizer named Manuel Marulanda Vélez declared an independent "Republic of Marquetalia". The Lleras government attempted unsuccessfully to attack the communities to drive out the guerrillas, due to fears that "a Cuban-style revolutionary situation might develop". After the failed attacks, several army outposts were set up in the area.
Plan Lazo In October 1959, the United States sent a "Special Survey Team" composed of counterinsurgency experts to investigate Colombia's internal security situation. Among other policy recommendations the US team advised that "in order to shield the interests of both Colombian and US authorities against 'interventionist' charges any special aid given for internal security was to be sterile and covert in nature." In February 1962, three years after the 1959 "US Special Survey Team", a Fort Bragg top-level U.S. Special Warfare team headed by Special Warfare Center commander General William P. Yarborough, visited Colombia for a second survey.
In a secret supplement to his report to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Yarborough encouraged the creation and deployment of a paramilitary force to commit sabotage and terrorist acts against communists:
A concerted country team effort should be made now to select civilian and military personnel for clandestine training in resistance operations in case they are needed later. This should be done with a view toward development of a civil and military structure for exploitation in the event the Colombian internal security system deteriorates further. This structure should be used to pressure toward reforms known to be needed, perform counter-agent and counter-propaganda functions and as necessary execute paramilitary, sabotage and/or terrorist activities against known communist proponents. It should be backed by the United States.Visit to Colombia, South America, by a Team from Special Warfare Center, Fort Bragg, North Carolina, Headquarters, U.S. Army Special Warfare School, Feb 26, 1962, Kennedy Library, Box 319, National Security Files, Special Group; Fort Bragg Team; Visit to Colombia; 3/62, "Secret Supplement, Colombian Survey Report."Also mentioned in: Las Redes de Asesinos de Colombia. La asociación militar-paramilitares y Estados Unidos, Human Rights Watch, 1996 (Spanish)
The new counter-insurgency policy was instituted as Plan Lazo in 1962 and called for both military operations and civic action programs in violent areas. Following Yarborough's recommendations, the Colombian military recruited civilians into paramilitary "civil defense" groups which worked alongside the military in its counter-insurgency campaign, as well as in civilian intelligence networks to gather information on guerrilla activity. Doug Stokes argues that it was not until the early part of the 1980s that the Colombian government attempted to move away from the counterinsurgency strategy represented by Plan Lazo and Yarborough's 1962 recommendations.
At the behest of the United States, the Colombian government began attacking many of the self-defense communities in the early 1960s, attempting to re-assimilate the territories under the control of the national government. FARC was formed in 1964 by Manuel Marulanda Vélez and other PCC members, after a military attack on the community of Marquetalia. 16,000 Colombian troops, backed by the U.S., attacked the village of 1,000 inhabitants, only 48 of whom were armed. Marulanda and 47 others fought against government forces at Marquetalia, and then escaped into the mountains along with the other fighters. These 48 men formed the core of FARC, which quickly grew in size to hundreds of fighters.Bauman, Jan: "Colombia: Origins of the FARC", MITF Report, April 4, 2001 (accessed: 03/01/2010)
Seventh Guerrilla Conference of the FARC–EP
In 1982, FARC–EP held its Seventh Guerrilla Conference, which called for a major shift in FARC's strategy. FARC had historically been doing most of its fighting in rural areas, and was limited to small-scale confrontations with Colombian military forces. By 1982, increased income from the "coca boom" allowed them to expand into an irregular army, which would then stage large scale attacks on Colombian troops. They also began sending fighters to Vietnam and the Soviet Union for advanced military training. They also planned to move closer to middle-sized cities, as opposed to only remote rural areas, and closer to areas rich in natural resources, in order to create a strong economic infrastructure. It was also at this conference that FARC added the initials "EP", for "Ejército del Pueblo" or "People's Army", to the organization's name.
Entrance into coca trade
Initially, the FARC–EP rejected any involvement in the emerging phenomenon of drug growing and trafficking, but during the 1980s the group gradually came to accept it as it became a burgeoning business. Taxes on drug producers and traffickers were introduced as a source of funding in the form of the compulsory so-called "gramaje" tax on growers and through the enforcement of other regulations affecting different stages of the production process.Ferro Medina, Juan Guillermo: «Las FARC y su relación con la economía de la coca en el sur de Colombia: Testimonios de Colonos y Guerrilleros», L´ordinaire Latino-americain 179: enero-marzo de 2000.
A 1992 Central Intelligence Agency report "acknowledged that the FARC had become increasingly involved in drugs through their 'taxing' of the trade in areas under their geographical control and that in some cases the insurgents protected trafficking infrastructure to further fund their insurgency," but also described the relationship between the FARC and the drug traffickers as one "characterized by both cooperation and friction" and concluded that "we do not believe that the drug industry [in Colombia] would be substantially disrupted in the short term by attacks against guerrillas. Indeed, many traffickers would probably welcome, and even assist, increased operations against insurgents."Narco-Insurgent Links in the Andes 8, Central Intelligence Agency, July 29, 1992.