The FARC (1 Jan 1964 Jahr – 24 Aug 2016 Jahr)

Beschreibung:

In 1964, one of the most prominent guerilla groups in Colombian history, the FARC, would be formed in the aftermath of la violencia and operation Marquetalia. The far left armed group, initially created to be an armed wing of the Colombian communist party, supporting armed conflict against the Colombian state in order to bring about redistribution of wealth. Established by Manuel Marulanda and other leftist militants. Throughout the following decades, the FARC would become one of the greatest threats to the internal security of Colombia, with the group carrying out numerous bombings, kidnappings and attacks on Colombian infrastructure, playing a major role in the guerilla warfare that would claim over 260,000 lives in the next six decades, the vast majority of which being civilians. The groups would also raise funds to fight their war through the use of illegal activity, ranging from illegal mining, to kidnapping and extortion and the drug trade, where FARC militants, controlling large amounts of urban territories, would impose themselves in the business of coca farmers, taking taxes from them or conducting their operations from their own plantations, leading to the guerilla group becoming a major player in the Colombian drug trade, adapting with the massive surge of production that came with the rise of the Medellin and Cali cartels in the 80s and 90s. Over the course of a few decades, the group went from a rural group of armed revolutionaries to a powerful miniature army with thousands of soldiers, with operations reaching around the country, destabilising the government and affecting the lives of millions of Colombians. The FARC would reach their peak in the 1990s, before their power and influence would begin to take hits in the 2000s. The election of president Alvaro Uribe, and the adoption of Plan Colombia, a multi billion dollar aid program that made Colombia the third largest beneficiary of US aid, led to a severe intensification of military efforts against far left guerillas, with FARC being the main target. The violent activities of the FARC also led to retaliatory far right paramilitary groups such as AUC being formed, who acted as vigilante groups against the leftist guerrillas, despite their methods being arguably equally as brutal, and additionally having an important role in drug trafficking, there has been evidence to suggest that the Colombian government turned a blind eye to their criminal aspects due to the impact they were having on the operations of the FARC. The group would gradually come to a peace agreement with the Colombian government in 2016, where demobilisation and the dissolution of the FARC as a guerilla group would take place in exchange for political representation and amnesty for former FARC militants, similar to the agreements with M19 in the 1990s. Despite this, the peace deal had its drawbacks and controversies. Dissident groups within the FARC split away from the main governing body and still continue to engage in violent activity in the rural areas of Colombia, and a referendum conducted showed that just over 50% of Colombians disapproved of the peace deal. Nonetheless, the ceasefire and peace established by the Santos administration has lasted to this day

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