Gabriel PassmorePOLS 370 Research PaperThe FARC

The FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) are a revolutionary

communist guerrilla terrorist organization that resides deep in Colombia’s jungles. The

FARC are best known for drug trafficking cocaine, kidnapping political opponents, and

fighting the Colombian military in what has escalated into a forty year old civil war. The

Colombian government and the FARC have been fighting since the mid 1960’s over a

conflict that involved a peasant community and a military invasion. The FARC emerged

in the early 1960’s as a peasant movement that had fought to establish a rural self-

governing community in the city of Marquetalia.

In the 1960’s Colombia’s government and leadership functioned in an oligarchic

authoritarian two party system, unlike present-day Colombia, which is positively

democratic. Colombia’s military invaded the peasant communities, destroying the

villages and crops, which lead to an uprising and the regrouping of peasants under

Manuel Marulanda, who orchestrated a rebellion against the Colombian government for

the destruction of their community. These events have formed the core of why the FARC

exists today and continue to wage a civil war over the conflict that took place many years

ago. The FARC are fighting to reclaim old territories and establish new ones that the

government has taken away or prevented them from claiming. Even though the incident

occurred under an authoritarian regime, Colombia’s present day democratic government

still resents the FARC and denies them any part in society because of their illegal activity

in which they adopted in order to survive and bring attention to their cause.

The FARC’s main cause is based around the ideology of communism, which is rooted

in the struggle against inequality by a dominant capitalist class over a suppressed peasant

working class. The FARC view the past and present Colombian government as an

oppressor toward the peasant working class, only to favor and cater to capitalist elites for

their own self interests while the working class struggles to earn enough to make a living.

The FARC’s overall objective “is to take power and govern in coalition with other

progressive parties and movements in a multiparty system in which the centerpiece of

socioeconomic policy will be the equitable redistribution of wealth and

resources”(Petras). Colombia’s government has been plagued over the years with

corruption, social inequality, and unequal ownership of land, wealth and privilege

disputes, which the FARC regards as a threat to their cause. The Colombian government

does not tolerate the presence or the participation of any alternative political views that

are responsible for the class conflict. These measures make the FARC’s cause for

fighting seem legitimate in the eyes of the majority because they argue that their

organization is standing up against the inequality of the governing elite that has pushed

back all possible solutions to the secular problems that embrace Colombian society.

The FARC’s activity began to intensify in the 1990’s when the Colombian

government started to involve neo-liberal policies into its political platform. This meant

that the social gains of the working class were eliminated. The labor unions were

weakened by their removal from privatized state companies. Thousands of workers in the

private sector were laid off. In the mist of these measures came protests by the

mobilization of different labor groups that attracted a peasant movement that helped

blocked off national roadways in hopes of gaining the Colombian governments attention

for their disapproval of neo-liberal policies. The peasant movement emerged as a sub-

group that grabbed the attention of the FARC, because the FARC supports peasants and

working class individuals that the government tries to bring injustice to. Some of these

peasant groups are engaged in the coca producing business, which is illegal in Colombia.

Because the production of cocaine is illegal, it requires the protection by the FARC rebels

in order for the peasants to provide a way to make a living. The FARC are not the actual

makers of the production of cocaine, but rather the suppliers of land and communities

were the peasants produce coca for the drug cartels. The FARC view the drug trade as a

legitimate way of producing for the means of the community and a reason to keep

fighting the Colombian government for their unequal treatment of workers and corrupt

policies of neo-liberalism that polarizes certain groups from participating in society.

The FARC have used successful U.S. and Colombian anti-drug policies as strategic

maneuvers as a method of addressing issues on which they are concerned. Some of these

anti-drug policies include the dismantling of the Medellin and Cali drug cartels and the

interception of coca coming into Colombian processing facilities. The U.S. used drug

certification requirements as a way “to pressure the Colombian government to attack drug

cartels and allow aerial fumigation of coca crops”(Duncan). These tactics played right

into the FARC’s hands because the anti-drug successes pushed coca cultivation into

FARC dominated communities, which in return strengthened the FARC’s base and

weakened many of their political and military opponents. The drug cartels are one of the

FARC’s most powerful opponents aside from the Colombian military. The business

relation between the drug cartels and the FARC are that the cartels have to pay taxes in

order to use FARC dominated areas to cultivate and traffic coca. Because of the U.S. and

Colombian anti-drug measures, the shift in production provided the FARC with the

opportunity to tax the drug cartels unprecedentedly. Another strategic measure that

helped strengthened the FARC’s base of support was the U.S./Colombian governments

use of aerial fumigation of coca crops. The coca workers rely on the FARC’s support and

protection because the Colombian government threatens their health and livelihood.

The FARC use the drug trade as a method of strengthening their organization and

expanding its decade long insurgency against the Colombian government. A certain

degree of incidents and political engagements have increased the FARC’s effort in

gaining a monopoly on the drug industry for their own benefit of survival. This was the

case with the Ernesto Samper presidency, in which he was involved in a political scandal

that saw several millions of dollars of drug money invested into his campaign. Domestic

and international pressure compelled the Samper administration to take a hard-line

approach in dismantling the Cali drug cartel. This measure left a vacuum open for the

FARC to come in and extract more resources from the cocaine industry now that the Cali

cartel had been dismantled. With the larger Cali cartel gone, small-scale fragmented

competitors emerged, which made the industry more vulnerable to taxation by the FARC.

Another maneuver that acted in the FARC’s favor to control the drug trade was when

Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori instructed his armed forces to shoot down planes

that were transporting coca from Peruvian fields to Colombian labs. This lead to coca

prices collapsing in Peru, which resulted in the shift of coca cultivation from Peru to

Colombia into longtime FARC, dominated strongholds.

The FARC’s main source of wealth and power that comes from the drug trade is the

ability to tax different groups for land cultivation and protection. Now that the cultivation

of coca has moved to Colombia and into FARC controlled areas, the FARC have

increased their ability to tax the entire drug industry. Peasants have been the FARC’s

main social base in the rural areas of Colombia. The FARC protect these peasants from

the appropriation of their land by large landowners and enforce that the landlords pay

their fair share of wages as well. The FARC also uses its forces to compel drug

traffickers to pay market prices for labor and coca leaves. Without the drug trade the

FARC would not have the means to survive as an organization. The drug trade offers the

FARC a chance at increasing its use of services to the community and a way to make a

profit in return in order to fund its cause with more stability and weapons.

As the FARC build an elaborate drug empire, the Colombian government launched a

series of aerial fumigation attacks in rural coca fields in an attempt to eradicate the

FARC’s operations. These measures antagonize relations with Colombia’s rural peasant

population, which leads to more political ammunition in the FARC’s favor. Until the

attacks, the Colombian coca production had been providing jobs to thousands of peasants.

These attacks on the peasants created an opportunity for the FARC to gather support

among the workers to stage a mass protest against the government’s eradication policies.

This caused the Colombian government to loose its credibility with the rural population.

The peasants turned to the FARC for support and protection from the governments

attempt to destroy their livelihood. “The government’s failure to adequately address illicit

crop cultivation contributes to civilian support of the guerrillas. Settlers in the area view

the guerillas as the only response to the attack on their lives and livelihood”(Vargas).

This affair aids to benefit the FARC’s grievances against the Colombian government in

what the FARC perceive as intolerance towards the peasant working class. Social

inequalities are the main themes that stimulate the FARC’s drive to fight the Colombian

government. The FARC will always find a need to fight against the government as long

as coca cultivation remains illegal and their use of protectionism provides security for

workers and cartels.

The ultimate strategy that the FARC wish to accomplish is to overthrow the existing

Colombian government and replace the governing body with an ideology derived from

Marxism. In 1982 the FARC constructed a strategy with the intensions of seizing power

in Colombian. Their goal was to surround the city of Bogota with sixteen thousand armed

troops. They intended to block the entry of basic supplies and food into Bogota, which

would create conditions for uprisings against the state. When this vision has occurred, the

thousands of troops stationed around Bogota would march into the city and fight a battle

against the Colombian army that lacked popular support. By taking over the area, the

FARC developed a methodical strategy in the larger towns with the objective of having

its fighters take jobs in city hall that would include working as the mayor’s secretary,

assistant to the public works minister, and the town’s dump truck driver. These positions

helped the FARC gather intelligence on the area before they would take it over.

The FARC would eliminate any forms of resistance or authority in the town that could

impose a potential threat to their plan. They would kill the local thieves in order to earn

the respect of the people. The guerrillas also eliminated any person that informed on them

to the local authorities or denied them lunch. During this phase the guerrillas demanded

that the local farm owners pay a financial contribution to the FARC’s revolutionary

cause. After a month later, the squadron is reinforced and the guerrillas began to show

themselves in uniform with guns. The FARC institutes a process of political

indoctrination as the guerrillas seek the support of the community leaders and recruit

young people to fight for their cause. The guerrillas then launch an attack on the town’s

police station. Those who were able to survive are transferred out and the town is turned

over to the FARC. When the FARC is choosing areas to invade they usually select places

where support for their ideology already exists. This was the case in the province of

Cundinamarca, which was home to two Communist Party councilmen. The guerrillas

came into the area dressed as civilians pretending to be laborers, soon revealing their

identity to the local peasants and discussing with them the political and social situations

in Colombia. The guerrillas talked about the local youth and their lack of a future because

of unemployment. Since both groups shared the same hardships it was easy for the FARC

to stir up resentment against the Colombian government with the peasants. After a couple

more visits, the guerrillas brought in more troops and orchestrated an attack on the local

police station.

With the elimination of the police, the FARC replaced the state in their own way by

collecting taxes on property and commercial transactions and forcing both landowners

and peasants to pay. These measures influenced the process in which public funds were

spent and which individuals became elected to local government. With the FARC seizing

these key areas, they gradually began to close in with a clear path to Bogota with their

objective of a takeover. At the end of 2000, the FARC had a thousand combatants

stationed in different strategic positions throughout Cundinamarca. The guerillas had the

mayors of the province under their threat and half of the area was under their control. The

FARC had predicted in a couple of years they would surround the city of Bogota.

In the past, the FARC adopted more offensive military tactics than random staged

attacks. This was because the organization was experiencing a threat of infiltration into

their peasant communities, which required offensive measures against the Colombian

military to protect land that the FARC had acquired early into their struggle. It was not

until the 1980’s that the Colombian paramilitary groups became more active in FARC

dominated regions, killing high ranking guerrilla leaders because of U.S. pressure on the

Colombian government to combat drug traffickers and communist insurgents. It was clear

to the FARC that peace negotiations had been sidelined and U.S/Colombian forces

wanted the guerrillas out of the country. The FARC acknowledged “that a revolutionary

situation now existed in Colombia”(Simons). As a way of advancing their revolutionary

cause, the FARC employed an arsenal of tactics that would grab the Colombian

authority’s attention and ignite fear throughout the country because of the government’s

campaign to end years of struggle.

The tactics that the FARC harbor in order to bring meaning or attention to their cause

involves random acts of violence that includes, bombings of infrastructure, murder,

kidnappings, assassinations, extortion, mortar attacks, and hijackings. These acts of

violence are most prevalent when there is guerrilla and conventional military action

against the Colombian army. The activist group Human Rights Watch reported that the

FARC were responsible for a number of attacks targeting civilian factories and trucks,

which claimed the life of innocent men, women, and children. The FARC claimed “that

such attacks destroy the source of the government’s wealth, so that they will be unable to

maintain this war over a long period”(Simons). These attacks occurred in the years of

1996-97 in different Colombian provinces that involved hostage taking, torture, and the

murder of innocent civilians in order to bring attention to the FARC’s cause. In the

province of Finca Osaka, eleven people were kidnapped from a bus and executed beside

the road. In Alto Mulatos and Pueblo Bello, seven civilians were tied up and executed.

On September 8, 1996 in San Jose de Apartado, four local community leaders were

massacred, including one woman who was pregnant. FARC guerrillas detonated a bomb

in El Hobo, Huila that contained nails, staples, screws, and pieces of chain at a bar

entrance, and then opened fire killing nine people. In Milan, Caqueta five Koreguaje

Indians were killed and then seven men were taken away from the rest of the group,

forced to an undisclosed area and executed. The victims of these killings had nothing to

do with the conflict or politics. This was an opportunity for the FARC to impose a since

of fear among the civilian community for the ultimate response from the military in order

to keep their revolutionary cause alive.

The FARC also use the tactic of child recruitment into their organization. Some of the

children have joined the FARC by choice, while others have been recruited by force. The

children are used to collect intelligence, make and place land mines throughout the

countryside, and to carry out attacks on enemy patrols. Aside from murdering local

citizens, the FARC have adopted the tactic of kidnapping to their resume. It is estimated

that the FARC have earned “about $250 million from kidnapping”(Simons). This tactic

has provided the FARC with another way to survive financially in addition with the drug

trade. They receive the money through ransoms in exchange for the safe return of the

victim, which also gives them some attention time to spotlight their cause. Their victims

are usually Colombians that have some kind of an affiliation to capitalism or politics. An

example would be the kidnapping of the owner of a Colombian coalmining company.

Another example is the August 7, 2002 plane hijacking and kidnapping of a Colombian

senator from an aircraft. While local kidnappings pay the bills, foreigners on the other

hand offer the FARC higher ransoms plus the attraction of international media attention

to highlight the group’s message. One of the most high profile cases of guerrilla

kidnappings occurred in February of 2002 when FARC rebels kidnapped three U.S.

contractors along with French politician Ingrid Betancourt. Throughout Colombia the

FARC continue to use hit and run tactics against a much stronger Colombian military.

Instead of hitting the military directly, the FARC will target local police stations were

they are small in numbers and no match to the rebels firepower, which includes, machine

guns, rocket launchers, and mortar rounds. In recent years, a mortar attack occurred on

the presidential palace where then President Alvaro Uribe was being inaugurated. The

stray rounds killed twenty residents from a neighboring community.

After years of failed peace negotiations and escalating rebel-induced violence, the

Colombian government has pressed forward with a U.S. financed counterinsurgency

campaign against the war on terror that targets the FARC as its main adversary. The

Colombian government relies on their military strength as a key component of

eradicating FARC dominated strongholds. The military continues its use of aerial raids

on FARC controlled coca cultivation plantations. Many observers speculate that a brutal

counterinsurgency will only help strengthen the FARC’s social base as a way to continue

their civil war against the Colombian government. “Nevertheless, the war is inflicting

considerable costs on the FARC and reducing its ability to extract resources from the

cocaine industry to sustain its war efforts”(Durnan). The aggressive military strikes on

FARC area communities will ultimately succeed in reducing their power and growth.

Another beneficiary in helping the Colombian government defeat the FARC is the

AUC (United Self-Defense Group of Colombia), which consist of a thousand well-

equipped fighters. The AUC is the fusion of a paramilitary group and a criminal

organization that receives most of its resources from the drug trade. The different

between the FARC and the AUC is that the AUC is a right-wing non-insurgent

organization that has no political agenda of overthrowing the government. In cooperation

with the Colombian armed forces, the U.S. funded AUC has helped in defeating the

FARC by seizing land controlled by the FARC for the production of coca. The AUC’s

territorial expansion of FARC maintained coca plantations in Colombia has dismantled

the FARC’s potential for future growth.

As the FARC’s presence and influence was drawing closer to Bogota, the Colombian

military devised a counter-terror plan called Operation Freedom One. The operations

“aim was to dismantle the FARC’s forces in Cundinamarca by killing or capturing the

leader of each of its fronts”(Leon). To put this operation into action the generals relied on

previously obtained information collected from the region that contained intelligence

about the FARC’s whereabouts and the key leaders they were looking for. The military

would patrol the roads, cutting off the guerrilla’s supplies, and collecting intelligence

from the locals about where the FARC were located. Once the army had earned the

peoples trust, information started to circulate about where the guerrillas were hiding their

supplies and guns. Now that the army had its information, their counter-terrorism plan

was to use full force on the FARC over an extended period of time. The army dispersed

small groups of combat soldiers throughout the region in strategic areas where the

guerrillas were said to be hiding.

The Colombian government also used a counter-terrorism strategy of offering rewards

for information that would lead directly to top FARC leaders. “These bounties forced the

guerrilla commanders to pull back into the region’s most inhospitable and deserted

areas”(Leon). This ultimately lead to their defeat because the guerrillas were not able to

blend into society or use civilians as human shields from continued attack, but instead

they were exposed and forced into areas that made them vulnerable targets for the army.

The Colombian military called their counter-terrorism strategy, “search, contain,

surround, and annihilate”(Leon). This maneuver would push the guerrillas further into the

jungles were they would eventually become backed in a corner with nowhere else to run.

The generals formulated a counter-terrorism operation that worked to their benefit of

dismantling and destroying some of the FARC’s top leadership in the region. The

FARC’s leaders were not able to anticipate the strategy that the army had chosen to

apply. The guerrillas were accustomed to large, single squadrons of troops that they could

stop with the use of snipers and land mines. When the military began their surprise

attack, the guerrillas did not know what to do or how to react.

Today the FARC are in yet another round of peace negotiations with the Colombian

government. It seems that the FARC’s current leader Rodrigo Londono is tired of

fighting a losing battle. Years of tough counter-terrorism campaigns by former

Colombian presidents has left the top FARC leaders defeated with nowhere else to go.

The Colombian government has become too strong for the guerrillas to overthrow and

impose their ideology of a communist Colombian government. It looks as if the FARC

are not wanted to totally dissolve their group or ideology, but instead they are looking to

make a peace deal that will allow them to maybe have their own province or identity in

Colombian society. In the awake of these peace talks, which took place in October 2012

in Oslo, Norway and Havana, Cuba, there has been a series of bombings that have been

advocated by the FARC during this process. These incidents happened at the pretense

that there was no talk of a cease-fire. If the FARC keep using these tactics in the midst of

peace negotiations, then the Colombian government will have no choice, but to go back

to using the same brutal counterinsurgency measures to a stronger degree that brought

them victory in the past with the goal of crushing the FARC once and for all.

Work Cited

Brescia, Michael M. and James Petras. “The FARC Faces the Empire.” Latin American

Perspectives 27 (2000): 134-142. JSTOR. Web. 16 Nov. 2012.

Durnan, Michael and Mark Peceny. “The FARC’s Best Friend: U.S. Anti-drug Policies

And the Deepening of Colombia’s Civil War in the 1990’s.” Latin American

Politics and Society 48 (2006): 95-116. JSTOR. Web. 16 Nov. 2012.

Leon, Juanita. Country of Bullets. Albuquerque: Aguilar, 2009. Print.

“Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia” (FARC) www.globalsecurity.org Web. 16

Nov. 2012.

Simons, Geoff. Colombia: A Brutal History. London: SAQI, 2004. Print.

United States. National Counter-terrorism Center. “Terrorist Groups: Revolutionary

Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).” www.nctc.gov. Web. 16 Nov. 2012.