History Of FARC

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FARC is a left-wing guerrilla army based in Columbia. The group is a major player in Columbia’s drug trade, bringing in an estimated revenue of $500 to $600 million annually from their illegal endeavors. Through other illegal ventures, such as demanding ransoms for kidnappings, extortions, as well as charging local merchants and businesses protection taxes, the group has become one of the richest and most violent guerilla armies in the world. FARC came into existence due to political unrest in Columbia during the first half of the 20th century. “La Violencia”, as the conflict was called, began with the assassination of the leader of the Liberal Party, Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, in April of 1948. The country’s two main political parties, the Liberals and Conservatives, waged a bloody war that left many Columbians displaced from their homes and villages. Small groups under the Communist Party of Columbia started organizing rebel militias. These militias attracted a young man named Manuel Marulanda in the 1950’s who would later become the leader of FARC, which was formed in 1964 with the intentions of overthrowing the current government and replacing it with a Marxist rule. The group officially adopted the name …show more content…

In 1984, in an attempt to create peace between the waring factions, the Columbian government allowed FARC to participate in the political arena. The group, along with other Columbian communist groups, created a political party known as the Patriotic Union (UP). The party saw some electoral success but was slowly wiped out throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s through assassinations and violence carried out by both the government and other oppositional forces. By 2002, with most of it's members and supporters dead or in hiding, the Columbian government took away UP’s legal status as a political

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