colombia's revolutionary armed forces

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) are the strongest and oldest faction of Colombian rebels. It has been dubbed the world's richest guerilla army. In 1964, Jacob Arenas and Manuel Marulanda, both members of Colombia's communist party, formed the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. This was in the aftermath of the 1948-1958 civil war. The services have been accused of using a number of unorthodox offensive tactics. Terror is one of the techniques employed by the powers. Historical philosophers have said that the group was forged to promote anti-imperialism and the agrarianism political lone. Funding is an important aspect for any army or rebel group and the Colombian revolutionary forces mainly got there funding from ransom and kidnappings. However, it has also been known that movement acquired other funding’s from distribution and production of illegal drugs, illegal mining, extortion and taxation. Estimation from United Nations approximate that about 13% of the civilian killings in Colombia have come from this revolutionary force.

FARC was founded with its main goal being to overthrow the Colombian government and seize its control over the country. Today the goals of the insurgence have changed; it aims at control over Colombia and territorial gain. In addition FARC opposes imperialism by the Americans and the monopolies of financial capital. Generally it can be viewed that the FARC opposes the Americas influence and activities in Colombia. FARC runs its operations throughout Colombia and its boarders; the group is also active in illegal trade in the neighboring countries which include Venezuela, Mexico and Brazil (Mazurana, 2001). The Brazilian drug lords have always had the back of FARC while Venezuela acting the greatest drug corridor. Regions where the FARC have stamped their ruling powers are the Colombian rural areas. The rural areas have been there sphere of influence because of the weak state presence.

Recent interviews have revealed the movement to be 100% political motivated. The Colombian Revolutionary Forces has claimed to be “an expression of the people”. Spokes persons of the movement have suggested the force being a military and political organization which aims at solving the problems that affect Colombians who live in deep poverty. They stress that the working class and the peasants are being exploited by the governing bodies who are driven by greed of political and economic interest and their focus is not working for the people. Leaders of the FARC have stated that the essence for the confrontation which is between the guerilla group and the government is class struggle. Due to this the militia group sees the Colombian conflict to be between two antagonist groups: on hand is the people’s army who are the revolutionaries and the other hand it’s the state governed with its war apparatus who are to serve those who are wealthy and privileged (Saskiewicz, 2005). FARC has gone ahead to open their own radio station since it claims that the civilians cannot be able to access political power via legal means. This is because the government has restricted media and most of the commercial media outlets are owned by the government collaborators. By the FARC setting a platform which enables them to be seen as a political organization which is concerned with the welfare of the civilians, it has been able to recruit many militants who fight with a self-driven morale of that they are fighting for their rights.

The decision of creating a guerilla army meant that there would be a significant change in the organization strategy during securing of resources. However, the organization subsisted of little financial resources which they acquired from predatory activities such as; random kidnaping, bank robberies and extortion (Ortiz, R. D. (2002). The participation on these activities did not offer the movement with sufficient funds to attain any military gains. The guerilla had to embark on targeting four types of resources which included; gold, livestock, oil and commercial agriculture. Money obtained from the extortion of commercial projects, businesses and extraction of the four types of resources were sold to the black market. This enabled the insurgence to expand its military and political presence to new zones of influence.

FARC have used activities such as bombing mortar attacks, kidnapping, extortion, murder, hijacking and conventional military action against its economic targets and the Colombian government. On March 1999, three US Indian rights activist were executed by the FARC after they were kidnapped in Colombia. Foreigners have always been the key targets of the FARC kidnappings and ransom requests (Doyle, 2015). Some of the most notable FARC attacks are:

kidnapping of eight civilians who were held captive by the militia in 2008.it was estimated that FARC had more than 800 civilians on captive

The FARC launched a cylinder gas bomb in 2005 which left over 30 civilians injured and a child dying. The militia has been accused of the death of civilians in Colombia

The last notable act took place in June 2004 where 34 Coca farmers were found brutally murdered on their farms, FARC took full responsibility of the killings and claimed the men they had killed were supporting the paramilitaries of the right wing.

Critics have alleged that the movement was able to survive during the ideological crisis which was occasioned by the fall of the berlin wall and collapse of the international communism. This was because the Revolutionary Forces of Colombia abounded the communist ideology of Marxist-Leninism and devolved to a criminal organization which was driven by unquenchable thirst for getting great revenues (Jaramillo, 2016). The group’s greatest ideology is based upon principles of socialism, agrarian land reform and Bolivarianisim. The political ideology of the FARC has been continually reflected on it psyched membership and dedication to the insurgency. A matter of fact is that the insurgence does not find unity in its ideology but in the commitment of its members to armed struggle.

Bolivarianism ideology was all about economic unity, military and Latin America politics. This ideology emphasized on denunciation of social class privileges which were inherited, land devolution for the indigenous people and the upward mobility of the army in urban centers (Doyle, 2015). Adoption of this ideology consequently allowed an increase in the numbers in the organization which also led to the diversification of the movement.

In the 1980 the insurgence saw implementation of a series of structural changes internally. These changes were designed to facilitate organizational transition to the guerilla army and go through expansion. So as to ensure the expansion process would not undermine the character of the organization it opened up several educational and training centers. These “guerilla academies’” equipped their students with ideological, military and political training. The training allowed the students to carry out operations efficiently and directly

FARC being a big and complex group, it had a well-defined command structure. However, their organizational structure has changed over the years because of the urge to adapt to the new challenges of internal conflict. One of the main challenges that the organizational heads have faced is the geographical size of Colombia which makes it almost impossible for the insurgence to have a central command chain (Doyle, 2015). Thus leadership has been broken up into fronts which are responsible for the militia management.

Each of the rebel units has its own political operative and each of their “soldiers” have military and political duties. These duties involve paying close attention to the daily activities in the area, analyzing the news and spreading the news about FARC to the community (Doyle, 2015). FARC has been running two structures of clandestine i.e. clandestine Party of Colombia and Bolivarian movement.

At subordinate front levels, all FARC units are assigned with a budget and provided with ways and means to accomplish their military and political objectives. Additionally, each front level has a financial commission which operates independently. Therefore, all the guerilla units were required to give an account on all the money they had spent to the financial commissions (Jaramillo, 2016). It is through this process that the FARC movement was able to reduce potentials of corruption and increase accountability of funds.

The FARC used file guerillas and discipline ranks. The ranks instilled a strong sense of military discipline. They had a code which allowed for the conviction members who betrayed the rebellion, deserted the rebellion ways or those who rebuked the rebellion. By the implementation of these codes the FARC was able to root out members who had discipline problems (Vargas, 1999). Guerillas who were accused of breaking the codes were placed in trial in front of the war council. The war council was composed of fellow guerillas. The council often found the accused guilty and they were sentenced to death, the sentence was to be carried out by the closest friend of the guerilla and if the friend was unable to execute the punishment he was also killed. By doing so the movement was able to instill discipline among its members via fear.

It should be noted that over the recent years the movement has suffered major blows to their leadership due to the death of their senior most leaders (Doyle, 2015). Many of these leaders have been killed by the government and a good example to this is the 2007 bombings by the Colombian Airforce which targeted the eastern camp of FARC and led to the death of Tomas Caracas who was the rebel leader.

There are different negative impacts of the FARC guerilla movement in Colombia which includes the health and the life quality of the Colombian people. Some of the victims of the insurgence have not only suffered from the interference of their life and health quality but also emotional, physical and psychological effects. Increased kidnappings, homicide and forced displacement are some of the implications that the Colombian civilians have had to endure (Crenshaw, 1991). Homicidal rate in Colombia have grown due to the frequent massacres which are understood to be collective homicide. These massacres are often committed intentionally by the members of the FARC insurgence on defenseless victims’. They do so as to instill fear and establish territorial and political control. It is due to the existence of FARC that has led to the increase in drug trafficking cartels in the country and economic slump..

With all negativity that encompasses the FRAC one may want to know if the guerilla group has had any positive impact to the Colombian people. In actual facts FARC has really defended the people of Colombia. When the army and death squads come out to abduct and murder people they rampage through the villages, FARC comes out as an offense to clear them out. It can be viewed that the FARC acts as the people’s defender when the murderous states come into play. Studies have shown that the military and death squads are often run by wealthy and large land owners. The wealthy kill the poo in the Latin America so as takeover or steal their land. FRAC have done a good job in defending the poor against the wealthy and greedy individuals in Colombia.

ELN and FARC have been both allies and foes. These two movements have been sharing their fighters, exchanging the kidnaped victims and firearms for a long period of time. In 2010 the groups signed a pact of non-aggression. Their relationship has been firm and in the year 2015 ELN supported the FARC in a decision which led to the suspension of unilateral ceasefire with the government of Colombia (Jaramillo, 2016). It has been reported that the FARC movement has been working closely with “Bandas Criminales” which is organization of mid-level in the past years. Bandas Criminale acted as the partners of FARC in the production of cocaine.

FARC biggest success has come when it was involved in party of a political process in Colombia. This was in 1984 when it was granted the right to form a political party called “Patriotic Union”. This party comprised of some guerillas and communists (Taber, 2002). The party’s platform had similar goals to those of FARC which aimed at achieving; income distribution and elimination of corruption. The success story follows that the political party won the local elections and gained more seats in the national government.

It has been till June 2016 that that a ceasefire accord was signed by the Colombian government and the FARC guerrilla army (Jaramillo, 2016). Under this accord there would be support from the Colombian government for the massive rural development investment and also facilitation of the reincarnation of FARC as a legal political party. The FARC has promised to remove landmines in conflict areas, eradication of illegal drug crops and offering reparations to the victims. The accord will see to the reintegration and registration of the rebels into the civilian life.

In conclusion FARC has operated on the Colombian soil for over 50 decades. It has all drawn its support and viewed itself as a political based army which wants to liberate the Colombian people from the chains of extortion from the rich and wealthy. FARC has run its activities through illegal means which has eventually provided them with funds to becoming one of the wealthiest guerilla groups in the world. FARC has been a test of time to the Colombian government. However the government has been in peace talks with the FARC since early 2002 which have always hit the wall. It was until 2016 that Colombia setting a landmark by signing the peace accord with both parties involved.

































References

Jaramillo, M. J. (2016). The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the Development of Narco-Submarines. Journal of Strategic Security, 9(1), 49.

Doyle, M. A. (2015). Economics and Third World Debt: A Look at How Debt is Hazardous to Third World Countries. Strategic Informer: Student Publication of the Strategic Intelligence Society, 1(1), 5.

Carasik, L. (2016). Will Peace Bring Justice to Colombia?.

Ortiz, R. D. (2002). Insurgent strategies in the post-cold war: the case of the revolutionary armed forces of Colombia. Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, 25(2), 127-143.

Vargas, R. (1999). The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the illicit drug trade. Acción Andina.

Taber, R. (2002). War of the flea: the classic study of guerrilla warfare. Potomac Books, Inc..

Mazurana, D., & McKay, S. (2001). Child Soldiers; What about the Girls?. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 57(5), 30-35.

Crenshaw, M. (1991). How terrorism declines. Terrorism and Political Violence, 3(1), 69-87.

Hough, P. A. (2011). Guerrilla Insurgency as Organized Crime: Explaining the So-Called “Political Involution” of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. Politics & Society, 39(3), 379-414.

Saskiewicz, P. E. (2005). The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People's Army (FARC-EP) Marxist-Leninist insurgency or criminal enterprise? (Doctoral dissertation, Monterey, California. Naval Postgraduate School).