A guerrilla organization whose declared objective is "to end social, political and economic inequalities, US military and capital intervention in Colombia through the establishment of a Marxist-Leninist and Bolivarian state."
It has an essentially rural organization but also has urban cells, especially in cities where poverty and marginalization reign. Their actions consist of guerrilla warfare and conventional regular combat.
They are considered a terrorist group by Colombia, another 31 countries in the world, including the members of the European Union as well as the countries of Chile, Peru, the United States, and Canada. Other governments consider it an internal matter of Colombia, reason why they are described as irregular group or belligerent.
Officially, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC, began their activities as a movement in 1966, the year in which Guillermo León Valencia Muñoz, a conservative lawyer, served as president of Colombia.
However, the formation of this guerrilla organization is the fruit of a series of transformations of groups that arose as a consequence of the social struggles between the popular and bourgeois sectors, the abandonment and violation of the rights of the peasants by the State.
The roots of groups called subversive, illegal or illegal, are plunged into agrarian struggles that occurred in the first decades of the last century. The violation of the rights of the peasants by the state motivated them to defend themselves and to do justice on their own, and that was how the formation of so-called self-defense groups took place.
The formation of these agrarian organizations had an important ingredient for its consolidation and to arrive at what are known as guerrillas; At that time, the communist thought raised by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels began to spread throughout Europe and already had its cells scattered throughout Latin America.
Colombia was a key country for this thought to have acceptance, considering that the country had the optimum qualities that were in line with communist philosophy: one of the main was anti-American sentiment, which had intensified after Panama separated from Colombia in 1903 for motivation of the United States.
Other of the fundamental conditions that the country lived and promoted the expansion of this ideology were social inequality, poverty and corruption, motivated in large part by the same State.
Movements with communist thought were gaining more and more adherents, however, within these organizations there were problems that led to the division and creation of other groups. In spite of the internal fragmentation, they did not lose the ideological bases; That of seeking social equality by means of struggle.
On March 29, 2000, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People's Army (FARC-EP) launched the Speech of the Bolivarian Movement for New Colombia, in which Commander Alfonso Cano was the National Chief of movement.
Ovidio Ricardo Palmera Pineda ("Simón Trinidad"), member of the Secretariat and head of finance of the FARC, is captured in Quito, Ecuador on January 2, 2004, and was extradited to the United States on December 31, 2004 and convicted in that country on January 28, 2007 for the kidnapping of three Americans.
On February 10, 2004, Nayibe Rojas Valderrama, alias "Sonia" and who fought for 14 years in the FARC, is arrested and extradited on March 10, 2005 to the United States. On December 15, 2004, Erminso Cabrera Cuevas, alias "Mincho", was captured in the city of Ibagué (southwest).
Giovanni David Santamaria, alias "Ruben" or "Popeye", who participated in the abduction and death of the governor of Antioquia, Juan Guillermo Gaviria, and former Defense Minister Gilberto Echeverri, died in a clash with the army on February 17, 2006.
On June 15, 2007, Milton Sierra ("Jota Jota"), leader of the urban front Manuel Cepeda of the FARC in Cali, was killed and was accused of participating in the takeover of the Valle del Cauca Assembly on April 11, 2002, in which 12 regional deputies were abducted, 11 of which were finalized on 18 June 2007.
The guerrilla Tomás Medina Caracas, alias "The Negro Acacio", head of the front 16, died in a clash with the Army in the region of Vichada (east) on September 1, 2007.
Gustavo Rueda Díaz ("Martin Caballero"), head of the FARC on the Colombian Caribbean coast and who kidnapped former Foreign Minister Fernando Araújo, was killed on October 25, 2007 by the military along with 19 other guerrillas in the Montes Maria (north).
In a Colombian military operation against a FARC camp in Ecuador, Luis Edgar Devia, alias "Raúl Reyes", and 25 others died on March 1, 2008.
"Iván Ríos", alias of Manuel Jesus Muñoz or José Juvenal Velandia, member of the FARC's central command, was assassinated on March 7, 2008 by his security chief, Pedro Pablo Montoya Cortés ("Rojas"), who Test the Army the right hand of the rebel and a computer.
On March 28, 2008, Tirofijo died, 78 years old and considered the "oldest guerrilla in the world".
"Karina", alias of Nelly Ávila Moreno, leader of the front 47 and unique woman in the history of the FARC with charge of commander, was delivered on May 18, 2008 in the region of Antioquia to military troops and to the Administrative Department of Security (DAS).
On May 25, 2008, the FARC leadership confirmed in a video delivered to the Telesur international channel that Pedro Antonio Marín, alias "Manuel Marulanda Vélez" or "Tirofijo", founder and chief of that guerrilla group, died on March 26, from a heart attack. The news had been announced by the then Defense Minister and now President Juan Manuel Santos.
Presidential Ex-President Ingrid Betancourt, three Americans and 11 soldiers and police were released by the Colombian Army on July 2, 2008.
On October 26, 2008, former senator Óscar Tulio Lizcano, accompanied by his jailor, alias "Isaza", fled the guerrilla group that had kidnapped him since August 5, 2000.
On March 17, 2009, the Swedish engineer Roland Larsson, the last foreigner held captive by the FARC, was released.
On March 30, 2010, the military officers Pablo Emilio Moncayo and Josué Daniel Calvo were released, following the mediation of Senator Piedad Córdoba, the Catholic Church, the International Red Cross and several foreign governments.
"Operation Camaleón" culminates on June 13, 2010 with the rescue in the forests of Guaviare (south) of General Luis Mendieta Police, Colonel Enrique Murillo, Colonel William Donato Gomez and Army Sergeant Arbey Delgado Argote, Which remained for some twelve years in the hands of the FARC.
On August 23, 2010, the FARC asked the Union of South American Nations (Unasur) to convene an assembly to present its vision of the armed conflict, but it was rejected by the Government of Juan Manuel Santos.
After several bombings on September 20, 2010, 27 guerrillas died in the department of Putumayo (south), among them alias "Domingo Biojó", important leader and political leader of the South Block of the FARC, and in charge of the actions at the border With Ecuador. It was the first major coup of the government of Juan Manuel Santos, who assumed the presidency on August 7, and also ended the life of María Victoria Hinojosa, alias "Lucero Palmera", responsible for the FARC's Voice of Resistance, And sentimental companion of "Simon Trinidad".
On September 23, 2010, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos confirmed the death of the FARC guerrilla leader, the guerrilla Jorge Briceño - known as the "Mono Jojoy" - in a joint operation of the Army, The Air Force and the Police in the region of La Macarena, in the Colombian department of Meta (center).
On November 4, 2011, a military operation ends with the life of the head of the organization, "Alfonso Cano" and on November 15, 2011, Rodrigo Londoño Echeverri, alias "Timochenko" or "Timoleón Jiménez" Of the FARC.
Following its formation as a guerrilla group in the 1960s, the FARC began to use the dialogues and expectations of the negotiations as part of its now-political tactics.
The efforts to reach an agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), arose from the decade of the eighties, specifically in the government of Belisario Betancourt (1982-1986) and later with the mandates of Virgilio Barco (1986-1990) , César Gaviria (1990-1994), Ernesto Samper (1994-1998), Andrés Pastrana (1998-2002) and Juan Manuel Santos (2012).
The history of these sums two decades. The lack of continuity between leaders and the short-term vision of the governments themselves have been some of the factors that have hampered the progress of a real negotiation.
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