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EARLY YESTERDAY, THE Colombian government announced that it will cease shelling positions held by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia or FARC, taking a major step towards peace for the first time since 1964.
Peace talks between the Bogota government and the rebels have been under way since 2012 but President Jose Manuel Santos’ gesture was an unprecedented step towards ending the conflict, which has killed more than 200,000 people and displaced more than five million.
The origin of the conflict
Fighting in Colombia has been ongoing since 1948, when populist president Jorge Eliecer Gaitan was assassinated. This led to a decade-long civil war that claimed over 200,000 lives and destabilised the country. In 1962, a US counterinsurgency team recommended the Colombian government attack communist groups which they claimed would attempt to wrest power from the US-supported government.
Special Warfare Centre commander General William P. Yarborough told the US Joint Chiefs of Staff that it should commit “paramilitary, sabotage and/or terrorist activities against known communist proponents” The Colombian army began attacking communist areas, attempting to reunify the country under the control of the national government. In response, the communist party, the PCC, formed FARC in 1964.
A shift in policy
At 1982 meeting, FARC altered its policy on fighting government forces. A boom in the cocaine market had seen their income rise dramatically and they moved from fighting in rural areas to attacking government forced in urban areas and regions rich in natural resources. This led president Belisario Betancur to negotiate a peace deal with FARC, which would last from 1984 to 1987. In this time, FARC members founded a political party, Union Patriotica (UP). The leftist party drew members from unions and among working classes, not just FARC members. In 1990, while talks were ongoing, government forces attacked a compound housing the FARC national executive. The government claimed this was because FARC was not committed to the peace process. Around 10,000 FARC soldiers fought government groups along 70 fronts between 1996 and 98.
Kidnappings and the IRA
In April 2002, the US House of Representatives Committee on International Relations found that at least 15 IRA members had been travelling in and out of Colombia since 1998.
It added that the IRA had received at least $2 million in funding from FARC drug operations.
This followed the arrest of two IRA men and a Sinn Féin representative in Colombia in August 2001. The Colombia Three were charged with training FARC-EP members in bomb-making. They would eventually be found guilty of travelling on false passports, but not guilty of training FARC members.
That decision was reversed after an appeal by the Attorney General of Colombia and they were sentenced to 17-year terms. The men vanished while on bail and returned to Ireland.
The US
In 1994 kidnapped an American scientist, and in 1999 they killed three US humanitarian workers. This increased pressure from Washington on successive Colombian governments.
However, it’s not as if the murder of their citizens is what sparked US involvement. The New York Times reports that America has spend $9 billion helping fight FARC since 1964.
Colombia is strategically important to the US both for its location in Latin America and its role as a leading producer of cocaine. FARC is estimated to make around $300 million a year from drugs and other illegal activity.
Modern times
In 2008, hundreds of thousands of people marched on the streets of Colombian towns and cities, demanding the end of FARC violence. In 2009 and 2010, FARC would release soldiers and hostages, some held for over a decade.
However, that did not mean an end to violence. In 2010, FARC killed 460 soldiers.
At the same time, key FARC leaders were killed. On 26 February 2012, the FARC announced that they would release their remaining ten political hostages, releasing the men that April.
That would lead to the talks in Havana which started that August and led to yesterday’s major step.
The future
Political scientist Jaime Zuluaga said the peace process is going in the right direction. “This is an step forward, one of the most significant in recent months,” Zuluaga said. Analyst Ariel Silva of the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation said Santos is pressuring the rebels to negotiate. “It is what any president would have done,” said Silva.
Negotiators seeking to end the more than five-decade guerrilla war at the talks in Havana are under growing international pressure to guarantee justice for crimes committed during the conflict.
Former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan warned during a recent visit to Havana that the International Criminal Court could step in if the final peace deal did not bring justice for victims of the war. Cuba and Norway are guarantors of the peace process. Now in recess, the full-fledged talks are due to resume March 17.
With reporting from AFP
The IRA is gone but their spirit is alive and well in the Dail. Except now they seek to bring the country to its knees with stupid economic policies instead of wanton violence.
Class warfare instead of guerrilla warfare
Barking mad now makes sense to me …
you don’t have to worry about Sinn Fein led by the queen’s man from the North – you have to worry about the fianna Fail republicans that have left Fianna Fail !
Can everyone stop replying to Sammy, he’s a substandard troll. Every article he’ll be in there with a contrary argument, logic and sense not the top of his list of priorities.
Foghorn this obsession you have with me can’t be healthy.
Says the dude who trolls every article, spouting absolute nonsense, with a profile picture of a dog with it’s cock out.
You wanna talk to me about what’s healthy?
Foghorn do you expect the dog to be wearing clothes? Maybe it just makes you feel inadequate? Stop distracting from the main article.
No but he doesn’t need to be sat like he’s picture 4 of 17 on a porn site. With pic 17 of 17 being a reverse spread-eagle gaping arsehole shot
Dy’a nat like dawgs ‘Leghorn’?
Is d election date announced ????? These reports will be coming thick nd fast to try stop people from voting SF . FF/FG will try every trick in the book now. I didnt say L as there f#cked
Don’t worry. Fianna Fáil the Republican Party will be elected with a majority. Unlike SF, they will have a mandate from the people of this country.
Seeing as my comment is gone I’m not going to go to as much effort again. I just want to say that the article is missing even one mention about the right wing paramilitary groups responsible for 80% of all deaths related to the conflict over the last 50 years. These paramilitaries were supported by the U.S. & Colombian governments as well as having received financial and logistical support by companies such as Chiquita and Texas Petroleum.
Where did all the other comments go?
And my comment was so intelligent …. #gutted
Try again Mr Meaney, and when you look for it later it might be in an article about flower arranging or baking, because it won’t be here with the way editorial policy has suddenly kicked in :)
The Struggle is grateful to its gallant narco-communist allies.
Good point Comrade Lao, although legal forms of revenue for the Struggle just isn’t the same :(
We’re the farc is my comment for farcs sake
Great news for Columbia. The economy doing well, expanding middle class and open for investment. Narcotics funded FARC withering away is good news for the entire region.
Stark contrast with tinpot leftist Venezuela.
America keeps blowing its wealth up in the sands of foreign countries – so rampant capitalism is an even bigger joke isn’t it Jurgen ?
The arms industries have rightly targeted the U.S. as the Dunce in the class !
Hermes, I simply think it’s a good thing to see Columbia being successful. You launched into an attack on the US, some of which is true re squandeting its wealth. Do you have a problem with Columbia doing well, having effectively neutered FARC, or are you just disappointed yet another left wing group has gone nowhere, like the state of Venezuela?
Capitalism is rooted in money jurgen and money is the root of all evil ….
Noraid – American money funded the I.R..A – so American money was on both sides of the Colombian conflict – you do know that don’t you ?
Why do American hate socialism so mush – are ye that greedy or fearful that you can’t understand the simple word “share” ?
We all get the same size hole and we are all born with nothing …. why should greed ruin it all for 99% of the world’s population and the 1% mostly die without spending a fraction of what they have earned with much of it dying in bank accounts that will never be found after their death .
Capitalism in its truest form was the Nazi bank vaults of Switzerland – is that what you are promoting – anything has to be better than that – No ?
Sinn Fein are now the most popular party in the 32 counties of Ireland – so they are going somewhere – don’t support them as such but I will defend them because they were never in government here and they would never have existed except America’s main buddy in war crimes – Britain was torturing and killing a religious minority in the North !
I have no problem with Columbia doing well – I just don’t believe that economic data is necessarily that indicative of a country doing well !
“We all get the same size hole and we are all born with nothing …. why should greed ruin it all for 99% of the world’s population and the 1% mostly die without spending a fraction of what they have earned with much of it dying in bank accounts that will never be found after their death .
Capitalism in its truest form was the Nazi bank vaults of Switzerland – is that what you are promoting – anything has to be better than that – No ?”
Probably the most astute comment I have read on Journal to date, its worth repeating this part.
The civilised world needs to come down like a ton of bricks on these terrorist groups, wipe the lot of them out whether it’s the IRA, ISIS or FARC. The resources are there so use them ffs, Colombia has been plagued for years too with these clowns, I’d send the full force of the military towards them. It worked in Sri Lanka against the Tamils, the government just sent the military in against them and killed 40k, they forced them into a pocket and annihilated them. It can be done against all terror groups, there just needs to be a will and the PC leftist brigade need to FO.
The irony of a rant like that from you Antrim, when you are using the flag and name of Kurdistan. Do you know who the PKK are, who represent the vast majority of Kurds who aspire to their own state? They are classified as terrorists by NATO and countries such as Japan, Australia, Germany, Spain etc. Do you want the PKK and those who aspire to a Kurdistan station to be crushed similar to those who aspired to a Tamil nation were crushed?
The Peshmerga are being supported and supplied by various NATO members as we speak, they have been probably the most constant resistance to ISIS in Northern Iraq.
I used the Sri Lankan govt offensive as an example of how a terror group can be destroyed militarily. It’s often said by Republicans in Ireland that the British couldn’t beat them militarily, in reality they wernt even trying to beat them militarily, I can’t remember seeing British tanks or offensive aircraft here, can’t remember them bombing or shelling towns etc
pjm; You are a supporter of SF/IRA, as is evidenced by anyone who reads your comments, and yet, you write: ‘They are classified as terrorists’ when you refer to the PKK? And, you misuse the term ‘irony’ when you refer to someone else’s comments – to the point whereby, the irony of your own comment and the dogged context within which it is used, is ironic?
What nonsense, how could the British have used artillery or aircraft? They weren’t fighting a conventional war.
“Come down on them like a ton of bricks” that’s what Colonel Custer thought and look what happened, sometimes the oppressed fight back Antrim.
Stop Phil – they don’t want that – they just want to heap scorn down their long noses !
Sri Lanka wernt fighting a conventional war either but still threw a full military onslaught against the Tamils and destroyed them, there are no Tamil tigers left now because of it. It was a textbook method of destroying an irregular terrorist force.
Custer didn’t have tanks and fighter jets, if he did he’d have won.
What an idiotic comment.
Antrim, in Sri Lanka the security forces targeted all Tamils in that operation, not just the Tigers. Are you suggesting that that should happen here?
The comments for this article have ported onto the Prison officer’s strike page -
This is like Inception, again.
Why is there suddenly a slew of facts being brought up about nasty aspects of Gerry Adams history?
Someone has a vendetta to take the man down.
It has been worked on for weeks by the government I hear – Mairia Cahill didn’t get the rtaction it thought it would and we didn’t all buy the happy dappy 1916 video so this is phase 3 in polarise Ireland – it has nothing to do with G.A. – he’s a political godsend to the FF and the FG – this is about polarisation – a Nation divided cannot stand and all that !
Were Mr. Adams a true republican he would resign for the good of the country – as long as he doesn’t he serves outside intersts – whther he knows that will become apparent in a while – but his brother and his treatment of his nieces and nephews and his sister-in-law is not forgotten lightly – or the fact that the authorities were slow to act – that is his real problem and he can’t undo the favour – as some will see it !
Che Guevara was more Irish than either kennedy , regan or Obama – in terms of his family leaving the island !
Gaitan was never president of Colombia, he was leader of the oppostion party.
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