FARC

FARC (or FARC-EP) is the abbreviation of Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia - Ejército del Pueblo. This is the name of a guerrilla organisation operating in Colombia. The group says it has Marxist- Leninist roots. When the name of the group is translated into English, it usually reads Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army.

The government of Colombia,^[1] the United States,^[2] Canada^[3] and the European Union^[4][5] have classified the organisation as a terrorist group. Other countries, such as Ecuador,^[6] Brazil,^[7] Argentina,^[8] Chile,^[9] Cuba and Venezuela do not see the group as terrorist. They instead refer to the group as “insurgents”.^[source?] Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, for example, publicly rejected this classification of terrorists in January of 2008. He called on Colombia and other world governments to recognize the guerrillas as a belligerent force. Chávez said that if they were recognised that way, they would then be obliged to stop kidnappings and terror acts in order to respect the Geneva Conventions.^[10][11]

The FARC was established in the 1960s as the military wing of the Colombian Communist Party. The group started as a guerrilla movement. It became involved with trading illegal drugs during the 1980s.^[12] This caused an official separation from the Communist Party and the formation of a political structure it calls the Clandestine Colombian Communist Party.^[source?] The FARC-EP still claims to be a guerrilla movement. According to the Colombian government, FARC has an estimated 6,000-8,000 members in 2008, down from 16,000 in 2001.^[13] Other estimates are higher, including up to 18,000 guerrillas, with the FARC themselves claiming in a 2007 interview that they have not been weakened.^[14] The FARC-EP is present in 15-20 percent of Colombia’s territory. Most of them are in southeastern jungles and in plains at the base of the Andes mountains.^[15]

In June 2016, the FARC signed a ceasefire accord with the President of Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos in Havana. This accord was seen as a historic step to ending the war that has gone on for fifty years.^[16] On 25 August 2016, the Colombian president, Juan Manuel Santos, announced that four years of negotiation had secured a peace deal with FARC and that a national referendum would take place on 2 October.^[17] The referendum failed with 50.24% voting against.^[18] The Colombian government and the FARC on 24 November signed a revised peace deal,^[19] which the Colombian Congress approved on 30 November.^[20]

On 27 June 2017, FARC ceased to be an armed group, disarming itself and handing over its weapons to the United Nations.