FARC guerrillas: Key facts
2008-07-03 06:48
July 2 - Colombia said on Wednesday it rescued
French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt, three Americans
and 11 other hostages who had been held by the leftist
guerrillas called the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia,
or FARC.
Here are some key facts about the FARC, Colombia's largest
rebel group and Latin America's oldest left-wing insurgency.
The FARC was established in the 1960s as a
Communist-inspired peasant army fighting for land reform and to
reduce the gulf still dividing rich and poor in the Andean
country.
Branded a terrorist organisation by the United States and
European Union, the FARC has been driven onto the defensive by
President Alvaro Uribe's US-backed security campaign. The
United States has given Colombia $5.5bn in mostly
military aid over the last seven years.
US and Colombian authorities say the FARC has used the
multibillion-dollar Colombian cocaine trade to fund its
operations. Colombia's four-decade-old conflict is now often a
fight over drug-producing land involving the FARC, right-wing
paramilitaries and other narcotics gangs.
The FARC still holds sway in some rural areas where it
grows coca, the raw material for cocaine, and keeps kidnap
victims hostage in secret jungle camps. Betancourt and the
three American defence contractors were the group's
highest-profile hostages.
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the
FARC, had been holding about 40 high-profile hostages it had
sought to exchange for jailed rebels.
Violence has eased and the economy has expanded in
Colombia's central, north and northwest urban areas, but the
FARC is still a potent force in the southern jungle regions
where the state's presence is still weak.
Two top rebel commanders were killed in March, a serious
blow to the FARC. One, Raul Reyes, was a FARC spokesperson and
contact for negotiations over hostages. Reyes was killed in his
camp in Ecuador in a cross-border strike that sparked a
diplomatic crisis in the Andean region.
- Reuters