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