Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

REVOLUTIONARY ARMED FORCES OF COLOMBIA-PEOPLE’S ARMY • 589FARC’s origins go back to 1964 when Colombian CommunistParty (PCC) Central Committee members Manuel Marulanda Vélez(d. 2008), Jacobo Arenas (d. 1990), and Rigoberto Losada (d. 1992)founded FARC as an independent guerrilla group. In 1966 the PCCadopted FARC as its military wing. This move was taken in reactionto the creation of the Castroite National Liberation Army in 1964.In the period 1966–1968, FARC numbered some 500 combatants.The normalization of relations between the Soviet Union and Colombiaweakened FARC, which could no longer count on external aid.In 1982 the group reorganized itself from being loosely coordinatedbands of ragtag militias into a more hierarchically structured “people’sarmy” with ranks, uniforms, insignia, and more systematic trainingof its recruits and officer-cadres. This reorganization was broughtabout largely by Jacobo Arenas, a university-educated leftist whoalso created the Patriotic Union political front for FARC in the mid-1980s. Arenas believed that in order to pursue an effective doubleedgedpolitical and military strategy, the military wing of FARC hadto adopt the standards for recognition as a legitimate belligerent setforth in the Geneva Convention of 12 August 1949. By 2001 theranks of FARC were estimated to be 16,000, of which about 5,000were conscripted child soldiers under the age of 18.Its members have been drawn mainly from the middle-class intelligentsia.FARC has undercut its appeal by its tactics of kidnappingand of killing peasants who do not cooperate with it. During the early1970s FARC began financing itself through kidnapping for ransomof foreign nationals and wealthy Colombians and through extortionof foreign-affiliated businesses. During this resurgence FARC organizeditself into operationally independent units known as “fronts,”having five fronts by 1978, which increased to 27 fronts by 1987, 40fronts by 1988, and around 80 fronts by 2007. One of these fronts,the Ricardo Franco Front, broke with the main body of FARC inMarch 1984 over the question of seeking a negotiated settlement withthe government and became an independent terrorist organization.The group has attacked both Colombian domestic and U.S.-affiliatedtargets. In February 1977 it kidnapped a U.S. Peace Corps volunteerin La Macrena, who was released three years later only after paymentof a $250,000 ransom. In August 1980 it kidnapped a U.S. bananagrower in central Colombia, who was released three months laterafter payment of a $125,000 ransom. In April and August 1983, two