Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

590 • REVOLUTIONARY ARMED FORCES OF COLOMBIA-PEOPLE’S ARMYU.S. citizens residing in La Meta Department were also kidnappedand released only on payments of ransom.In May 1984, FARC, along with the Popular Liberation Armyand M-19, signed a cease-fire with the Colombian government thatdid not require members of these groups to surrender their weapons.Various FARC fronts, as well as the Ricardo Franco Front, continuedterrorist killings, extortionism, and kidnappings, as well as attackingmilitary units.During February 1985 eight U.S. businesses were bombed inMedellín, including IBM, General Telephone and Electronics, UnionCarbide, and Xerox. In the course of these nighttime bombings,one person was killed and another injured. The Medellín bombingsmay have been the work of the Ricardo Franco Front, which did notfeel obligated to follow other FARC fronts in honoring the truce.In August 1985 FARC reportedly kidnapped four engineers and 30workers of a construction company in Huila Department followingthe firm’s refusal to submit to an $80,000 extortion demand. In November1986 a mass grave was discovered in Turbo containing theremains of about a hundred men, women, and children thought tohave been killed by FARC. In December 1987 50 FARC membersattacked Gaitania using automatic weapons, grenades, and antitankrockets, killing two policemen and injuring five.While some have seen this continuation of violence by FARC frontsas evidence of duplicity on the part of FARC, another explanationequally consistent with these facts is that the decentralized commandstructure of FARC and the continuing violence between governmenttroops, drug traffickers, and leftist groups created a situation in whichhostilities and settling of old scores were likely to continue.In late 1985 FARC established the Simón Bolívar Guerrilla Coordinationboard, an umbrella organization for all leftist insurgents inColombia that succeeded the National Guerrilla Coordination groupfrom which FARC had been excluded. In 1985 it also created thePatriotic Union (UP) as a political front organization.FARC has had a problematic relationship with traffickers of theColombian cocaine cartels. FARC’s protection of traffickers’ interestsin exchange for cash can be understood as another form of extortion,especially since drug traffickers later began to sponsor their ownterrorist attacks not only against the Colombian government but alsoagainst leftist politicians associated with FARC through its Simón