Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

REVOLUTIONARY ARMED FORCES OF COLOMBIA-PEOPLE’S ARMY • 591Bolívar Guerrilla Coordination board front: On 11 October 1987 UPmember and former presidential candidate Jaime Pardo Neal waskilled by agents of José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha, a major drugtrafficker. On 22 March 1990 traffickers also assassinated UP presidentialcandidate Bernardo Jaramillo Ossa at Bogotá airport.Although FARC accepted in principle the “national dialogue,” itfound that its UP candidates were murdered by the death squadsof the vengeful Colombian cartels, which resented FARC’s previouskidnappings of their members and extortion in the name ofrevolutionary taxes. By November 1991 the Simón Bolívar GuerrillaCoordination ended the dialogue to resume terrorist attacks.With the Colombian government’s preoccupation with recapturingMedellín cartel leader Pablo Escobar, terrorist attacks by FARC andother leftist groups left Colombia with the highest number of terroristincidents of any nation in 1992. In March 1993 FARC kidnappedthree American missionaries from Panama, and in fall 1993 FARCand the rival ELN set aside their rivalry to cooperate in a month-longoffensive against the government. In July 1994 FARC assassinated ahigh-ranking Colombian army general and intensified its campaignof kidnapping Colombians and foreigners for ransom. During 1995the number of leftist-related terrorist acts nearly doubled, from 41the previous year to 76. In 1995 FARC assassinated Alvaro GomezHurtado, head of the Conservative Party.Around 1995 FARC resumed its insurgency in earnest. In the period1986–2008, the group bombed oil pipelines more than 950 times,spilling over 2.5 million barrels of crude oil, roughly nine times thespillage caused in the Exxon Valdez oil spill. FARC was extortingabout $140 million from oil companies per year and stepped up itsattacks on oil pipelines in 1995–2001. Pipeline bombings peaked at170 in 2001, but in the period 2006–2008 Colombian counterinsurgencyefforts have reduced the number of bombing to around twobombings per month.FARC’s deadliest offensive in over 10 years started on 30 August1996, and by 31 December 1999 it was in effective control of over 50percent of Colombia and enjoyed recognition as a belligerent by theVenezuelan government. By 1996 the membership had grown from5,500 to more than 7,000 and carried its operations into neighboringcountries such as Panama, Venezuela, and Ecuador. The increase inFARC’s activity and the inability of the Colombian government to