Colombia+Rebels+FARC

Alyssa 2/10/09 ·  On February 4, 2008, several rallies were held in [|Colombia] and in other locations around the world, criticizing FARC and demanding the liberation of hundreds of hostages. The protests were originally organized through the popular social networking site [|Facebook]. According to the [|Washington Post], millions of people in Colombia and thousands worldwide participated in the rallies. ·  FARC has financed itself through [|kidnapping] ransoms, [|extortion], and [|drug trafficking] which includes but it is not limited to [|coca] plant harvesting, protection of their crops, processing of coca leaves to manufacture [|cocaine] , and [|drug trade] protection. ·  The FARC have ties to narcotics traffickers, principally through the provision of armed protection and a form of “taxation” over drugs crops and their profits. During the mid- to late-1990s, several drug war analysts have stated that the FARC would have become increasingly involved in the drug trade, controlling farming, production and exportation of cocaine in those areas of the country under their influence. Brazilian druglord [|Luiz Fernando da Costa] (aka Fernandinho Beira-Mar) was captured in Colombia on April 20, 2001 while in the company of FARC-EP guerrillas. Colombian and Brazilian authorities have claimed that this constitutes proof of further cooperation between the FARC-EP and the druglord based on the exchange of weapons for cocaine. ·  The FARC-EP has employed [|vehicle bombings], gas cylinder bombs, assassinations, [|landmines] , kidnapping, extortion, [|hijacking] , guerrilla and conventional military action against Colombian political, military, economic as well as civilian targets, to attack those it considers a threat to its movement. It has not been uncommon for civilians to die or suffer forced displacement, directly or indirectly, due to many of these actions. The FARC-EPs April 16 and April 18, 2005 gas cylinder attacks on the town of [|Toribió], [|Cauca] led to the displacement of more than two thousand indigenous inhabitants and the destruction of two dozen civilian houses. A February 2005 report from the [|United Nations] ' [|High Commissioner for Human Rights] mentioned that, during 2004, “FARC-EP continued to commit grave breaches [of human rights] such as murders of protected persons, torture and hostage-taking, which affected many civilians, including women, returnees, boys and girls, and ethnic groups."  ·   The FARC’s tactic of employing a type of [|improvised]  [|mortars] made from gas canisters (or cylinders) as explosives, a weapon it often uses when launching attacks at towns and sites in them that they consider as military objectives (such as [|police] stations), has a high degree of inaccuracy. Resulting targeting difficulties have caused these weapons to often level civilian houses and/or harm civilians, such as the case in [|Toribío] on April 24, 2005, and the earlier 2002 attack on a church in [|Bojayá] which killed 119 civilians. ·  [|Human Rights Watch] considers that “the FARC-EPs continued use of gas cylinder mortars shows this armed group’s flagrant disregard for lives of civilians...gas cylinder bombs are impossible to aim with accuracy and, as a result, frequently strike civilian objects and cause avoidable civilian casualties."   ·   During the first quarter of 2005, joint intelligence and police operations by law enforcement authorities from [|Honduras] and [|Colombia] resulted in the seizure of a number of [|AK-47] and [|M16] assault rifles, [|M60] machineguns, rocket launchers and ammunition cartridges that were stated to be part of illegal weapons shipments from criminal gangs and [|black market] dealers in [|Central America] to the FARC in exchange for drugs, allegedly for two thousand kilos of cocaine.
 * Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC) **
 * Background: **
 * FARC is considered a [|terrorist group] by the [|Colombian] government, the [|United States Department of State], [|Canada] and the [|European Union] . Other countries, including [|Cuba] and [|Venezuela] , are more sympathetic to FARC. Venezuelan President [|Hugo Chávez] publicly rejected their classification as "terrorists" in January 2008, considering them to be "real armies", and called on the [|Colombian] government and international community to [|recognize] the guerrillas as a [|“belligerent force”] , arguing that this would then oblige them to renounce kidnappings and terror acts in order to respect the [|Geneva Conventions].
 * FARC was established in the 1960s as the [|military] wing of the [|Colombian Communist Party] and thus originated as a [|guerrilla] movement. The group later became involved with the [|cocaine] trade during the 1980s to finance itself, but remained closely tied to the Communist Party even as it created the [|Patriotic Union] in the early 1980s and later a political structure it calls the [|Clandestine Colombian Communist Party] (PCCC).
 * FARC remains the largest as well as the oldest insurgent group in the [|Americas] . According to the Colombian government, as of 2008, FARC have an estimated 6,000-10,000 members, down from 16,000 in 2001, having lost about half their fighting force after President [|Álvaro Uribe] took office in 2002. However, in 2007 FARC Commander Raul Reyes claimed that their force consisted of 18,000 guerrillas.
 * Pro: **
 * COLUMBIA'S FARC rebels on Thursday freed their sixth hostage in five days, fulfilling a promise they made in December and leaving only 22 police and military among the hundreds of captives they are still holding. Former provincial lawmaker Sigifredo Lopez, 45, was lifted from a jungle location by Brazilian-loaned helicopters to an emotional welcome in Cali by his sons Lucas, 20, and Sergio, 18, after nearly five years in rebel captivity.
 * In an effort to protect their rights, landless locals banded together in self-defense groups forming rural communities known at the time as "Independent Republics" located mainly in south Colombia. FARC was a conglomeration of such groups, and survived //La Violencia// by fighting against conservative peasants now known as //autodefensas// or paramilitaries, who roamed the countryside committing atrocities against civilians and were backed by wealthy landowners and industrialists.
 * The FARC has been involved in several unsuccessful attempts to negotiate peace with the government. The first peace process in 1984 brought a cease-fire under which the FARC established its own political party, the Patriotic Union (UP). Since its inception, however, death squads run by drug cartels with links to security forces murdered thousands of the UP members, causing the party to slowly disintegrate. Two other peace processes were attempted in 1991 and 1992 and were equally unsuccessful. The most recent attempt to establish peace between the FARC and the Colombian government was from 1997 to 2002 under the rule of President Andres Pastrana.
 * Con: **