The People's Revolutionary Army ( es, Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo, links=no, ERP) was a small

Marxist Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...

guerrilla organization in

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

. The group originated in the municipality of Venadillo, Tolima Department in c. 1985 as a splinter group of the National Liberation Army and was commanded by its founder Édgar Castellanos, a.k.a. "Gonzalo" until his death in January 2007. The group became a military objective of

paramilitary A paramilitary is an organization whose structure, tactics, training, subculture, and (often) function are similar to those of a professional military, but is not part of a country's official or legitimate armed forces. Paramilitary units carr ...

. The Colombian government wanted the group for rebellion, kidnappings and extortion crimes.El Tiempo: Catorce guerrilleros del Erp en el Tolima entregaron las armas para reintegrarse a la vida civil
eltiempo.com Accessed 15 September 2007. It operated mostly in the vicinity of the city of

Ibagué Ibagué () (referred to as San Bonifacio de Ibagué del Valle de las Lanzas during the Spanish period) is the capital of Tolima, one of the 32 departments that make up the Republic of Colombia. The city is located in the center of the country, ...

capital of the Tolima Department and in the mountainous area of the

Montes de María The Montes de María is an isolated group of small mountains near the northern coast of Colombia in the Caribbean Region. The Montes de María (also known as Serranía de San Jacinto) are the last part of the Serranía de San Jerónimo which exte ...

in the Colombian Caribbean region, between the departments of

Sucre Sucre () is the Capital city, capital of Bolivia, the capital of the Chuquisaca Department and the List of cities in Bolivia, 6th most populated city in Bolivia. Located in the south-central part of the country, Sucre lies at an elevation of . T ...

and Bolívar which demobilized in June, 2007. The ERP lost its marxist political background with the years and concentrated on criminal practices such as kidnappings and extortion and went down on the number of members to end up with 14 guerrillas which demobilized on September 15, 2007.El Tiempo: Guerrilla del Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo (Erp) quedó desintegrada, dijo Ministo de Defensa
eltiempo.com Accessed 15 September 2007.

References

External links

Terrorism knowledge base: ERP
Colombian guerrilla movements History of Colombia {{Colombia-stub