Revolutionary Armed Forces Of Colombia

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People's Army ( es, link=no, Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de ColombiaEjército del Pueblo, FARC–EP or FARC) is a Marxist–Leninist guerrilla group involved in the continuing Colombian conflict starting in 1964. The FARC-EP was officially founded in 1966 from peasant self-defense groups formed from 1948 during the "Violencia" as a peasant force promoting a political line of agrarianism and anti-imperialism. They are known to employ a variety of military tactics, in addition to more unconventional methods, including terrorism.

The operations of the FARC–EP were funded by kidnap and ransom, illegal mining, extortion, and taxation of various forms of economic activity, and the production and distribution of illegal drugs. They are only one actor in a complex conflict where atrocities have been committed by the state, right-wing paramilitaries, and left-wing guerrillas not limited to FARC, such as ELN, M-19, and others. Colombia's National Centre for Historical Memory, a government agency, has estimated that between 1981 and 2012 paramilitary groups have caused 38.4% of the civilian deaths, while the Guerillas are responsible for 16.8%, 10.1% by the Colombian Security Forces and 27.7% by non-identified armed groups. The National Centre for Historical Memory has also concluded that of the 27,023 kidnappings carried out between 1970 and 2010, the Guerillas were responsible for 90.6% of them. The United Nations has estimated that 12% of all civilian deaths in the Colombian conflict were caused by FARC and National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrillas, with 80% caused by right-wing paramilitaries, and the remaining 8% caused by Colombian security forces.

The strength of the FARC–EP forces was high; in 2007, the FARC said they were an armed force of 18,000 men and women; in 2010, the Colombian military calculated that FARC forces consisted of about 13,800 members, 50 percent of whom were armed guerrilla combatants; and in 2011 the president of Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos, said that FARC–EP forces comprised fewer than 10,000 members. The Colombian Ministry of Defense reported 19,504 deserters, or individually demobilized members, from the FARC between August 2002 and their collective demobilization in 2017, despite potentially severe punishment, including execution, for attempted desertion in the FARC.

FARC made 239 attacks on the energy infrastructure; however, they showed signs of fatigue. By 2014, the FARC were not seeking to engage in outright combat with the army, instead concentrating on small-scale ambushes against isolated army units. Meanwhile, from 2008 to 2017, the FARC opted to attack police patrols with home-made mortars, sniper rifles, and explosives, as they were not considered strong enough to engage police units directly. This followed the trend of the 1990s during the strengthening of Colombian government forces.

In June 2016, the FARC signed a ceasefire accord with the President of Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos in Havana. This accord was seen as an historic step to ending the war that has gone on for fifty years. On 25 August 2016, the Colombian president, Juan Manuel Santos, announced that four years of negotiation had secured a peace deal with FARC and that a national referendum would take place on 2 October. The referendum failed with 50.24% voting against. On November 24, 2016, the Colombian government and the FARC signed a revised peace deal, which the Colombian Congress approved on 30 November.

On 27 June 2017, FARC ceased to be an armed group, disarming itself and handing over its weapons to the United Nations. One month later, FARC announced its reformation as a legal political party, in accordance with the terms of the peace deal. However, about 2,000 to 2,500 FARC dissidents still take on FARC's original doctrine and continue with drug trafficking, though far smaller than the group at its peak.

A small faction of FARC leaders announced a return to armed activity on 29 August 2019, stating that the Colombian government did not respect peace agreements, a position Colombian officials disagreed with. The Colombian government responded with preemptive strikes, killing FARC members planning to lead rearmament activities.

Background

''La Violencia'' and the National Front

In 1948, in the aftermath of the assassination of the populist politician Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, there occurred a decade of large-scale political violence throughout Colombia, which was a Conservative – Liberal civil war that killed more than 200,000 people. In Colombian history and culture, the killings are known as '' La Violencia'' (The Violence, 1948–58); most of the people killed were peasants and laborers in rural Colombia. In 1957–1958, the political leadership of the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party agreed to establish a bipartisan political system known as the National Front (Frente Nacional, 1958–74). The Liberal and the Conservative parties agreed to alternate in the exercise of government power by presenting a joint National Front candidate to each election and restricting the participation of other political movements.

The pact was ratified as a constitutional amendment by a national plebiscite on 1 December 1957 and was supported by the Church as well as Colombia's business leaders. The initial power-sharing agreement was effective until 1974; nonetheless, with modifications, the Liberal–Conservative bipartisan system lasted until 1990. The sixteen-year extension of the bipartisan power-sharing agreement permitted the Liberal and Conservative elites to consolidate their socioeconomic control of Colombian society, and to strengthen the military to suppress political reform and radical politics proposing alternative forms of government for Colombia.

Accelerated Economic Development

During the 1960s, the Colombian government effected a policy of Accelerated Economic Development (AED), the agribusiness plan of Lauchlin Currie, a Canadian-born U.S. economist who owned ranching land in Colombia. The plan promoted industrial farming that would produce great yields of agricultural and animal products for worldwide exportation, while the Colombian government would provide subsidies to large-scale private farms. The AED policy came at the expense of the small-scale family farms that only yielded food supplies for local consumption. Based on a legalistic interpretation of what constituted "efficient use" of the land, thousands of peasants were forcefully evicted from their farms and migrated to the cities, where they became part of the industrial labor pool. In 1961, the dispossession of farmland had produced 40,000 landless families and by 1969 their numbers amounted to 400,000 throughout Colombia. By 1970, the '' latifundio'' type of industrial farm (more than 50 hectares) occupied more than 77 per cent of arable land in the country. The AED policy increased the concentration of land ownership among cattle ranchers and urban industrialists, whose businesses expanded their profits as a result of reductions in the cost of labor wages after the influx of thousands of displaced peasants into the cities. During this period, most rural workers lacked basic medical care and malnutrition was almost universal, which increased the rates of preventable disease and infant mortality.

History

PCC and self-defense communities

Communists were active throughout rural and urban Colombia in the period immediately following World War I. The Colombian Communist Party (''Partido Comunista Colombiano'', PCC) was formally accredited by the Comintern in 1930. The PCC began establishing "peasant leagues" in rural areas and "popular fronts" in urban areas, calling for improved living and working conditions, education, and rights for the working class. These groups began networking together to present a defensive front against the state-supported violence of large landholders. Members organized strikes, protests, seizures of land, and organized communist-controlled "self-defense communities" in southern Colombia that were able to resist state military forces, while providing for the subsistence needs of the populace. Many of the PCC's attempts at organizing peasants were met with violent repression by the Colombian government and the landowning class. U.S. military intelligence estimated that in 1962, the size of the PCC had grown to 8,000 to 10,000 active members, and an additional 28,000 supporters.

In 1961, a guerrilla leader and long-time PCC organizer named Manuel Marulanda Vélez declared an independent "Republic of Marquetalia". The Lleras government attempted unsuccessfully to attack the communities to drive out the guerrillas, due to fears that "a Cuban-style revolutionary situation might develop". After the failed attacks, several army outposts were set up in the area.

In October 1959, the United States sent a "Special Survey Team" composed of counterinsurgency experts to investigate Colombia's internal security situation. Among other policy recommendations the US team advised that "to shield the interests of both Colombian and US authorities against 'interventionist' charges any special aid given for internal security was to be sterile and covert in nature". In February 1962, three years after the 1959 "US Special Survey Team", a Fort Bragg top-level U.S. Special Warfare team headed by Special Warfare Center commander General William P. Yarborough, visited Colombia for a second survey.

In a secret supplement to his report to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Yarborough encouraged the creation and deployment of a US-backed force to commit "paramilitary, sabotage and/or terrorist activities against known communist proponents".

The new counter-insurgency policy was instituted as Plan Lazo in 1962 and called for both military operations and civic action programs in violent areas. Following Yarborough's recommendations, the Colombian military recruited civilians into "civil defense" groups which worked alongside the military in its counter-insurgency campaign, as well as in civilian intelligence networks to gather information on guerrilla activity. Doug Stokes argues that it was not until the early part of the 1980s that the Colombian government attempted to move away from the counterinsurgency strategy represented by Plan Lazo and Yarborough's 1962 recommendations.

Creation of FARC

The Colombian government began attacking many of the communist groups in the early 1960s, attempting to re-assimilate the territories under the control of the national government. FARC was formed in 1964 by Manuel Marulanda Vélez and other PCC members, after a military attack on the community of Marquetalia. 16,000 Colombian troops attacked the community, which only had 48 armed fighters. Marulanda and 47 others fought against government forces at Marquetalia and then escaped into the mountains along with the other fighters. These 48 men formed the core of FARC, which later grew in size to hundreds of fighters.

Betancur and Barco presidencies (1982–1990)

Seventh Guerrilla Conference of the FARC–EP

In 1982, FARC–EP held its Seventh Guerrilla Conference, which called for a major shift in FARC's strategy. FARC had historically been doing most of its fighting in rural areas and was limited to small-scale confrontations with Colombian military forces. By 1982, increased income from the "coca boom" allowed them to expand into an irregular army, which would then stage large-scale attacks on Colombian troops. They also began sending fighters to Vietnam and the Soviet Union for advanced military training. They also planned to move closer to middle-sized cities, as opposed to only remote rural areas, and closer to areas rich in natural resources, in order to create a strong economic infrastructure. It was also at this conference that FARC added the initials "EP", for "''Ejército del Pueblo''" or "People's Army", to the organization's name.

''La Uribe'' Agreement and ''Union Patriótica''

In the early 1980s, President Belisario Betancur began discussing the possibility of peace talks with the guerrillas. This resulted in the 1984 ''La Uribe'' Agreement, which called for a cease-fire, which ended up lasting from 1984 to 1987.

In 1985, members of the FARC–EP, along with a large number of other leftist and communist groups, formed a political party known as the '' Union Patriótica'' ("Patriotic Union", UP). The UP sought political reforms (known as ''Apertura Democratica'') such as constitutional reform, more democratic local elections, political decentralization, and ending the domination of Colombian politics by the Liberal and Conservative parties. They also pursued socioeconomic reforms such land redistribution, greater health and education spending, the nationalization of foreign businesses, Colombian banks, and transportation, and greater public access to mass media. While many members of the UP were involved with the FARC–EP, the large majority of them were not and came from a wide variety of backgrounds such as labor unions and socialist parties such as the PCC. In the cities, the FARC–EP began integrating itself with the UP and forming ''Juntas Patrióticas'' (or "solidarity cells") – small groups of people associated with labor unions, student activist groups, and peasant leagues, who traveled into the ''barrios'' discussing social problems, building support for the UP, and determining the sociopolitical stance of the urban peasantry.

The UP performed better in elections than any other leftist party in Colombia's history. In 1986, UP candidates won 350 local council seats, 23 deputy positions in departmental assemblies, 9 seats in the House, and 6 seats in the Senate. The 1986 Presidential candidate, Jaime Pardo Leal, won 4.6% of the national vote.

Since 1986, thousands of members of the UP and other leftist parties were murdered (estimates range from 4,000 to 6,000). In 1987, the President of the UP, Jaime Pardo, was murdered. In 1989 a single large landholder had over 400 UP members murdered. Over 70% of all Colombian presidential candidates in 1990—and 100% of those from center-left parties—were assassinated.

Gaviria and Samper presidencies (1990–1998)

During this period, the Colombian government continued its negotiations with the FARC–EP and other armed groups, some of which were successful. Some of the groups which demobilized at this time include the EPL, the ERP, the Quintín Lame Armed Movement, and the M-19.

On 10 August 1990, senior leader Jacobo Arenas, an ideological leader and founder of FARC–EP, died of a heart attack at the Casa Verde compound in Colombia's eastern mountains.

Towards the end of 1990, the army, with no advance warning and while negotiations were still ongoing with the group, attacked and seized four linked bases. The last of these a compound known as Casa Verde, which housed the National Secretariat of the FARC–EP, was seized on 15 December 1990. The Colombian government argued that the attack was caused by the FARC–EP's lack of commitment to the process, demonstrated by continuing its criminal activities and FARC attacks in November.

On 3 June 1991, dialogue resumed between the Simón Bolívar Guerrilla Coordinating Board and the government on neutral territory in Caracas, Venezuela and Tlaxcala, Mexico. However, the war did not stop, and armed attacks by both sides continued. The negotiation process was broken off in 1993 after no agreement was reached. The Coordinating Board disappeared not long after that time, and guerrilla groups continued their activities independently.

Before the break off of dialogue, a letter written by a group of Colombian intellectuals (among whom were Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez) to the Simón Bolívar Guerrilla Coordinating Board was released denouncing the approach taken by the FARC–EP and the dire consequences that it was having for the country.

In the early 1990s, the FARC–EP had between 7,000 and 10,000 fighters, organized into 70 fronts spread throughout the country. From 1996 to 1998 they inflicted a series of strikes on the Colombian Army, including a three-day offensive in Mitú ( Vaupés department), taking a large number of soldiers prisoner.

On 23 September 1994, the FARC kidnapped American agricultural scientist Thomas Hargrove and held him captive for 11 months. After his release, Hargrove wrote a book about his ordeal which inspired the 2000 film '' Proof of Life'' starring Meg Ryan and Russell Crowe.

Over this period in Colombia, the cultivation of different drugs expanded and there were widespread coca farmers' marches. These marches brought to a halt several major arteries in southern Colombia. Government officials said that FARC-EP had forced the protesters to participate. According to social anthropologist María Clemencia Ramírez, the relationship between the guerrillas and the marches was ambivalent: FARC-EP promoted the 1996 protests as part of their participatory democracy policies yet also exercised authoritarianism, which led to tensions and negotiations with peasant leaders, but the '' cocalero'' movement brought proposals on behalf of the coca growers and defended its own interests.

French sociologist Alain Labrousse, who has conducted extensive research on the illicit narcotics industry in Latin America and Central Asia, has noted similarities in the reliance on the drug trade by both the FARC-EP and the Taliban. In his thesis, Labrousse asserts that the FARC-EP leadership, like that of the Taliban, explicitly bans the use of drugs by its membership and within the local population, but vigorously advocates for legalization of drug trafficking as a tool to finance its military objectives. In both cases, the insurgency groups manage to garner significant political support of farmers who serve to benefit from the illicit drug trade, prompting grassroots mobilization, political activism, and agitation to demand legalization by the government.

Pastrana presidency (1998–2002)

In March 1999 members of a local FARC contingent killed three USA-based indigenous rights activists, who were working with the U'Wa people to build a school for U'Wa children, and were fighting against encroachment of U'Wa territory by multinational oil corporations. The killings were questioned by many and condemned by many others, and led the United States to increase pressure on the Pastrana administration to crack down on FARC guerrillas.

1998–2002 peace process

With the hope of negotiating a peace settlement, on 7 November 1998, President Andrés Pastrana granted FARC-EP a safe haven meant to serve as a confidence building measure, centred on the San Vicente del Caguán settlement.

After a series of high-profile guerrilla actions, including the hijacking of an aircraft, the attack on several small towns and cities, the arrest of the Irish Colombia Three (see below) and the alleged training of FARC-EP militants in bomb making by them, and the kidnapping of several political figures, Pastrana ended the peace talks on 21 February 2002 and ordered the armed forces to start retaking the FARC-EP controlled zone, beginning at midnight. A 48-hour respite that had been previously agreed to with the rebel group was not respected as the government argued that it had already been granted during an earlier crisis in January, when most of the more prominent FARC-EP commanders had apparently left the demilitarised zone. Shortly after the end of talks, the FARC-EP kidnapped Oxygen Green Party presidential candidate Íngrid Betancourt, who was travelling in Colombian territory. Betancourt was rescued by the Colombian government on 2 July 2008 (see Operation Jaque below).

The Colombia Three case

On 24 April 2002, the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on International Relations published the findings of its investigation into IRA activities in Colombia. Their report alleged a longstanding connection between the IRA and FARC–EP, mentioned at least 15 IRA members who had been travelling in and out of Colombia since 1998, and estimated that the IRA had received at least $2 million in drug proceeds for training FARC-EP members. The IRA/FARC-EP connection was first made public on 11 August 2001, following the arrest in Bogotá of two IRA explosives and urban warfare experts and of a representative of Sinn Féin who was known to be stationed in Cuba. Jim Monaghan, Martin McCauley and Niall Connolly (known as the Colombia Three), were arrested in Colombia in August 2001 and were accused of teaching bomb-making methods to FARC–EP.

On 15 February 2002, the Colombia Three were charged with training FARC-EP members in bomb-making in Colombia. The Colombian authorities had received satellite footage of the men with FARC-EP in an isolated jungle area, where they were thought to have spent five weeks. They could have spent up to 20 years in gaol if the allegations were proved.

During October 2001, a key witness in the case against the three Irish republicans disappeared. This came as Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams admitted one of the men was the party's representative in Cuba. The missing witness, a former police inspector, said he had seen Mr McCauley with FARC-EP members in 1998. Without his testimony, legal sources said the chances of convicting the three men were reduced.

They were eventually found guilty of travelling on false passports in June 2004 but were acquitted of training FARC-EP members. That decision was reversed after an appeal by the Attorney General of Colombia and they were sentenced to 17-year terms. However, they vanished in December 2004 while on bail and returned to Ireland. Tánaiste Mary Harney said no deal had been done with Sinn Féin or the IRA over the three's return to Ireland adding that the Irish government would consider any request from the Colombian authorities for their extradition. Colombian vice-president Francisco Santos Calderón did not rule out allowing them to serve their sentences in Ireland.

Uribe Presidency (2002–2010)

2002–2007

For most of the period between 2002 and 2005, the FARC-EP was in a strategic withdrawal due to the increasing military and police actions of new president Álvaro Uribe, which led to the capture or desertion of many fighters and medium-level commanders. Uribe ran for office on an anti-FARC-EP platform and was determined to defeat FARC-EP in a bid to create "confidence" in the country. Uribe's own father had been killed by FARC-EP in an attempted kidnapping in 1983.

In 2002 and 2003, FARC broke up ten large ranches in Meta, an eastern Colombian province, and distributed the land to local subsistence farmers.

During the first two years of the Uribe administration, several FARC-EP fronts, most notably in Cundinamarca and Antioquia, were broken by the government's military operations.

On 5 May 2003, the FARC assassinated the governor of Antioquia, Guillermo Gaviria Correa, his advisor for peace, former defence minister Gilberto Echeverri Mejía, and eight soldiers. The FARC had kidnapped Mr. Gaviria and Mr. Echeverri a year earlier, when the two men were leading a march for peace from Medellín to Caicedo in Antioquia.

On 13 July 2004, the office of the United Nations' High Commissioner for Human Rights publicly condemned the group, given evidence that FARC-EP violated article 17 of the additional Protocol II of the Geneva Convention and international humanitarian law, as a result of 10 July massacre of seven peasants and the subsequent displacement of eighty individuals in San Carlos, Antioquia.

In early February 2005, a series of small-scale actions by the FARC-EP around the southwestern departments of Colombia, resulted in an estimated 40 casualties. The FARC–EP, in response to government military operations in the south and in the southeast, displaced its military centre of gravity towards the Nariño, Putumayo and Cauca departments.

The FARC-EP originally said that they would only release the police and military members they held captive (whom they considered to be prisoners of war) through exchanges with the government for imprisoned FARC-EP members. During the duration of the DMZ negotiations, a small humanitarian exchange took place.

The group demanded a demilitarised zone including two towns (Florida and Pradera) in the strategic region of Valle del Cauca, where much of the current military action against them has taken place; this region is also an important way of transporting drugs to the Pacific coast. This demand was rejected by the Colombian government based on previous experience during the 2002 peace talks.

On 2 December 2004, the government announced the pardon of 23 FARC–EP prisoners, to encourage a reciprocal move. The prisoners to be released were all of low rank and had promised not to rejoin the armed struggle. In November 2004, the FARC–EP had rejected a proposal to hand over 59 of its captives in exchange for 50 guerrillas imprisoned by the government.

In a communique dated 28 November but released publicly on 3 December, the FARC-EP declared that they were no longer insisting on the demilitarisation of San Vicente del Caguán and Cartagena del Chairá as a precondition for the negotiation of the prisoner exchange, but instead that of Florida and Pradera in the Valle department. They state that this area would lie outside the "area of influence" of both their Southern and Eastern Blocks (the FARC-EP's strongest) and that of the military operations being carried out by the Uribe administration.

They requested security guarantees both for the displacement of their negotiators and that of the guerrillas that would be freed, which were stated to number as many as 500 or more, and ask the Catholic Church to coordinate the participation of the United Nations and other countries in the process.

The FARC–EP also mention in the communique that Simón Trinidad's extradition, would be a serious obstacle to reaching a prisoner exchange agreement with the government. On 17 December 2004, the Colombian government authorised Trinidad's extradition to the United States, but stated that the measure could be revoked if the FARC-EP released all political hostages and military captives in its possession before 30 December. The FARC-EP rejected the demand.

On 25 March 2006, after a public announcement made weeks earlier, the FARC–EP released two captured policemen at La Dorada, Putumayo. The release took place some southwest of Bogotá, near the Ecuadorean border. The Red Cross said the two were released in good health. Military operations in the area and bad weather had prevented the release from occurring one week earlier.

In a separate series of events, civilian hostage and German citizen Lothar Hintze was released by FARC–EP on 4 April 2006, after five years in captivity. Hintze had been kidnapped for extortion purposes, and his wife had paid three ransom payments without any result.

One prisoner, Julian Ernesto Guevara Castro, a police officer, died of tuberculosis on 28 January 2006. He was a captain and was captured on 1 November 1998. On 29 March 2009, the FARC-EP announced that they would give Guevara's remains to his mother. The FARC handed over Guevara's remains on 1 April 2010.

Another civilian hostage, Fernando Araújo, later named Minister of Foreign Relations and formerly Development Minister, escaped his captors on 31 December 2006. Araújo had to walk through the jungle for five days before being found by troops in the hamlet of San Agustin, north of Bogotá. He was kidnapped on 5 December 2000 while jogging in the Caribbean coastal city of Cartagena. He was reunited with his family on 5 January 2007.

Another prisoner, Frank Pinchao, a police officer, escaped his captors on 28 April 2007 after nine years in captivity. He was reunited with his family on 15 May 2007.

2007 death of 11 hostage deputies

On 28 June 2007, the FARC–EP reported the death of 11 out of 12 provincial deputies from the Valle del Cauca Department whom the guerrillas had kidnapped in 2002. The guerrillas claimed that the deputies had been killed by crossfire during an attack by an "unidentified military group." The Colombian government stated that government forces had not made any rescue attempts and that the FARC–EP executed the hostages. FARC did not report any other casualties on either side and delayed months before permitting the Red Cross to recover the remains. According to the government, the guerrillas delayed turning over the corpses to let decomposition hide evidence of how they died. The Red Cross reported that the corpses had been washed and their clothing changed before burial, hiding evidence of how they were killed. The Red Cross also reported that the deputies had been killed by multiple close-range shots, many of them in the backs of the victims, and even two by shots to the head.

In February 2009, Sigifredo López, the only deputy who survived and was later released by FARC, accused the group of killing the 11 captives and denied that any military rescue attempt had taken place. According to López, the unexpected arrival of another guerrilla unit resulted in confusion and paranoia, leading the rebels to kill the rest of the Valle deputies. He survived after previously being punished for insubordination and was held in chains nearby but separated from the rest of the group.

Early-2008 prisoner events

On 10 January 2008, former vice presidential candidate Clara Rojas and former congresswoman Consuelo González were freed after nearly six years in captivity. In a Venezuela-brokered deal, a helicopter flew deep into Colombia to pick up both hostages. The women were escorted out of the jungle by armed guerrillas to a clearing where they were picked up by Venezuelan helicopters that bore International Red Cross insignias. In a statement published on a pro-rebel Web site, the FARC-EP said the unilateral release demonstrated the group's willingness to engage the Colombian government in talks over the release of as many as 800 people who are still being held. In a televised speech, Colombia's U.S.-allied president, Álvaro Uribe, thanked Chávez for his efforts.

During the period she was held kidnapped in the jungle in 2004, Clara Rojas gave birth to her son by Caesarean. At 8 months old, the baby was removed from the area and Rojas didn't hear of the boy again until 31 December, when she heard Colombian President Álvaro Uribe say on the radio that the child was no longer with her captors. DNA tests later confirmed the boy, who had been living in a Bogotá foster home for more than two years under a different name, was hers. She reclaimed her son. Asked about her opinion of the FARC–EP as group, Rojas called it "a criminal organisation", condemning its kidnappings as "a total violation of human dignity" and saying some captive police and soldiers are constantly chained.

On 31 January 2008, the FARC–EP announced that they would release civilian hostages Luis Eladio Perez Bonilla, Gloria Polanco, and Orlando Beltran Cuellar to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez as a humanitarian gesture. On 27 February 2008, the three hostages and Jorge Eduardo Gechem Turbay (who was added to the list due to his poor health) were released by FARC–EP. With the authorization of the Colombian government and the participation of the International Red Cross, a Venezuelan helicopter transported them to Caracas from San José del Guaviare. The FARC–EP had called its planned release of the hostages a gesture of recognition for the mediation efforts of Chávez, who had called on the international community to recognize the rebels as belligerents a month prior. Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, who had tense relations with Chávez, thanked the socialist leader and called for the release of all hostages. He said Colombia was still in a fight "against terrorist actions" but was open to reconciliation.

Anti-FARC rallies

On 4 February 2008, anti-FARC protests were held in 45 Colombian cities and towns, with an estimated 1.5 million people coming out in Bogotá alone. Solidarity rallies were held in some 200 cities worldwide including Berlin, Barcelona, London, Madrid, Toronto, Dubai, Miami, New York, Brisbane, and La Paz. The protests were originally organised through Facebook and were also supported by local Colombian media outlets as well as the Colombian government. Participation estimates vary from the hundreds of thousands to several millions of people in Colombia and thousands worldwide.

Kiraz Janicke of the leftist and chavista website Venezuelanalysis criticised the rallies, claiming that "right-wing paramilitary leaders featured prominently" in their organisation and arguing that workers were also pressured to attend the gatherings. According to her, the purpose of the protests was to promote " Uribe's policy of perpetuating Colombia's decades-long civil war." Shortly before the rallies took place thirteen demobilised AUC paramilitary leaders, including Salvatore Mancuso, had expressed their support of the protest through a communique. However, this move was rejected by organiser Carlos Andrés Santiago, who stated that such an endorsement was harmful and criticised the AUC's actions.

On 20 July 2008, a subsequent set of rallies against FARC included thousands of Colombians in Bogotá and hundreds of thousands throughout the rest of the country.

Deaths of Raúl Reyes and Manuel Marulanda Vélez

On 1 March 2008, Raul Reyes, a member of FARC's ruling Secretariat, in the small village of Santa Rosa, Ecuador, was killed just across the border from Colombia, after Colombian planes bombarded a FARC camp there. The bombardment was "followed by troops in helicopters who recovered the bodies of Reyes and another 16 rebels." Reyes was the former FARC chief negotiator during the unsuccessful 1998–2002 peace process, and was also a key FARC hostage release negotiator. Reyes' demise marked the first time that a FARC Secretariat member had been killed in combat.

This incident led to a breakdown in diplomatic relations between Ecuador and Colombia, and between Venezuela and Colombia. Ecuador condemned the attack. The incident also resulted in diplomatic strains between the United States and Ecuador, following revelations that the Central Intelligence Agency provided intelligence that allowed the Colombian military to locate the FARC–EP commander and ordnance used in the attack.

It has been considered the biggest blow against FARC–EP in its more than four decades of existence. This event was quickly followed by the death of Iván Ríos, another member of FARC–EP's seven-man Secretariat, less than a week later, by the hand of his own bodyguard. It came as a result of heavy Colombian military pressure and a reward offer of up to $5 million from the Colombian government.

After the attack, the Colombian military forces managed to secure six laptop computers belonging to Reyes, in which they found information linking several left-wing Colombian personalities, such as politicians, journalists and human rights activists with terrorist activities.

Manuel Marulanda Vélez died on 26 March 2008 after a heart attack. His death would be kept a secret, until Colombian magazine ''Semana'' published an interview with Colombian defence minister Juan Manuel Santos on 24 May 2008 in which Santos mentions the death of Manuel Marulanda Vélez. The news was confirmed by FARC–EP commander " Timochenko" on Latin American television station teleSUR on 25 May 2008. "Timochenko" announced the new commander in chief was Alfonso Cano After speculations in several national and international media about the "softening up" of the FARC and the announcement of Colombian President Álvaro Uribe that several FARC leaders were ready to surrender and free their captives, the secretariat of the FARC sent out a communiqué emphasising the death of their founder would not change their approach towards the captives or the humanitarian agreement.

Late-2008 prisoner events

On 11 January 2008 during the annual State of the Nation in the Venezuelan National Assembly, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez referred to the FARC as "a real army that occupies territory in Colombia, they're not terrorists ... They have a political goal and we have to recognise that". However, on 13 January 2008, Chávez retracted his previous statement and stated his disapproval of the FARC–EP strategy of armed struggle and kidnapping, saying "I don't agree with kidnapping and I don't agree with armed struggle". President Hugo Chávez repeatedly expressed his disapproval of the practice of kidnapping stating on 14 April: "If I were a guerrilla, I wouldn't have the need to hold a woman, a man who aren't soldiers ... Free the civilians who don't have anything to do with the war. I don't agree with that." On 7 March at the Cumbre de Rio, Chávez stated again that the FARC–EP should lay down their arms "Look at what has happened and is happening in Latin America, reflect on this (FARC-EP), we are done with war ... enough with all this death". On 8 June Chavez repeated his call for a political solution and an end to the war, "The guerrilla war is history ... At this moment in Latin America, an armed guerrilla movement is out of place".

On 2 July 2008, under a Colombian military operation called Operation Jaque, the FARC–EP was tricked by the Colombian Government into releasing 15 captives to Colombian Intelligence agents disguised as journalists and international aid workers in a helicopter rescue. Military intelligence agents infiltrated the guerrilla ranks and led the local commander in charge of the captives, Gerardo Aguilar Ramírez, alias Cesar, to believe they were going to take them by helicopter to Alfonso Cano, the guerrillas' supreme leader. The rescued included Íngrid Betancourt (former presidential candidate), U.S. military contractors Marc Gonsalves, Thomas Howes, and Keith Stansell, as well as eleven Colombian police officers and soldiers. The commander, Cesar and one other rebel were taken into custody by agents without incident after boarding the helicopter. On 4 July, some observers questioned whether or not this was an intercepted captive release made to look like a rescue. In a 5 July communique, FARC itself blamed rebels Cesar and Enrique for the escape of the captives and acknowledged the event as a setback but reiterated their willingness to reach future humanitarian agreements. Immediately after the captive rescue, Colombian military forces cornered the rest of FARC–EP's 1st Front, the unit which had held the captives. Colombian forces did not wish to attack the 1st Front but instead offered them amnesty if they surrender. Colombia's Program for Humanitarian Attention for the Demobilized announced in August 2008 that 339 members of Colombia's rebel groups surrendered and handed in their weapons in July, including 282 guerrillas from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

Óscar Tulio Lizcano, a Colombian Conservative Party congressman, was kidnapped 5 August 2000. On Sunday, 26 October 2008, the ex-congressman escaped from FARC–EP rebels. Tulio Lizcano was a hostage for over 8 years, and escaped with a FARC–EP rebel he convinced to travel with him. They evaded pursuit for three days as they trekked through mountains and jungles, encountering the military in the western coastal region of Colombia. Tulio Lizcano is the first hostage to escape since the successful military rescue of Íngrid Betancourt, and the longest held political hostage by the organization. He became the 22nd Colombian political hostage to gain freedom during 2008.

During his final days in captivity, Lizcano told Santos, they had nothing to eat but wild palm hearts and sugar cane. With the military tightening the noose, a FARC–EP rebel turned himself in and provided Colombian authorities with Lizcano's exact location in the northwest state of Choco. As police and army troops prepared to launch a rescue operation, Lizcano escaped alongside one of his guerrilla guards who had decided to desert. The two men hiked through the rain forest for three days and nights until they encountered an army patrol. Speaking from a clinic in the western city of Cali, Mr Lizcano said that when soldiers saw him screaming from across a jungle river, they thought he was drunk and ignored him. Only when he lifted the FARC–EP rebel's Galil assault rifle did the soldiers begin to understand that he was escaping from the FARC–EP rebels. "They jumped into the river, and then I started to shout, 'I'm Lizcano'", he said.

Soon after the liberation of this prominent political hostage, the Vice President of Colombia Francisco Santos Calderón called Latin America's biggest guerrilla group a "paper tiger" with little control of the nation's territory, adding that "they have really been diminished to the point where we can say they are a minimal threat to Colombian security", and that "After six years of going after them, reducing their income and promoting reinsertion of most of their members, they look like a paper tiger." However, he warned against any kind of premature triumphalism, because "crushing the rebels will take time". The of jungle in Colombia makes it hard to track them down to fight.

2009 prisoner events

On 21 December 2008, The FARC–EP announced that they would release civilian hostages Alan Jara, Sigifredo López, three low-ranking police officers and a low-ranking soldier to Senator Piedad Córdoba as a humanitarian gesture. On 1 February 2009, the FARC–EP proceeded with the release of the four security force members, Juan Fernando Galicio Uribe, José Walter Lozano Guarnizo, Alexis Torres Zapata and William Giovanni Domínguez Castro. All of them were captured in 2007. Jara (kidnapped in 2001) was released on 3 February and López (kidnapped in 2002) was released on 5 February.

On 17 March 2009, The FARC-EP released Swedish hostage Erik Roland Larsson. Larsson, paralyzed in half his body, was handed over to detectives in a rugged region of the northern state of Córdoba. Larsson was kidnapped from his ranch in Tierralta, not far from where he was freed, on 16 May 2007, along with his Colombian girlfriend, Diana Patricia Pena while paying workers. She escaped that same month following a gun battle between her captors and police. Larsson suffered a stroke while in captivity. The FARC-EP had sought a $5 million ransom. One of Larsson's sons said that the ransom was not paid.

On 22 December 2009, the body of Luis Francisco Cuéllar, the Governor of Caquetá, was discovered, a day after he had been kidnapped from his house in Florencia, Caquetá. Officials said the abduction and execution had been carried by the FARC. According to officials, he had been killed soon after the abduction. The kidnappers cut the governor's throat as they evaded security forces. In a statement broadcast on radio, the acting governor, Patricia Vega, said, "I no longer have any doubts that FARC has done it again." The FARC claimed responsibility for Cuéllar's kidnapping and murder in January 2010. The group said that they kidnapped him in order to "put him on trial for corruption" and blamed his death on an attempt to rescue him by force.

On 16 April 2009, the FARC-EP announced that they would release Army Corporal Pablo Emilio Moncayo