Guerrilla movements in Colombia
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Guerrilla movements in Colombia (
Spanish colonial control
Different guerrilla-style movements have appeared in
By the early 19th century, groups of
Colombian Civil War of 1860-1862
The Colombian Civil War of May 8, 1860 to November 1862 was an
Thousand days civil war
The Thousand Days War (1899–1902) (Spanish: Guerra de los Mil Días), was a civil armed conflict in the newly created Republic of Colombia, (including its then province of Panama) between the Conservative Party, the Liberal Party and its radical factions. In 1899 the ruling conservatives were accused of maintaining power through fraudulent elections. The situation was worsened by an economic crisis caused by falling coffee prices in the international market, which mainly affected the opposition Liberal Party, which had lost power.[2]
La Violencia
La Violencia (Spanish pronunciation: [la βjoˈlensja], The Violence) is a period of civil conflict in the Colombian countryside between supporters of the Colombian Liberal Party and the Colombian Conservative Party, a conflict which took place roughly from 1948 to 1958 (sources vary on the exact dates).[3][4][5]
Some historians disagree about the dates: some argue it started in 1946 when the Conservatives came back into government, because at a local level the leadership of the police forces and town councils changed hands, encouraging Conservative peasants to seize land from Liberal peasants and setting off a new wave of bi-partisan violence in the countryside. But traditionally, most historians argue that La Violencia began with the death of Jorge Eliécer Gaitán.[6][7][5]
The end of La Violencia is disputed, but some say it ended with the creation of a new party that took over the shared control of the government. This party was a collaboration between the Liberal and Conservative party leaders and was called the National Front.[8] The main reason they started this collaboration was because they wanted to end the period of violence that Colombia was going through. One of the conditions to the collaboration was that all other political actors were excluded from the political process. In 1974 the party came to an official end, but still had a say in the government until the 1980s.[7][9]
Colombian armed conflict (1960s - present)
First generation (1964- mid 70s)
One of the first guerrilla movements was the FARC, established in 1966 as a reaction to the National Front. The FARC was a communist movement that grew out of a rural defense group, who believed they could bring social justice through communism. Their first leader was Manuel ''Sureshot'' Marulanda. Another guerrilla movement, the ELN, was established in the early 60s by students who got their ideas from the revolution in Cuba.[5][7]
Second generation (1974-1982)
In the 1970s multiple guerrilla movements emerged in Colombia. One of these groups was the 19th of April Movement, the M-19. This group established in reaction to the claimed fraud that happened during the presidential elections in 1970.[7]
Armed peace period (1982-1985)
In 1984 the former president of Colombia Belisario Betancur signed a ceasefire with the FARC and M-19. This ceasefire only lasted for a year, even though the armed forces of the Colombian government tried to make it last longer. The FARC and M-19 ended the ceasefire in a different way, on different dates.[7]
FARC getting stronger (1986-1999)
The FARC grew bigger and stronger and eventually became the biggest and best organised guerrilla movement of Latin-America. In 1986 there were almost 10,000 combatants that fought at almost 30 different locations. More than a decade later, in 1999, the FARC grew to almost 15,000 combatants at nearly 60 fronts. The FARC was active across Colombia, in nearly 40 percent of all the municipalities. The conflict didn't stay in Colombia itself, but became a cross-border conflict. One of the biggest 'enemies' outside of Colombia for the FARC were the United States.[7][11]
Latest peace negotiations (2012–present)
In 2012 the president of Colombia,
See also
- Right-wing paramilitarism in Colombia
- Narcotrafficking in Colombia
- Red Terror (disambiguation)
References
- ^ The Federalists Country Studies article retrieved on April 16, 2007
- ^ Azcarate, Camilo A. (March 1999). "Psychosocial Dynamics of the Armed Conflict in Colombia". Online Journal of Peace and Conflict Resolution. 2 (1). Archived from the original on September 7, 2008.
- ISBN 978-1-84277-547-9. Archived from the original on January 9, 2016. Azcarate quotes a figure of 300,000 dead between 1948–1959on May 31, 2006.Political violence is not new to that South American nation of 38 million people. In the past 100 years, more than 500,000 Colombians have died in it. From the "War of the Thousand Days," a civil war at the turn of the 20th century that left 100,000 dead, to a partisan clash between 1948 and 1966 that claimed nearly 300,000...
*Gutiérrez, Pedro Ruz (October 31, 1999). "Bullets, Bloodshed And Ballots;For Generations, Violence Has Defined Colombia's Turbulent Political History". Orlando Sentinel (Florida): G1. Archived from the original - ^ Bergquist, Charles; David J. Robinson (1997–2005). "Colombia". Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia 2005. Microsoft Corporation. Archived from the original on November 11, 2007. Retrieved April 16, 2006.On April 9, 1948, Gaitán was assassinated outside his law offices in downtown Bogotá. The assassination marked the start of a decade of bloodshed, called La Violencia (the violence), which took the lives of an estimated 180,000 Colombians before it subsided in 1958.
- ^ JSTOR 421841.
- ISBN 978-0-8135-3443-5.
- ^ PMID 18354874.
- S2CID 144772741.
- – via Springerlink.
- ISBN 978-0906156445.
- ^ a b Monitoring, BBC (6 October 2016). "Colombia's Farc rebels - 50 years of conflict". BBC.
- ^ Brodzinsky, Sibylla (24 November 2016). "Colombia signs historic peace deal with Farc". the Guardian.
