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Date: April 30, 2024 Tue
Time: 1:36 am
Time: 1:36 am
Results for revolutionary armed forced of colombia
1 results foundAuthor: Otis, John Title: The FARC and Colombia's Illegal Drug Trade Summary: In 2014, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, Latin America's oldest and largest guerrilla army known as the FARC, marked the 50th anniversary of the start of its war against the Colombian government. More than 220,000 people have been killed and more than five million people uprooted from their homes in the conflict, which is the last remaining guerrilla war in the Western Hemisphere. However, this grim, half-century milestone coincides with peace negotiations between the Colombian government and the FARC that began in Havana, Cuba, in November 2012. The Havana talks have advanced much farther than the three previous efforts to negotiate with the FARC and there is a growing sense that a final peace treaty is now likely. So far, the two sides have reached agreements on three of the five points on the negotiating agenda, including an accord to resolve an issue that helps explain why the conflict has lasted so long: The FARC's deep involvement in the taxation, production, and trafficking of illegal drugs. On May 16, 2014, the government and the FARC signed an agreement stating that under the terms of a final peace treaty, the two sides would work in tandem to eradicate coca, the plant used to make cocaine, and to combat cocaine trafficking in areas under guerrilla control. A decade ago, Colombia supplied about 90 percent of the world's cocaine. But due to anti-drug efforts in Colombia as well as Peru's reemergence as a major producer, Colombia since 2011 is believed to provide less than half of the world's cocaine, according to U.S. officials. Yet drug profits continue to be a vital source of cash for the FARC, a smaller Marxist rebel group known as the National Liberation Army, or ELN, and other criminal organizations in Colombia. Massive drug profits help the FARC to buy weapons, uniforms, and supplies and to recruit fresh troops. The fight between the FARC and illegal right-wing paramilitary groups over coca fields and drug smuggling corridors has been a key factor in the conflict's extreme levels of violence, forced displacement and land grabs. When the two sides first met to discuss the drug issue in November 2013, Colombia's chief peace negotiator, Humberto de la Calle, called the illegal drug trade "the fuel that feeds the conflict." During the last round of peace talks with the government that lasted from 1999 to 2002, the FARC was at the peak of its military power thanks, in part, to a surge in drug income and made almost no effort to seriously negotiate a peace treaty. Since then, the U.S. government has provided Colombia with $9.3 billion in aid, much of which has been spent on counterinsurgency and counterdrug programs targeting the FARC. The Colombian military's successful efforts to weaken the FARC and reduce its drug income through targeting coca fields, drug laboratories, and smugglers have helped convince FARC leaders to return to the bargaining table for negotiations that hold much promise for a final peace accord. This paper will examine the FARC's long history of involvement in Colombia's illegal narcotics industry and the impact of rebel drug profits on the course of the armed conflict. It will also explore the likely impact of the drug accord reached at the peace negotiations in Cuba on efforts to extricate the FARC from the drug-trafficking equation, possible changes in Colombia's counterdrug policies, as well as the strong possibility that some FARC members will continue producing and smuggling drugs in a post-conflict scenario. Details: Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Latin American Program, 2014. 27p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed August 3, 2015 at: http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/Otis_FARCDrugTrade2014.pdf Year: 2014 Country: Colombia URL: http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/Otis_FARCDrugTrade2014.pdf Shelf Number: 136289 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug TraffickingDrug-Related ViolenceRevolutionary Armed Forced of ColombiaSmuggling |