Imperialism In Colombia

Words: 1477
Pages: 6

The fifty year asymmetric conflict between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a guerrilla group, and the Colombian Government, has resulted in the death of over 220,000 people and additionally, is thought to have displaced 3.7 million people.

To fully understand the motives of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia- People’s Army, commonly abbreviated as the FARC-EP, we must recall the volatile political situation into mid 20th Century Colombia when the tension between the Colombian Conservative Party and the Liberal Party began to increase. This tension reached the tipping point a little after the Conservative party had overturned all the reforms introduced by the Liberals and right after the leader of the popular Colombian Liberal Party, Jorge E. Gaitán, was assassinated. This resulted in the beginning of the period of Colombian history known La Violencia, the second civil war between the Colombian Conservative Party and Colombian Liberal Party which killed around 200,000 people, and this was when the FARC was created.
…show more content…
In their initial years, FARC-EP focused on helping redistribute wealth from the rich to the peasants from whom agricultural land had been violently taken by the government to give to large corporations, something the FARC-EP was fundamentally against. Resentment toward the Government from the peasant class worked in favor of the FARC-EP as this was crucial to the building of their organisation, in terms of size and military capabilities, and it became a fully functioning guerrilla organisation after gaining support from the