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The Popular Liberation Army, EPL (Ejército de Liberación Nacional), is a Colombian guerrilla group created in 1967. Most of its former members demobilized in 1991, forming the Esperanza, Paz y Libertad (Hope, Peace and Liberty) party, but a dissident faction continues operating. Guerrilla (also called a partisan) is a term borrowed from Spanish (from guerra meaning war) used to describe small combat groups. ...
1967 was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
1991 is a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Origins The EPL was founded by the Communist Party of Colombia (marxist-leninist), PCC(ml), a 1967 offshoot of the main Colombian Communist Party that disagreed with the Soviet ideological tendencies then displayed by the later. 1967 was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
The Colombian Communist Party is the legal Communist party of Colombia. ...
Soviet redirects here. ...
The new party created the EPL that same year, and implemented its strategy of promoting socialist revolution from a rural base in the countryside in order to launch a future offensive against urban centers, where it tried to insert urban cells, while simultaneously engaging in sabotage and activities considered by international observers as terrorist. The color red and particularly the red flag are traditional symbols of Socialism. ...
A revolution is a relatively sudden and absolutely drastic change. ...
This article is about Sabotage sabotage can also refer to: an early Black Sabbath album (Sabotage), the Alfred Hitchcock films (Sabotage or Saboteur), a Beastie Boys song, or a type of shock site. ...
Terrorism is a controversial term with multiple definitions. ...
Historical development The EPL's first military operations were in the department of Córdoba, on the Caribbean coast, during the late 1960s. Internal dissension and the deaths of some of its key leaders during the 1970s weakened the EPL's operational capabilities.
The EPL's efforts were initially unsuccessful, some of the groups main leaders were killed in military operations during the 1970s, and it apparently did not gain as much intellectual sympathy or recruits as the larger guerrilla organizations (FARC, M-19 and ELN), even after the group announced in 1980 that it would abandon orthodox Maoism in favor of pro-Albanian tendencies. A small splinter group, the Pedro León Arboleda Movement, named after a deceased 1975 commander, had been created in 1979. The Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – Ejército del Pueblo (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – Peoples Army, or FARC-EP) was established in 1964 as the paramilitary wing of the Colombian Communist Party, and is Colombias oldest, largest, most capable, and best-equipped insurgent force. ...
The 19th of April Movement, (Movimiento 19 de Abril) or (M-19) was a Colombian guerrilla that traced its origins to the allegedly fraudulent presidential elections of April 19, 1970. ...
Ejército de Liberación Nacional (usually abbreviated to ELN), or National Liberation Army, is a revolutionary, Marxist, insurgent guerrilla group that has been operating in several regions of Colombia since 1966. ...
1980 is a leap year starting on Tuesday. ...
1975 was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1975 calendar). ...
1979 is a common year starting on Monday. ...
The group's armed strength was usually estimated as less than a thousand, with a rough number of about 350 to 500 armed combatants in 1987 operating in six departments around the Middle Magdalena area. 1987 is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
The EPL declared a 1984 cease-fire together with several other guerrilla groups that began and maintained negotiations with the government. The 1985 murder of the group's leader Ernesto Rojas lead to the EPL's official breaking of the cease-fire. [1] (http://www.carnelian-international.com/colombia/guerrilla_Terrorism.htm) Unlike the official Colombian Communist Party, the Maoist PCC(ml) did not have official legal status in Colombia at this time. 1984 is a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
1985 is a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Military operations executed by the official state armed forces and the actions of private paramilitary groups against the EPL's militants and its political supporters weakened the group and would have forced internal divisions within its structure. A paramilitary is a group of civilians trained and organized in a military fashion. ...
Partial demobilization By 1991, the EPL had rejoined peace talks with the administration of president César Gaviria and a total of some 2000 people affiliated to the guerrilla group demobilized, including both armed and unarmed members. 1991 is a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Term of office: August 7, 1990 – August 7, 1994 Preceded by: Virgilio Barco Vargas Succeeded by: Ernesto Samper Pizano Date of birth: March 31, 1947 Place of birth: Pereira, Colombia First Lady: Ana Milena Muñoz de Gaviria Political party: Liberal César Gaviria Trujillo (born March 31, 1947) is a Colombian...
A smaller, dissident faction, sometimes calling itself "Ejército Popular de Liberación - Línea Disidente" (Popular Liberation Army - Dissident Line), under Francisco Caraballo disagreed with the demobilization, insisted on fighting and did not demobilize. Caraballo himself was eventually captured by Colombian authorities in 1994 and his faction continued guerrilla operations on a smaller scale. [2] (http://www.hrw.org/reports98/colombia/Colom989-05.htm#P1794_440846) 1994 was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International year of the Family. ...
Most of the demobilized guerrillas formed Esperanza, Paz y Libertad (Hope, Peace and Liberty), a political party, which claimed to defend the interests of workers and labor unions, especially around the Urabá area in the departments of Antioquia and Córdoba. Antioquia was one of the states in the original United States of Colombia, and is now a department in the northwest part of the Republic of Colombia. ...
Córdoba most commonly means Córdoba, Spain, a famous city in Spain inhabited since the time of ancient Rome, and the seat of the Emir of Córdoba and the Caliph of Córdoba. ...
The FARC, the remaining EPL dissidents and the ELN considered Esperanza, Paz y Libertad and all the demobilized EPL to be "traitors" and paramilitary collaborators, initiating a series of attacks and assassination attempts against the former EPL members. Some of the ex-EPL members apparently would have eventually joined and participated, individually and allegedly without the support of the new political party, in paramilitary operations against the FARC and their former comrades. The Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – Ejército del Pueblo (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – Peoples Army, or FARC-EP) was established in 1964 as the paramilitary wing of the Colombian Communist Party, and is Colombias oldest, largest, most capable, and best-equipped insurgent force. ...
Ejército de Liberación Nacional (usually abbreviated to ELN), or National Liberation Army, is a revolutionary, Marxist, insurgent guerrilla group that has been operating in several regions of Colombia since 1966. ...
In 1998, Human Rights Watch reported that the FARC had begun killing a number of ex-EPL members since 1991: "Investigators pinpoint 1991 as the year the FARC began to massacre perceived political rivals in the Esperanza political party formed by amnestied EPL guerrillas and their supporters. The FARC and its urban militias were believed responsible for 204 murders of Esperanza members and amnestied EPL guerrillas from 1991 to 1995." [3] (http://www.hrw.org/reports98/colombia/Colom989-05.htm#P1344_318454) In a 1999 report, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) also held the FARC responsible for a number of massacres against Esperanza, Paz y Libertad members or sympathizers. [4] (http://www.cidh.oas.org/countryrep/Colom99sp/capitulo-4a.htm) 1998 is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ...
Human Rights Watch is an international NGO based in New York City, USA, that works with human rights issues. ...
1991 is a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
1999 is a common year starting on Friday of the Common Era, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ...
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (the IACHR or, in Spanish, CIDH) is one of the two bodies that comprise the inter-American system for the promotion and protection of human rights. ...
Human Rights Watch believed Caraballo's EPL faction to be responsible for a comparatively smaller number of deaths: "According to Esperanza, 348 of its members and amnestied EPL guerrillas were murdered between 1991 and the end of 1995. Of that number, they believe sixty-one were killed by the EPL under Caraballo’s command." [5] (http://www.hrw.org/reports98/colombia/Colom989-05.htm#P1794_440846)
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