Popular Liberation Army
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The Popular Liberation Army (, ''EPL'') is a Colombian anti-revisionist Marxist–Leninist
guerrilla Guerrilla warfare is a form of unconventional warfare in which small groups of irregular military, such as rebels, Partisan (military), partisans, paramilitary personnel or armed civilians, which may include Children in the military, recruite ...
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, formerly led by '' Megateo'', known as "''Los Pelusos",'' continue operating. On June 22, 1994, Francisco Caraballo, First Secretary of the Communist Party of Colombia (M–L) and Commander in Chief of the People's Liberation Army (Ejército Popular de Liberación, EPL), was arrested along with his wife, son and several other EPL members. Víctor Ramon Navarro Cervano, alias "Megateo," the leader of the last faction of the Popular Liberation Army (EPL), was killed in a military and police operation in Norte de Santander department in 2015. On December 15, 2016, Megateo's successor Guillermo León Aguirre, alias “David León,” was captured in Medellín. 40 days after the capture of David León, the body of his successor Jade Navarro Barbaso, alias “Caracho,” was still not found after disappearing. By 2017, the group was estimated to have only 132 members and only had a presence in 10 municipalities of Catatumbo, located in the department of Norte de Santander. It has also been reported that some people identifying themselves as EPL members were actually FARC dissidents.


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 Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
's ideological tendencies. 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 Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening a polity, government, effort, or organization through subversion, obstruction, demoralization (warfare), demoralization, destabilization, divide and rule, division, social disruption, disrupti ...
.


Historical development

The EPL's first military operations were in the Córdoba Department, on the
Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...
, 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 group's 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 The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People's Army (, FARC–EP or FARC) was a Marxist–Leninist guerrilla group involved in the continuing Colombian conflict starting in 1964. The FARC-EP was officially founded in 1966 from peasan ...
,
19th of April Movement The 19th of April Movement (), or M-19, was a Colombian urban guerrilla movement active in the late 1970s and 1980s. After its demobilization in 1990 it became a political party, the M-19 Democratic Alliance (), or AD/M-19. The M-19 tra ...
and ELN), even after the group announced in 1980 that it would abandon orthodox
Maoism Maoism, officially Mao Zedong Thought, is a variety of Marxism–Leninism that Mao Zedong developed while trying to realize a socialist revolution in the agricultural, pre-industrial society of the Republic of China (1912–1949), Republic o ...
in favor of
Hoxhaism Hoxhaism ( , ) is a variant of Marxism–Leninism developed in the late 1970s as a result of a schism in the anti-revisionist movement, namely between the Chinese Communist Party and the Party of Labour of Albania. The ideological dispute be ...
. A small splinter group, the Pedro León Arboleda Movement, named after a deceased 1975 commander, had been created in 1979. 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. Unlike the official Colombian Communist Party, the Maoist PCC(ml) did not have official legal status in Colombia at this time. Military operations executed by the official state armed forces and the actions of private
paramilitary A paramilitary is a military that is not a part of a country's official or legitimate armed forces. The Oxford English Dictionary traces the use of the term "paramilitary" as far back as 1934. Overview Though a paramilitary is, by definiti ...
groups against the EPL's militants and its political supporters weakened the group and would have forced internal divisions within its structure.


Partial demobilization

By 1991, the EPL had rejoined peace talks with the administration of president
César Gaviria César Augusto Gaviria Trujillo ( ; born 31 March 1947) is a Colombian economist and politician who served as the President of Colombia from 1990 to 1994, Secretary General of the Organization of American States from 1994 to 2004 and National D ...
and a total of some 2000 people affiliated to the guerrilla group demobilized, including both armed and unarmed members. 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 Demobilization or demobilisation (see American and British English spelling differences, spelling differences) is the process of standing down a nation's armed forces from combat-ready status. This may be as a result of victory in war, or becaus ...
, 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. 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. However, according to Anthropology Professor Lesley Gill, "many of the EPL rank and file switched sides and exposed other guerrillas and their supporters to BCB (paramilitaries)". As a result, this behavior 'sowed a sense of panic, as most people had some type of interaction with them through family or neighborhood ties, a business deal, school, a friendship or romance, or simply because they said hello to each other in the street. Few people were free from possible exposure". It was in this context of former EPL members working with right-wing paramilitary units that FARC unleashed a campaign of repression against them. 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 on 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. In 1998,
Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Headquartered in New York City, the group investigates and reports on issues including War crime, war crimes, crim ...
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 104 murders of Esperanza members and amnestied EPL guerrillas from 1991 to 1995." In a 1999 report, the
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (the IACHR or, in the three other official languages Spanish, French, and Portuguese language, Portuguese CIDH, ''Comisión Interamericana de los Derechos Humanos'', ''Commission Interaméricaine des ...
(IACHR) also held the FARC responsible for a number of massacres against Esperanza, Paz y Libertad members or sympathizers. 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." Despite the operational constants carried by the security forces, the group still has a presence in the department of Norte de Santander. One of the latest and more important took place in La Playa de Belén, Norte de Santander Department, in the site two dead men and two captured, all indicated to belong to the Libardo Mora Toro de Los Pelusos front, dissent of the EPL.


2013 interview

In 2013, Colombian weekly Semana interviewed Ramón Navarro Serrano, alias "Megateo," the leader of the EPL in Norte de Santander. During the interview, Megateo was accompanied by some 50 EPL rebels carrying brand new IMI Galil rifles and
Colombian army The National Army of Colombia () is the land warfare service branch of the Military Forces of Colombia. With over 361,420 active personnel as of 2020, it is the largest and oldest service branch in Colombia, and is the second largest army in the ...
uniforms.


Operation Solemn

Operation Solemn (Spanish: ''Operación Solemne'') was a combined military operation between the Armed Forces of Colombia that killed Ramón Navarro Serrano, the leader of the EPL at the time, and four other guerrilla combatants. The military operation was carried out by the
Colombian Air Force The Colombian Aerospace Force (FAC, ) is the air force of the Republic of Colombia. The Colombian Aerospace Force is one of the three institutions of the Military Forces of Colombia charged, according to the 1991 Constitution, with working to exe ...
, the
National Army of Colombia The National Army of Colombia () is the land warfare service branch of the Military Forces of Colombia. With over 361,420 active personnel as of 2020, it is the largest and oldest service branch in Colombia, and is the second largest army in the ...
, and the National Police.


Controversy

It is alleged that the EPL operations are funded in part by
kidnapping Kidnapping or abduction is the unlawful abduction and confinement of a person against their will, and is a crime in many jurisdictions. Kidnapping may be accomplished by use of force or fear, or a victim may be enticed into confinement by frau ...
s, extortions,
cattle raiding Cattle raiding is the act of stealing live cattle, often several or many at once. In Australia, such stealing is often referred to as duffing, and the perpetrator as a duffer.Baker, Sidney John (1945) ''The Australian language : an examination ...
,
money laundering Money laundering is the process of illegally concealing the origin of money obtained from illicit activities (often known as dirty money) such as drug trafficking, sex work, terrorism, corruption, and embezzlement, and converting the funds i ...
and the distribution of
illegal drugs Illegal may refer to: Law * Violation of law ** Crime In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a State (polity), state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and uni ...
.


Use of name

On March 14, 2018, Insight Crime revealed that some FARC dissidents were using the EPL's name.


References


External links


Esperanza, Paz y Libertad Homepage
(Spanish) {{Authority control Anti-revisionist organizations Colombian guerrilla movements Communism in Colombia Communist militant groups Far-left politics in Colombia Hoxhaist organizations