Page 332 - Encyclopedia Of Terrorism

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312———Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

then that he decided to target LAX. LAX, he later FARC) is a leftist Colombian guerrilla group whose
testified, was “sensitive politically and economically.” troops currently control more than 40 percent of the
After two members of his cell were stopped at country and present a grave threat to the Colombian
immigration in Great Britain, Ressam went on alone. government.
Beginning in August 1999, he began to carry out the Between 1948 and 1958, Colombia saw its the two
plot. Over the next several months, he found others to leading political parties, the Liberals and the
help him and gathered the bomb-making materials Conservatives, engage in a civil war that plunged the
that would later be found hidden in the truck of his country into near anarchy; the period is called La
rental car as he tried to enter the United States from Violencia—the violence. During that decade and con-
Victoria, Canada. tinuing into early 1960s, the Colombian Communist
Ressam was arrested on December 14, 1999, after Party began organizing peasant militias to defend vil-
trying to flee U.S. Customs agents at Port Angeles, lages in the rural south. After the war was ended with
Washington. On April 6, 2001, he was convicted on the political parties agreeing to share power exclu-
nine counts, including conspiracy to commit an interna- sively between them, the government began to act
tional terrorist act, smuggling explosives, and lying to against the peasant groups, considering them to be a
customs officials. According to Attorney General John communist threat to their newly formed political
Ashcroft, Ressam was the first convicted under the hegemony. In response to the Army’s crackdown, in
Terrorism Transcending National Boundaries statute. 1964 the peasants formed a coalition guerrilla force,
Ressam then agreed to testify against others the FARC.
involved in the plot, including Haouari, who was con- Throughout the mid-1970s, the FARC functioned
victed in January 2002. Ressam’s sentencing, origi- primarily as a defensive force, providing protection
nally scheduled for February 2002, has been for the peasantry from landowners and providing ser-
postponed until at least 2003 so that he may testify vices such as schools and medical facilities that the
against individuals apprehended in the wake of the state could not. During the late 1970s, the FARC
September 11, 2001, attacks, including Zacarias began to expand aggressively and by 1984 had won
Moussaoui, the accused 20th hijacker, Ibn al-Shaykh the organization some concessions from the govern-
al-Libi, a high-ranking member of Al Qaeda, and Abu ment, one of which was allowing members of the
Doha (aka Amar Makhlulif), accused of organizing group to run for office under the FARC banner. The
the travel for several terrorists. FARC formed a political party in November 1985, but
attacks by another guerrilla group, the M-19, during
See also AL QAEDA; ARMED ISLAMIC GROUP; OSAMA BIN
that month, resulted in a crackdown by the Army; by
LADEN; ZACARIAS MOUSSAOUI; Y2K PLOT; ABU
1986 this first attempt at peace had been abandoned
ZUBAYDAH
by all sides. The FARC retreated to its southern jungle
Further Reading strongholds and began to regroup.
During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Colombia
Abu Khalil, As`ad. Bin Laden, Islam, and America’s New became one of the world’s centers for the growing of
“War on Terrorism.” New York: Seven Stories, 2002. coca, the plant from which cocaine is derived. While
Bergen, Peter L. Holy War Inc.: Inside the Secret World of the FARC did not actually traffic in the drug, it
Osama bin Laden. New York: Free Press, 2001.
Frontline. Trail of a Terrorist. PBS. http://www.pbs. allowed coca to be grown in regions under its control
org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/trail. and enforced a “tax” on coca growers. The FARC also
Mahajan, Rahul. The New Crusade: America’s War on began providing a variety of services to drug traffick-
Terrorism. New York: Monthly Review, 2002. ers, including protecting the jungle airstrips used by
smugglers. Over the next 20 years, the FARC would
see increasing profits from the drug trade. During the
REVOLUTIONARY ARMED FORCES 1990s, despite the dismantling of the largest drug traf-
OF COLOMBIA ficking cartels, cocaine production in Colombia sky-
rocketed. The country now provides more then 80
percent of the world’s supply. Currently, the FARC
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia is thought to receive between $300 million and $1
(Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia; billion annually from coca and heroin production.