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1822 United States recognizes independence from Spain of newly-created Greater Colombia, which includes Venezuela, Panama and Ecuador.
1903 Panama, acting with U.S. blessing, breaks away from Colombia. Washington pays Colombia $25 million compensation.
1934 Franklin D. Roosevelt is first U.S. president to visit Colombia
1939 First U.S. military mission to Colombia arrives.
1948 Ninth Panamerican Conference declares that communism is anti-democratic and totalitarian, and that together the countries must eradicate and impede any activities that destroy institutions or prevent the free and sovereign right of people/communities to govern themselves
1948 Liberal President Jorge Eliecer Gaitan is assassinated. El Bogotazo riot in the capital marks the beginning of La Violencia civil war.
1953 Colombia sends troops to Korea to aid U.S. Rojas Pinilla offers amnesty for armed combatants that hand over their arms. Ultimately, they are assassinated.
1958 National Front ends La Violencia for the Liberals and Conservatives. Others remain armed.
1959 Cuban Revolution
1960 ELN Army of National Liberation is born (Cuban inspired)
1961 Soviet President Nikita Khruschev announces that the USSR is ready to aid any wars of liberation. United States President Kennedy responds with the Alliance for Progress program to fight subversion. The program includes socio-economic aid ultimately used to help gather information on subversive elements in the community. CIA helps Colombian police collect intelligence from the social programs.
1962 US develops the low intensity war strategy Plan Lazo modeled after the Phoenix Program in Vietnam. One of its components is that uses five assassination teams of 12 soldiers each to assassinate remaining communist subversives. In general it uses aid and community divisions to create conflict and facilitate intelligence gathering. It then uses military forces to destroy cells or regions not under gov't control.
1962 The Colombian Sixth Brigade is given orders to attack Marquetalia. Largely unsuccessful the rural communities are able to extract arms through military victories. The Communist Party and the MRL are able to organize enough pressure in the cities for the President to stop the assault.
1964 Marquetalia Operation - One third of the Colombia military, 16,000 soldiers, descends upon the communities labeled by the government as "Independent republics." These self-defense areas, remaining from La Violencia, are attacked. Colombian military launches U.S.-backed "Operation Laso," to wipe out 44 leftist guerrillas in central Tolima province. The operation fails and marks the foundation of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebel movement.
1965 ELN co-founder Camilo Torres, famous liberation theologist and Catholic priest, dies in combat
1966 EPL, Army of Popular Liberation, formed (Maoists)
1970 M-19 (April 19 Movement) is born after populist ANAPO candidate, former military dictator, Rojas Pinilla, was denied an electoral victory. The 70's sees the emergence of other guerrilla movements.
1977 September 14, National Strike
1978 President Turbay Ayala issues the Public Safety Statute giving the police/military latitude for repression. 1982 Seventh Guerrilla Conference (First Conference in 1965)
1984 The Uribe Accords - Peace agreement between the Colombian President Belisario Betancourt and the FARC-EP, designating a political process to end the war and a bilateral cease-fire. Legalizes the Patriotic Union political party. FARC soldiers promised an amnesty if they turn over their weapons 4,000 UP members, candidates and elected officials are assassinated.
1984 Paramilitary movement begins to form as reaction of reintegration of guerrillas into legal activities.
1985 In response to the gov't breaking the terms of the ceasefire, the M-19 take over the Palace of Justice in Bogotá. President Betanur ignores the plea from the President of the Supreme Court to halt the Army's counter attack. The M-19 soldiers, 11 Supreme Court Justices and 90 civilians are killed.
1986 The peace process is over. Military creates paramilitaries to kill civilians accused of supporting guerrillas. Drug traffickers form paramilitary groups to fight guerrillas (extort landowners).
1987 The M-19, EPL, ELN and later the FARC join together to form the Simon Bolivar Guerrilla Coordination.
1988 UP denounces the murder of its members including 1986 presidential candidate by paramilitaries. M-19 and EPL political representatives (future Democratic Alliance M19, ADM19, and Popular Front parties) are also murdered.
1989 Liberal presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán is murdered by Pablo Escobar's assassins. President George Bush announces war on drugs.
1990 M-19 agrees to ceasefire. ADM19 presidential candidate Carlos Pizarro is murdered by paramilitaries.
1991 ADM19 wins 30% vote for National Constitutional Assembly. EPL and indigenous guerrilla Quintin Lame join the Assembly. The resulting Constitution did not result in the land reform and army restructuring that the ELN and FARC-EP were fighting for.
1992 United States announces it will stop aid to Colombian army amid allegations the military used aid money to fight Marxist rebels.
1995 Led by Carlos Castaño, paramilitary group form a federation, the Autodefensas Campesinas de Cordoba y Urabá (ACCU).Over 25,000 homicides took place in Colombia this year.
1997 In January, the first U.S. civilian pilot, working under U.S. State Department contract, dies during drug crop fumigation mission over southeast Guaviare province.
1998 According to CINEP and the Colombian Commission of Jurists, between October 1998 - March 2000, 17,811 Colombians were injured or died due to war. Regarding the responsibility on serious faults to int'l humanitarian rights, the Public Forces were responsible for 2%, paramilitary groups 60%, FARC13%, ELN 8% and combined operations of the Army along with paramilitary groups had 15% responsibility. In August 1998, U.S. pilot shot and wounded while flying Colombian army helicopter on combat mission over northwest Uraba region. U.S. authorities say the man is a Puerto Rican mercenary.
1999 In February, The FARC-EP negotiate the demilitarized zone. Carlos Castaño declares human rights advocates as military targets. In March 1999, the FARC kill three US activists visiting the U'Wa who are struggling against oil exploration by Occidental Petroleum. The FARC promises to punish killers. In July, U.S. Army De Havilland RC-7 reconnaissance plane crashes in mountains in southern Putumayo province. Five U.S. soldiers die, the first U.S. military personnel to be killed in Colombia.
2000 The FARC and the Colombia government "public hearings" in the demilitarized zone open to Colombian organizations and citizens. The US Congress approves $1.321 billion to Plan Colombia. President Clinton waives human rights conditions. Carlos Julio Rosas mayor of Orito Putumayo, is 17th mayor killed this year. Senator Paul Wellstone is sprayed while observing fumigation operations.
2001 90,611 displaced Colombians from January - March, 2002 as reported by CODHES Consultoría para los Derechos Humanos y el Desplazamiento Interno. (~2 million since 1985). Bush's Andean Regional Initiative passes through Congress.
2002 U.S. military intervention continues to escalate with Bush's proposal to dissolve human rights requirements, allows any past or future aid to be used in counterinsurgency operations.
Main Sources:
Wolf, Paul (March 20, 2002). The
Secret History of Colombia.
Gott, Richard (1970). Guerrilla Movements in Latin America.
FARC-EP.
See l.
Colombia Human Rights Network
Anti-War
Committee |