People's Liberation Army

The People's Liberation Army (EPL) is a Marxist guerrilla group that has been fighting the government of Colombia since the mid-1960s.

[Page 294]The 1960s were a time of great upheaval in Colombia, resulting in the formation of several active resistance forces; the best known are the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and National Liberation Army (ELN). Unlike the ELN and the FARC, which although communist in ideology operated independently of any political faction, the EPL was founded in 1967 as the armed wing of an existing political party, the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party (ML-CP)—a breakaway faction of the Colombian Communist Party. Thus, the EPL was the instrument of its party, not an independent entity. During the EPL's early years, it adhered strictly to party dogma; such focus may have made the EPL more receptive to political solutions to Colombia's ongoing conflict.

The ML-CP advocated ...