Popular Liberation Army

The Popular Liberation Army (aka People's Liberation Army, Ejército Popular de Liberación, or EPL), also known as the People's Liberation Army, is a Marxist guerrilla group that has been fighting the government of Colombia since the mid-1960s.

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 have 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, which may have made it more receptive to political solutions to Colombia's ongoing conflict.

The ML-CP advocated a strict Maoist strategy in which revolution was to originate among guerrilla fighters and peasants in the countryside, who would then encircle major cities with “liberated” territory, thus gradually choking off government support until besiegement caused collapse. This strategy prompted the EPL to infiltrate local unions and worker's rights groups to indoctrinate the peasantry. While the EPL infiltrated these groups effectively, its recruitment efforts met largely with failure. By 1975, disagreements within the EPL leadership over strict adherence to Maoist strategy began a period of infighting that limited the group's ability to fight on the outside. In 1980 the EPL announced that it had abandoned Maoism, and it began to attract new members in its northeastern area of operation. By the early 1980s, the group was estimated to have about 1,500 active members.

[Page 488]In 1982, Colombia's president, Belisario Betancur, initiated peace negotiations with the guerrillas. The EPL and another guerrilla group, the M-19, were the most receptive; in August 1984 the EPL signed a peace accord with the government. Many in the government and the army were opposed to Benatacur's peace initiative, however, and right-wing paramilitary death squads began to form. The EPL and other guerrilla groups that had tried to enter politics found their activists the targets of assassination, and neither the army nor the larger guerrilla groups were honoring the ceasefire. After the November 1985 assassination of EPL's leader Oscar Calvo, the group abandoned the now-collapsed peace process.

This was a heavy blow to the EPL, as it had been one of the initiative's most ardent supporters. Former sympathizers felt betrayed by the EPL's political capitulation and began to support the FARC and the ELN, both of which were seen as rightly mistrustful of the government. The EPL attempted to reestablish itself as a guerrilla force, copying the FARC and ELN tactics of kidnapping and attacks on the oil industry, but the group never truly recovered. In 1989–1990, the EPL once again entered talks with the government. An amnesty offer induced 1,800 EPL guerrillas to lay down their arms in March 1991, seemingly finishing the organization.

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