By the mid-1990s, the FARC derived 65 percent of its income from narco-trafficking. With this massive revenue source, the FARC modernized its weapons and launched a military and political campaign called "the Bolivarian Movement for a New Colombia."

The FARC purchased contraband arms, expanded its military ranks, and initiated a public relations campaign within the cities and universities.

From 1996 to 1998, the FARC struck fear in the Colombian government with a series of major military victories over the national army. Most notably, the FARC overtook a military base in Las Delicias, taking dozens of Colombian troops as hostage.

With growing concerns about the FARC's military capability, Colombians held demonstrations and protests to urge the government to reinitiate peace talks with the FARC during the late 1990s.

As an incentive to bring the FARC to commit to a cease-fire, Colombian President Andrés Pastrana offered the guerilla group a demilitarized zone around its historic stronghold in southern Colombia -- an area comprising 42,000 sq km populated with nearly 120,000 residents. Even with the official demilitarized zone (DMZ), the peace talks largely remained unproductive during its three years. The biggest result of the three-year peace talks occurred when the FARC released several hundred of its hostages, some of whom had been held for years.

Bombings, murder, mortar attacks, kidnapping, extortion, hijacking, as well as guerrilla and conventional military action against Colombian political, military, and economic targets. In March 1999, the FARC executed three US Indian rights activists on Venezuelan territory after it kidnapped them in Colombia. Foreign citizens often are targets of FARC kidnapping for ransom. Although the Colombian government has given the FARC political status and has attempted to negotiate with this terrorist organization to stop the recruitment of minors, the FARC has refused. The Colombian government's Family Welfare Institute estimates that at least 30 percent of the FARC's fighters are younger than 18, compared to about 15 percent a decade ago. However, international and Colombia agencies that track the use of child fighters now think the FARC's numbers may be higher. During recent skirmishes between the Army and a FARC column, 32 of the 77 fighters captured by army troops were under 18 years old, and 19 of those were 15 and under. Of the 46 FARC fighters who were killed in the skirmishes, 20 were children. The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) estimates that there were about 6,000 minors serving in the FARC and AUC terrorist groups last year.

There is also evidence that the FARC has been exchanging cocaine for currency, weapons and other military equipment.



Drug profits from cocaine and heroin range anywhere from $100 million to $1 billion annually to purchase arms, attract new recruits and fund FARC operations. These profits have made the FARC one of the richest, if not the richest, insurgent group in the world.