Marquetalia: The Birth of the FARC

In 1964, the Colombian government launched Operation Marquetalia, a military offensive against a peasant stronghold in the southern department of Tolima. The assault was meant to crush what officials called 'independent republics' — autonomous communities that had emerged during La Violencia. Instead, it gave birth to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the longest-running guerrilla insurgency in the Western Hemisphere. This episode traces the months before the attack, the political climate under the National Front, the leadership of Manuel Marulanda 'Tirofijo,' and the pivotal siege that turned a ragtag group of armed peasants into a disciplined revolutionary army. Historians still debate whether the operation was a terrible miscalculation or a deliberate provocation. We explore the events through the eyes of survivors and soldiers, and ask how a single battle came to define Colombia's modern conflict.

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