Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia - Obama Presidency Oral History Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia Index / Organizations Transcripts Arturo Valenzuela ...already attacked some people from the FARC [Revolutionary Armed Forces o... ...attacked some people from the FARC [ Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia ], aggravating the possibility o... ...killed. I don't have any brief for the FARC . Let me make that real clear—or th... Roberta Jacobson ...were already negotiating with the FARC [Revolutionary Armed Forces o... ...already negotiating with the FARC [ Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia ]. So to keep them on the list fo... ...keep them on the list for harboring the FARC while the Colombians were actuall... Bernie Aronson ...had a trusting relationship with the FARC [Revolutionary Armed Forces o... ...a trusting relationship with the FARC [ Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia ] that was very helpful. At certai... ...be interacting with members of the FARC , the Colombian government. I kind o... ...remnant of the Cold War because the FARC had been originally Marxist. They wer... ...the like. And then operationally, the FARC were all indicted drug dealers, so the... ...before, Cubans had credibility with the FARC . And Raúl [Modesto Castro Ruz] ha... ...of do or die. But I also knew that the FARC 's military fortunes had really turne... ...were pro-negotiations because the FARC didn't have a pathway to win anymor... ...of whether Colombia could survive, the FARC was very strong and moving towards th... ...interested in your interactions with FARC leadership. I have to imagine jus... ...I have to imagine just given the FARC 's ideology that the role of the Unite... ...to be a credible interlocutor. With the FARC —I'll tell you a story about my firs... ...about my first interaction with the FARC . A couple weeks earlier, Miss Colombi... ...bring peace to my beloved country.” The FARC , not being stupid, immediately invite... ...If I sent the wrong signals to FARC , we'd have done what's happening i... ...to the peace process. After I saw the FARC after the agreement and some time ha... ...was never going to do this. So the FARC bought that idea, the Colombians bough... ...had experience with Colombia. And the FARC brought in a Spanish human right... ...years into the negotiations, the FARC was still hedging on whether they wer... ...general—accidentally wandered into some FARC territory with a lady friend, and the... ...no negotiation.” So the fact that the FARC was now holding this senior—but bot... ...The Cubans helped convince the FARC to let this guy go right away; don'... ...where they were supposed to be. And a FARC unit came upon them while they wer... ...bombs and attacks and killed a lot of FARC . It was interesting because one of th... ...okay. I think they killed about eighty FARC in a couple of days. So we had to fin... ...from this without losing face, so that— FARC didn't want to look like they wer... ...That was one time when I saw the FARC was really afraid, and shook up, an... ...Salvadoran guerrillas were, like the FARC , very isolated from the larger world... ...and reintegration], yes, exactly. The FARC stopped talking about leaving weapon... ...program for security for the FARC , something that the current governmen... ...we saw the resiliency, and we saw the FARC didn't want to have this process die... ...of 2015 between Santos and his FARC counterpart—I know he went by the no... ...well. And Secretary Kerry met with the FARC , which was for them a big deal tha... ...and what we couldn't vis-à-vis the FARC leaders; because, as they said on ... ...So we worked out a formula that the FARC could live with and the Justic... ...process where the government and the FARC agreed to make victims central. Ther... ...during the negotiations, one of the FARC comandantes, Pablo [unclear] went wit... ...to an Indigenous village where the FARC had gotten into a firefight wit... ...been opposed to negotiation with the FARC , what was your thinking during thi... ...security issue was so important to the FARC that people who'd come in before an... ...hurdle we had to overcome to get the FARC to take the risk of this army. So tha... ...to the actual agreement between the FARC and the Colombian government i... ...in September of 2016, what did FARC leadership—and I'm thinking i... ...that point that they got to. For the FARC secretariat and Timochenko—and th... ...the peace negotiations, some of the FARC secretariat would go off on trips bac... ...had negotiated an agreement with the FARC which gave them this huge tract of lan... ...safe during the negotiations. And the FARC turned it into an area where they ha... ...to meet with the then leader of the FARC , who since died, Tirofijo [Manue... ...want to cede any safe territory to the FARC until the—but the fact that he wa... ...comfortable doing that, and that the FARC was too, to me said the war's over... ...you couldn't really understand the FARC 's concerns and fear of th... ...a few yards away. I said to the other FARC , I said, “Do you think it'd be okay i... ...that bidding I talked about before as FARC was getting off too easy; “Why were w... ...were made. It also shows how much the FARC absolutely needed peace. Because the... ...that is gone now. The war is over. The FARC is demobilized. There are huge parts o... ...whatever. I would go meet with the FARC for a long session, usually a couple o... ...and have another long session with the FARC , and then I'd go back and meet wit... ...maybe people assume I only pressed the FARC , but if I thought the government wa... ...much wanted us to transfer a former FARC senior official named Simón Trinidad... ...for the US had been captured by the FARC and held. So their families were dea... ...for this guy. And so I had to tell the FARC no over and over again. But I thin... ...of it as you were describing the FARC mindset is this question of th... ...political process. What was it for the FARC that ultimately opened their thinkin... ...targets, meaning the leadership of the FARC . One of them President Santos gave th... ...So in this instance, the two sides, the FARC and the Colombian government, set up ... ...and helicopters that would take the FARC back to Colombia when they had to g... Show more... Ben Rhodes ...And how obvi [obvious] is that? The FARC [Revolutionary Armed Forces o... ...how obvi [obvious] is that? The FARC [ Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia ] had been aligned with the Cubans; w... Wendy Sherman ...Manuel] Santos tries to resolve the FARC [Revolutionary Armed Forces o... ...Santos tries to resolve the FARC [ Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia ] and the civil war. In Africa, yo... Related Topics go to the Transition Transition go to the Elections and Campaigns Elections and Campaigns go to the Arts and Humanities Arts and Humanities go to the Immigration Immigration go to the Sub-Saharan Africa Sub-Saharan Africa