Blackwell Reference Online

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The Popular Army of Liberation (EPL) was formed by a group of students in 1967 as an armed branch of the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Colombia (PCC-ML). A Maoist splinter group of the Communist Party of Colombia, it was born out of the differences between the pro-Soviet and the pro-China groups. Espousing a Maoist political ideology, it endorsed the concept of a prolonged popular war, with the aim of disposing of the Colombian government and erecting a socialist state. The first operations of EPL, including sabotage and armed actions, took place in the region of Córdoba and the Caribbean coast at the end of the 1960s. At the International Conference of Marxist and Leninist Parties in 1975, the EPL followed the line of the Labour Party of Albania. Internal dissent and the death of some of its key leaders during the 1970s weakened the EPL's operational capabilities. In 1979, continuing dissent within the EPL led to the formation of the Pedro León Arboleda Movement, a splinter group named for an EPL leader slain in 1975. This group remained active as an independent organization into the 1980s. In 1984 the EPL, along with the guerillas FARC-EP and M-19 , signed the “Acuerdo de Uribe” under President Belisario Betancur. Nevertheless, all attempts at legal organization were destroyed in the brutal war waged by the army and paramilitary groups formed by right-wing sectors ... log in or subscribe to read full text