Early Years
The FARC began to kidnap in the early 1970s to obtain ransoms and maintain their operations. During the government of President Ernesto Samper the FARC began to kidnap high profile government, political, military and law enforcement figures to push for the liberation of their comrades held in prisons by the government.
The FARC assaulted numerous villages and military garrisons and captured hundreds of military and police personnel, for example, John Frank Pinchao. Members of the government were also kidnapped ranging from senators like Jorge Gechem Turbay, presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, 12 Valle del Cauca Deputies, 3 U.S. contractors who were working with Plan Colombia, among other cases.
Read more about this topic: Humanitarian Exchange
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or years:
“It is easy to see that, even in the freedom of early youth, an American girl never quite loses control of herself; she enjoys all permitted pleasures without losing her head about any of them, and her reason never lets the reins go, though it may often seem to let them flap.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)
“Furnished as all Europe now is with Academies of Science, with nice instruments and the spirit of experiment, the progress of human knowledge will be rapid and discoveries made of which we have at present no conception. I begin to be almost sorry I was born so soon, since I cannot have the happiness of knowing what will be known a hundred years hence.”
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790)