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Is This the End for FARC?

462 Views Length: 85:59 Will the release of Ingrid Bettancourt - arguably the world's most famous hostage, and FARC's main bargaining chip - along with 14 other hostages - mean the end of FARC and the beginning of serious peace negotiations with the Colombian government?

In what is perhaps the mortal blow in a series of declining fortunes for the 44 year old insurgency movement - the release of the hostages has left the already weakened FARC with no negotiating power and has vindicated President Uribe in his hard line policy against the movement.

FARC lost its leader - Manuel Marulanda - earlier this year, as well as suffering the assassination of two senior commanders and a withdrawal of support from former proponent Hugo Chavez. Facing constant combat, the insurgency is losing members in record numbers and popular support is dissipating.

Is this now the beginning of the end for FARC? Will we see the return to the negotiating table and the commencement of mass demobilisation?

Malcolm Deas is Director of Graduate Studies at the Latin American Centre, University Lecturer in the politics and government of Latin America, Fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford. His Colombian articles have been published under the title Del poder y la gramática (1993) and his recent works are an essay on Colombian violence in David Apter's collection, The Legitimisation of Violence, London, Macmillan, 1997, and Vida y opiniones de Mr William Wills, 2 vols, Bogota, Banco de la República, 1996.

Andy Higginbottom is Secretary of the Colombian Solidarity Campaign and Senior Lecturer in Politics and Human Rights at Kingston University. Andy is editor of Frontline Latin America. His essay Globalization, Violence and the Return of the Enclave to Colombia is in Development, 2005 and his Killer Coke is a chapter in Dinan and Miller (eds) 2007 Thinker, Faker, Spinner, Spy London, Pluto.

Hernando Alvarez was born in Bogota, Colombia. In 1996 he moved to London. He wrote for various magazines and newspapers whil ...