title: Bremen

text: Precipitation is distributed fairly even around the year with a small peak in summer mainly due to convective precipitation, i.e. showers and thunderstorms. Snowfall and the period of snow cover are variable; whereas in some years, hardly any snow accumulation occurs, there has recently been a series of unusually snowy winters, peaking in the record year 2010 counting 84 days with a snow cover. Nevertheless, snow accumulation of more than 20 centimetres (8 in) remains exceptional, the record being of snow on 18 February 1979.


title: Bremen

text: The warmest months in Bremen are June, July, and August, with average high temperatures of . The coldest are December, January, and February, with average low temperatures of . Typical of its maritime location, autumn tends to remain mild well into October, while spring arrives later than in the southwestern parts of the country.


title: Bremen

text: Bremen's economy boomed in line with the West German "Wirtschaftswunder" of the 1950s and 60s. This saw the growth, and permanent settlement, of a large migrant worker population, drawn largely from Turkey and southern Europe. A new wave immigration occurred after the turn of new century, following the entry of Poland, Bulgaria and other former East Bloc countries into the European Union, and after 2015 with the settlement of refugees from Syria and other war-torn regions.


title: Bremen

text: By the second decade of the century out of a population (including Bremerhaven) of approximately 680,000, over 115,000 had foreign citizenship, and nearly twice that number, almost a third of the total population, could be classified as having non-German origin/ethnicity.


title: Bremen

text: The recent influx has somewhat moderated the tendency toward an accelerated ageing of the population. As it is, more than half the population of the state of Bremen are over 50, and more than a quarter are over 60.


title: Bremen

text: The (municipal assembly) is made up of 68 of the 83 legislators of the state legislature, the "Bremische Bürgerschaft" who reside in the city of Bremen. The legislature is elected by the citizens of Bremen every four years.


title: Bremen

text: Bremen has a reputation as a left-wing city. The port, shipyards and related industries sustained a large and unionised working class. This translated into support for the Social Democrats, considered Bremen's natural governing party. However, in the 1980s mechanization of the port and closure of the city's leading shipbuilder induced an employment crisis and shook the confidence of the party's traditional voter base. The SPD, which had still polled 51% in 1987, lost its effective majority. The once dominant left-liberal vote split, and coalition government became the norm. The state today is governed by a coalition of the Social Democratic Party, The Greens and The Left.


title: Bremen

text: One of the two mayors () is elected President of the Senate () and serves as head of the city and the state. The current mayor is Andreas Bovenschulte.


title: Bremen

text: Provisional results; the AfD did not reach the 5% threshold in Bremerhaven (and will hence only receive seats for votes from Bremen), the BIW did not reach the threshold in Bremen (and will only receive one seat in Bremerhaven, none in Bremen).


title: Bremen

text: The "Freie Waldorfschule" in Bremen-Sebaldsbrück was Germany's first school built to the "Passivhaus" low-energy building standard.


title: Bremen

text: According to data from the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, Bremen had a GDP per capita of $53,379 in 2013, higher than the average for Germany as a whole. For comparison, in 2013, the World Bank reported Germany had a GDP per capita of $46,268, and the EU overall had a GDP per capita of $35,408 in the same year.


title: Bremen

text: Bremen is the second development centre of the region, after Hamburg. It forms part of the production network of Airbus SAS and this is where equipping of the wing units for all widebody Airbus aircraft and the manufacture of small sheet metal parts takes place. Structural assembly, including that of metal landing flaps, is another focal point. Within the framework of Airbus A380 production, assembly of the landing flaps (high lift systems) is carried out here. The pre-final assembly of the fuselage section (excluding the cockpit) of the A400M military transport aircraft takes place before delivery on to Spain.


title: Bremen

text: More than 3,100 persons are employed at Airbus Bremen, the second largest Airbus site in Germany. As part of the Centre of Excellence – Wing/Pylon, Bremen is responsible for the design and manufacture of high-lift systems for the wings of Airbus aircraft. The entire process chain for the high-lift elements is established here, including the project office, technology engineering, flight physics, system engineering, structure development, verification tests, structural assembly, wing equipping and ultimate delivery to the final assembly line. In addition, Bremen manufactures sheet metal parts like clips and thrust crests for all Airbus aircraft as part of the Centre of Excellence – Fuselage and Cabin.


title: Bremen

text: In Bremen there is a plant of EADS Astrium and the headquarters of OHB-System, respectively the first and the third space companies of European Union.


title: Bremen

text: There is also a Mercedes-Benz factory in Bremen, building the C, CLK, SL, SLK, and GLK series of cars.


title: Bremen

text: Beck & Co's headlining brew Beck's and St Pauli Girl beers are brewed in Bremen. In past centuries when Bremen's port was the "key to Europe", the city also had a large number of wine importers, but the number is down to a precious few. Apart from that there is another link between Bremen and wine: about 800 years ago, quality wines were produced here. The largest wine cellar in the world is located in Bremen (below the city's main square), which was once said to hold over 1 million bottles, but during WWII was raided by occupying forces.


title: Bremen

text: A large number of food producing or trading companies are located in Bremen with their German or European headquarters: Anheuser-Busch InBev (Beck's Brewery), Kellogg's, Kraft Foods (Kraft, Jacobs Coffee, Milka Chocolate, Milram, Miràcoli), Frosta (frosted food), Nordsee (chain of sea fast food), Melitta Kaffee, Eduscho Kaffee, Azul Kaffee, Vitakraft (pet articles and food for cats, dogs, birds, fish, rodents and other pets), Atlanta AG (Chiquita banana), chocolatier Hachez (fine chocolate and confiserie), feodora chocolatier.


title: Bremen

text: Bremer Woll-Kämmerei (BWK), a worldwide operating company for manufacturing wool and trading in wool and similar products, is headquartered in Bremen.


title: Bremen

text: Trams in Bremen and local bus services are offered by the Bremer Straßenbahn AG (translates from German as "Bremen Tramways Corporation"), often abbreviated BSAG, the public transport provider for Bremen.


title: Bremen

text: The Bremen S-Bahn covers the Bremen/Oldenburg Metropolitan Region, from Bremerhaven in the north to Twistringen in the south and from Oldenburg in the west, centred on Bremen Central Station. It has been in operation since 2010. This network unified existing regional transport in Bremen as well as surrounding cities, including Bremerhaven, Delmenhorst, Twistringen, Nordenham, Oldenburg, and Verden an der Aller. The network lies completely within the area of the Bremen-Lower Saxony Transport Association, whose tariff structure applies.


title: Bremen

text: Bremen is home to the football team Werder Bremen, who won the German Football Championship for the fourth time and the German Football Cup for the fifth time in 2004, making them only the fourth team in German football history to win the double; the club won the German Football Cup for the sixth time in 2009. Only Bayern Munich has won more titles. In the final match of the 2009–10 season, Werder Bremen lost to Bayern Munich. The home stadium of SV Werder Bremen is the Weserstadion, a pure football stadium, almost completely surrounded by solar cells. It is one of the biggest buildings in Europe delivering alternative energy.


title: Bremen

text: With 18,000 students, the University of Bremen is the largest university in Bremen, and is also home to the international Goethe-Institut and the Fallturm Bremen. Additionally, Bremen has a University of the Arts and the Bremen University of Applied Sciences. In 2001, the private Jacobs University Bremen was founded. All major German research foundations maintain institutes in Bremen, with a focus on marine sciences: The Max Planck Society with the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, and the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Scientific Community with the Center for Tropical Marine Ecology (zmt). The Bremerhaven-based Alfred-Wegener-Institute of the Helmholtz Association closely cooperates with the aforementioned institutes, especially within the MARUM a center for marine environmental sciences, affiliated to the University of Bremen. Furthermore, The Fraunhofer Society is present in Bremen with centers for applied material research (IFAM) and medical image computing (MEVIS).


title: Sator Square

text: The Sator Square (or the Rotas-Sator Square, or the Templar Magic Square) is a two-dimensional acrostic class of word square containing a five-word Latin palindrome. The earliest Sator squares were found at several Roman-era sites, all in ROTAS-form, with the earliest discovery at Pompeii (and also likely pre-A.D. 62). The earliest square that included explicit additional Christian-associated imagery dates from the sixth century, and by medieval times Sator squares had been found across Europe, Asia Minor, and North Africa. "Encyclopedia Britannica" called it "the most familiar lettered square in the Western world".


title: Sator Square

text: A significant volume of academic research has been published on the square, but after more than a century, there is no consensus on its origin and meaning. The discovery of the "Paternoster theory" in 1926 led to a brief consensus amongst academics that the square was created by early Christians, but the subsequent discoveries at Pompeii led many academics to believe that the square was more likely created as a Roman word puzzle (as per the Roma-Amor puzzle), that was later adopted by Christians. This origin theory fails to explain how a Roman word puzzle then became such a powerful religious and magical medieval symbol. It has instead been argued that the square was created in its ROTAS-form as a Jewish symbol, embedded with cryptic religious symbolism, which was later adopted in its SATOR-form by Christians. There are many other less-supported academic origin theories, such as: a Pythagorean or Stoic puzzle, a Gnostic or Orphic or Italian pagan amulet, a cryptic Mithraic or Semitic numerology charm, or that it was simply a device for working out wind directions.


title: Sator Square

text: The Sator square has had long associations with magical powers throughout its history (and even up to the nineteenth century in North and South America), including a perceived ability to extinguish fires, particularly in Germany. The square appears in several early and late medieval medical textbooks such as the Trotula, and was employed as a medieval cure for many ailments, particularly for dog bites and rabies, as well as for insanity, and for relief during childbirth.


title: Sator Square

text: The square has featured in a diverse range of more contemporary artworks including fiction books, paintings, musical scores, and films, and most notably in Christopher Nolan's 2020 film "Tenet". In 2020, "The Daily Telegraph" called the Sator Square "one of the closest things the classical world had to a meme".


title: Sator Square

text: The Sator square is arranged as a 5 × 5 grid consisting of five 5-letter words, thus totaling 25 characters. It uses 8 different Latin letters: 5 consonants (S, T, R, P, N) and 3 vowels (A, E, O). In some versions, the vertical and horizontal lines of the grid are also drawn, but in many cases, there are no such lines. The square is described as a two-dimensional palindrome, or word square, which is a particular class of a double acrostic.


title: Sator Square

text: The earliest Roman-era versions of the square have the word ROTAS as the top line (called a ROTAS-form square, left above), but the inverted version with SATOR in the top line became more dominant from early medieval times (called a SATOR-form square, right above); Some academics call it a Rotas-Sator Square, and some of them refer to the object as a rebus, or a magic square. Since medieval times, it has also been known as a Templar Magic Square.


title: Sator Square

text: The existence of the square was long recognized from early medieval times, and it has been found on the continents of Europe (and Byzantium in Asia Minor), North Africa (mainly Coptic settlements), and the Americas. Medieval examples of the square in SATOR-form abound, including the earliest French example in a Carolingian Bible from A.D 822 at the monastery of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Many medieval European churches and castles have Sator square inscriptions.


title: Sator Square

text: The first recognized serious academic study of the square was the 1881 publication of 's historical survey in "", titled "Sator-Arepo-Formel", and a considerable body of academic research has been subsequently published on the meaning of the square.


title: Sator Square

text: Up until the 1930s, a Coptic papyrus with the square in the ROTAS-form dating from the fourth or fifth century A.D was considered the earliest version. In 1889, British ancient historian Francis Haverfield identified the 1868 discovery of a Sator square found in ROTAS-form scratched on a plaster wall in the Roman settlement of Corinium Dobunnorum at Cirencester to be of Roman origin, however, his assertion was discounted by academics who considered it an "early medieval charm".


title: Sator Square

text: Haverfield would be proved right by the 1931-32 excavations at Dura-Europos in Syria that uncovered three Sator square inscriptions, all in ROTAS-form, on the interior walls of a Roman military office (and a fourth a year later) that dated from circa A.D 200. Five years later, Italian archaeologist , discovered a Sator square, in ROTAS-form, inscribed on a column in the (gymnasium) near the Amphitheatre of Pompeii. This discovery led to the reexamination of a fragment of a square, again in ROTAS-form, that Della Corte had made in 1925 at the house of Publius Paquius Proculus, also at Pompeii; this find was dated between A.D 50 and A.D 79, and the palestra square find was dated pre-A.D 62.


title: Sator Square

text: The most direct sentence translation is: "The sower (or, farmer) Arepo holds the wheels with care (or, with care the wheels)". Similar translations include: "The farmer Arepo works his wheels", or "Arepo the sower (sator) guides (tenet) the wheel (rotas) with skill (opera)".


title: Sator Square

text: Some academics, such as French historian Jules Quicherat, believe the square should be read in a boustrophedon style (i.e. in alternating directions). The boustrophedon style, which in Greek means "as the Ox plows", emphasizes the "agricultural aspect" of the square. Such a reading when applied to the SATOR-form square, and repeating the central word TENET, gives SATOR OPERA TENET – TENET OPERA SATOR, which has been very loosely interpreted as: "as ye sow, so shall ye reap", while some believe that the square should be read as just three words – SATOR OPERA TENET, which has been very loosely translated as: "The Creator, the author of all things, maintains his works"; both of which could imply Graeco-Roman Stoic and/or Pythagorean origins.


title: Sator Square

text: British academic Duncan Fishwick observes that the translation from the boustrophedon approach fails when applied to a ROTAS-form square, however, Belgian scholar Paul Grosjean reversed the boustrophedon rule on the ROTAS-form (i.e. starting on the right-hand side instead of the left) to get SAT ORARE POTEN, which loosely translates into the Jewish call to prayer, "are you able to pray enough?".


title: Sator Square

text: The word AREPO is a hapax legomenon and appears nowhere else in Latin literature. Some academics believe it is likely a proper name or potentially a theophoric name, that was adapted from a non-Latin word or was invented specifically for the Sator square. French historian Jerome Carcopino interpreted AREPO as the Greek , and believed that it came from the Gaulish word for a 'plough'; this has been discounted by other academics. American ancient legal historian David Daube believed that AREPO represented a Hebrew or Aramaic rendition of the ancient Greek for alpha () and omega (), giving the "Alpha-Omega" concept (cf. Isiah 44.6, and ) from early Judeo-Christianity. J. Gwyn Griffiths contended that the term AREPO came, via Alexandria, from the attested Egyptian name "Hr-Hp", which he took to mean "the face of Apis". In 1983, Serbian-American scholar Miroslav Marcovich proposed the term AREPO as a Latinized abbreviation of Harpocrates (or "Horus-the-child"), god of the rising sun, also called , which Marcovich suggests corresponds to SATOR AREPO. This would translate the square as: "The sower Horus/Harpocrates checks, toils, and tortures".


title: Sator Square

text: Duncan Fishwick, amongst other academics, believed that AREPO was simply a residual word that was required to complete what is a complex and sophisticated palindrome (which Fishwick believed was embedded with hidden Jewish symbolism, per the "Jewish Symbol" origin theory below), and to expect more from the word was unreasonable from its likely Jewish creators.


title: Sator Square

text: Attempts have been made to discover the square's "hidden meanings" by the anagrammatic method of rearranging the letters of which the square is composed.


title: Sator Square

text: The origin and meaning of the square has eluded a definitive academic consensus even after more than a century of study. In 1938, British classical historian Donald Atkinson said the square occupied the "mysterious region where religion, superstition, and magic meet, where words, numbers, and letters are believed, if properly combined, to exert power over the processes of nature ...". Even by 2003, American academic Rose Mary Sheldon called it "one of the oldest unsolved word puzzles in the world". In 2018, American ancient classical historian Megan O'Donald still noted that "most interpretations of the ROTAS square have failed to gain consensus due to failings", and, in particular, reconciling the archeological evidence with the square's later adoption as a religious and magical object.


title: Sator Square

text: Irrespective of the theory of its origin, the evidence that the Sator square, particularly in its SATOR-form, became adopted into Christian imagery is not disputed by academics. Academics note the repeated association of Christ with the "sower" (or SATOR), and the words of the Sator square have been discovered in Christian settings even in very early medieval times, including:


title: Sator Square

text: The Sator square appears in diverse Christian communities, such as in Abyssinia where in the " Ethiopian Book of the Dead", the individual nails in Christ's cross were called: Sador, Alador, Danet, Adera, Rodas. These are likely derived from even earlier Coptic Christian works that also ascribe the wounds of Christ and the nails of the cross with names that resemble the five words from the square.


title: Sator Square

text: While there is little doubt amongst academics that Christians adopted the square, it was not clear that they had originated the symbol.


title: Sator Square

text: During 1924–1926, three people separately discovered, or rediscovered, that the square could be used to write the name of the Lord's Prayer, the "Paternoster", twice and intersecting in a cross-form (see image opposite). The remaining residual letters (two "A"s and two "O"s) could be placed in the four quadrants of the cross and would represent the Alpha and Omega that are established in Christian symbolism. The positioning of the "A"s and "O"s was further supported by the fact that the position of the "T"s in the Sator square formed the points of a cross – there are obscure references in the "Epistle of Barnabas" to T being a symbol of the cross – and that the "A"s and "O"s also lay in the four quadrants of this cross. At the time of this discovery, the earliest known Sator square was from the fourth century, further supporting the dating of the Christian symbolism inherent in the Paternoster theory. Academics considered the Christian origins of the square to be largely resolved.


title: Sator Square

text: With the subsequent discovery of Sator squares at Pompeii, dating pre-79 A.D, the Paternoster theory began to lose support, even amongst notable supporters such as French historian Guillaume de Jerphanion. Jerphanion noted: that (1) it was improbable that many Christians were present at Pompeii, that (2) first century-Christians would have written the square in Greek and not Latin, that (3) the Christian concepts of Alpha and Omega only appear after the first century, that (4) the symbol of the cross only appears from about A.D 130–131, and that (5) cryptic Christian symbols only appeared during the persecutions of the third century.


title: Sator Square

text: Jérôme Carcopino claimed the Pompeii squares were added at a later date by looters, however, the lack of any disturbance to the volcanic deposits at the palestra meant that this was unlikely, and the Paternoster theory as a proof of Christian origination lost much of its academic support.


title: Sator Square

text: Regardless of its Christian origins, many academics considered the Paternoster discovery as being a random occurrence to be mathematically impossible. Several examined this mathematical probability including German historian and British historian Hugh Last, but without reaching a conclusion. A 1987 computer analysis by William Baines derived a number of "pseudo-Christian formulae" from the square but Bains concluded it proved nothing.


title: Sator Square

text: There is considerable contemporary academic support for the theory that the square originated as a Roman-era word puzzle. Italian historian Arsenio Frugoni found it written in the margin of the "Carme delle scolte modenesi" beside the Roma-Amor palindrome, and Italian classist Margherita Guarducci noted it was similar to the ROMA OLIM MILO AMOR two-dimensional acrostic word puzzle that was also found at Pompeii, and at Ostia and Bolonia. Similarly, another ROTAS-form square scratched into a Roman-era wall in the basement of the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, was found alongside the Roma-Amor, and the Roma-Summus-Amor, palindromes. Duncan Fishwick noted the "composition of palindromes was, in fact, a pastime of Roman landed gentry". American classical epigraphist Rebecca Benefiel, noted that by 2012, Pompeii had yielded over 13,000 separate inscriptions and that the house of Publius Paquius Proculus (where a square was found) had over 70 pieces of graffiti alone.


title: Sator Square

text: A 1969 computer study by Charles Douglas Gunn started with a Roma-Amor square and found 2,264 better versions, of which he considered the Sator square to be the best. The square's origin as a word puzzle solved the problem of AREPO (a word that appears nowhere else in classical writing), as being a necessary component to complete the palindrome.


title: Sator Square

text: Fishwick still considered this interpretation as unproven and clarified that the apparent discovery of the Roma-Amor palindrome written beside the 1954 discovery of a square on a tile at Aquincum, was incorrectly translated (if anything it supported the square as a charm). Fishwick, and others, consider the key failing of the Roman puzzle theory of origin is the lack of any explanation as to why the square would later become so strongly associated with Christianity, and with being a medieval charm. Some argue that this can be bridged if considered as a Pythagorean-Stoic puzzle creation.


title: Sator Square

text: In 2018, Megan O'Donnell argued that the square is less of a pure word puzzle but more a piece of Latin Roman graffito that should be read "figuratively" as a wheel (i.e. the ROTAS), and that the textual-visual interplay had parallels with other forms of graffito found in Pompeii, some of which later became adopted as charms.


title: Sator Square

text: Some prominent academics, including British-Canadian ancient Roman scholar Duncan Fishwick, American ancient legal historian David Daube, and British ancient historian Mary Beard, consider the square as being likely of Jewish origin.


title: Sator Square

text: Fishwick notes that the failings of the Paternoster theory (above) are resolved when looked at from a Jewish perspective. Large numbers of Latin-speaking Jews had been settled in Pompeii, and their affinity for cryptic and mystical word symbols was well known. The Alpha and Omega concept appears much earlier in Judaism (Ex. 3.14; Is. 41.4, and 44.6), and the letters "aleph" and "tau" are used in the Talmud as symbols of totality. The "T"s of TENET may be explained not as Christian crosses, but as a Latin form of the Jewish "tau" salvation symbol (from Ezekiel), and its archaic form (+ or X) appears regularly on ossuaries of both Hellenistic and early Roman times. Fishwick highlights the central position of the letter "N", as Jews attached significance to the utterance of the "Name" (or nomen).


title: Sator Square

text: In addition, Fishwick believes a Jewish origin provides a satisfactory explanation for the Paternoster cross (or X) as the configuration is an archaic Jewish "tau" (+ or X). The Paternoster word is not unique to Christianity, and also has roots in Judaism where several prayers refer to "Our Father". Fishwick concludes that the translations of the words ROTAS OPERA TENET AREPO SATOR are irrelevant, except to the extent that they make some sense and thereby hide a Jewish cryptic charm, and to require them to mean more is "to expect the impossible". The motivation for the creation square might have been the Jewish pogroms of A.D 19 or A.D 49, however, it fell into disuse only to be revived later by Christians facing their own persecution, and who appreciated its hidden Paternoster and Alpha and Omega symbolism, but who focused on the SATOR-form (which gave a more meaningful emphasis on the "sower", which was associated with Christ).


title: Sator Square

text: Research in 2006 by French classical scholar Nicolas Vinel drew on recent discoveries on the mathematics of ancient magic squares to propose that the square was a "Jewish cryptogram using Pythagorean arithmetic". Vinel decoded several Jewish concepts in the square, including the reason for AREPO, and was able to explain the word SAUTRAN that appears beside the square that was discovered on the palestra column in Pompeii. Vinel addressed a criticism of the Jewish origin theory – why would the Jews have then abandoned the symbol? – by noting the Greek texts that they also abandoned (e.g. the Septuagint) in favor of Hebrew versions.


title: Sator Square

text: The amount of academic research published on the Rotas-Sator square is regarded as being considerable (and even described as "immense"); American academic Rose Mary Sheldon attempted to catalog and review the most prominent works in a 2003 paper published in "Cryptologia". Amongst the more diverse but less supported theories Sheldon recorded were:


title: Sator Square

text: In 2003, Rose Mary Sheldon noted: "Long after the fall of Rome, and long after the general public had forgotten about classical word games, the square survived among people who might not even read Latin. They continued to use it as a charm against illness, evil and bad luck. By the end of the Middle Ages, the "prophylactic magic" of the square was firmly established in the superstition of Italy, Serbia, Germany, and Iceland, and eventually even crossed to North America".


title: Sator Square

text: In Germany in the Middle Ages, the square was inscribed on disks that were then thrown into fires to extinguish them. An edict in 1743 by Duke Ernest Auguste of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach required all settlements to make Sator square disks to combat fires. By the fifteenth century the square was being used as a touchstone against fire at the Château de Chinon and in France.


title: Sator Square

text: The square appears as a remedy during labour in the twelfth-century Latin medical text, the Trotula, and was widely cited as a cure for dog bites and rabies in medieval Europe; in both cases, the remedy/cure is administered by eating bread inscribed with the words of the square. By the sixteenth century, the use of the square to cure insanity and fever was being documented in books such as "De Varia Quercus Historia" (1555) by Jean du Choul, and "De Rerum Varietate" (1557) by Gerolamo Cardano. Jean du Choul describes a case where a person from Lyon recovered from insanity after eating three crusts of bread inscribed with the square. After the meal, the person then recited five paternosters for the five wounds of Christ, linking to the Christian imagery believed encoded into the square.


title: Sator Square

text: Scholars have found medieval Sator-based charms, remedies, and cures, for a diverse range of applications from childbirth, to toothaches, to love potions, to ways of warding off evil spells, and even to determine whether someone was a witch. Richard Cavendish notes a medieval manuscript in the Bodelian says: "Write these [five sator] words on in parchment with the blood of a Culver [pigeon] and bear it in thy left hand and ask what thou wilt and thou shalt have it. fiat." Other examples include Bosnia, where the square was used as a remedy for aquaphobia, and in Iceland, it was etched into the fingernails to cure jaundice.


title: Sator Square

text: There are examples from the nineteenth century in South America where the Sator square was used as a cure for dog bites and snake-bites in Brazil, and in enclaves of German settlers (or mountain whites) in the Allegheny Mountains who used the square to prevent fire, stop fits, and prevent miscarriages. The Sator square features in eighteenth-century books on Pow-wow folk medicine of the Pennsylvania Dutch, such as "The Long Lost Friend" (see image).


title: Sator Square

text: The Sator square has inspired many works in the arts, including some classical and contemporary composers such as works by Austrian composer Anton Webern and Italian composer Fabio Mengozzi, writers such as Brazilian writer Osman Lins (whose novel "Avalovara" (1973) follows the structure of the square), and painters such as American artist Dick Higgins with "La Melancolia" (1983), and American artist Gary Stephan with "Sator Arepo Tenet Opera Rotas" (1982).


title: Sator Square

text: British-American director Christopher Nolan's 2020 film "Tenet", incorporates all the five of the names from the Sator square:


title: Sator Square

text: American author Lawrence Watt-Evans notes that Sir Terry Pratchett named the main square in the fictional city of Ankh-Morpork in his Discworld book series, "Sator Square", in a deliberate reference to the symbol. Matt-Evans notes that the Discworld series is full of other incidental references to unusual symbols and concepts.


title: Sator Square

text: The song "Tenet" by the Nordic neo-folk band Heilung is based on the Sator square. All its individual musical parts, melodies and instruments (and even at times the lyrics) play the same both forward and backwards.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People's Army (, FARC–EP or FARC) is a Marxist–Leninist guerrilla group involved in the continuing Colombian conflict starting in 1964. The FARC-EP was officially founded in 1966 from peasant self-defense groups formed from 1948 during the "Violencia" as a peasant force promoting a political line of agrarianism and anti-imperialism. They are known to employ a variety of military tactics, in addition to more unconventional methods, including terrorism.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: The operations of the FARC–EP were funded by kidnap and ransom, illegal mining, extortion, and taxation of various forms of economic activity, and the production and distribution of illegal drugs. They are only one actor in a complex conflict where atrocities have been committed by the state, right-wing paramilitaries, and left-wing guerrillas not limited to FARC, such as ELN, M-19, and others. Colombia's National Centre for Historical Memory, a government agency, has estimated that between 1981 and 2012 paramilitary groups have caused 38.4% of the civilian deaths, while the Guerillas are responsible for 16.8%, 10.1% by the Colombian Security Forces and 27.7% by non-identified armed groups. The National Centre for Historical Memory has also concluded that of the 27,023 kidnappings carried out between 1970 and 2010, the Guerillas were responsible for 90.6% of them. The United Nations has estimated that 12% of all civilian deaths in the Colombian conflict were caused by FARC and National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrillas, with 80% caused by right-wing paramilitaries, and the remaining 8% caused by Colombian security forces.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: The strength of the FARC–EP forces was high; in 2007, the FARC said they were an armed force of 18,000 men and women; in 2010, the Colombian military calculated that FARC forces consisted of about 13,800 members, 50 percent of whom were armed guerrilla combatants; and in 2011 the president of Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos, said that FARC–EP forces comprised fewer than 10,000 members. The Colombian Ministry of Defense reported 19,504 deserters, or individually demobilized members, from the FARC between August 2002 and their collective demobilization in 2017, despite potentially severe punishment, including execution, for attempted desertion in the FARC.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: FARC made 239 attacks on the energy infrastructure; however, they showed signs of fatigue. By 2014, the FARC were not seeking to engage in outright combat with the army, instead concentrating on small-scale ambushes against isolated army units. Meanwhile, from 2008 to 2017, the FARC opted to attack police patrols with home-made mortars, sniper rifles, and explosives, as they were not considered strong enough to engage police units directly. This followed the trend of the 1990s during the strengthening of Colombian government forces.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: In June 2016, the FARC signed a ceasefire accord with the President of Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos in Havana. This accord was seen as an historic step to ending the war that has gone on for fifty years. On 25 August 2016, the Colombian president, Juan Manuel Santos, announced that four years of negotiation had secured a peace deal with FARC and that a national referendum would take place on 2 October. The referendum failed with 50.24% voting against. On November 24, 2016, the Colombian government and the FARC signed a revised peace deal, which the Colombian Congress approved on 30 November.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: On 27 June 2017, FARC ceased to be an armed group, disarming itself and handing over its weapons to the United Nations. One month later, FARC announced its reformation as a legal political party, in accordance with the terms of the peace deal. However, about 2,000 to 2,500 FARC dissidents still take on FARC's original doctrine and continue with drug trafficking, though far smaller than the group at its peak.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: A small faction of FARC leaders announced a return to armed activity on 29 August 2019, stating that the Colombian government did not respect peace agreements, a position Colombian officials disagreed with. The Colombian government responded with preemptive strikes, killing FARC members planning to lead rearmament activities.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: In 1948, in the aftermath of the assassination of the populist politician Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, there occurred a decade of large-scale political violence throughout Colombia, which was a Conservative – Liberal civil war that killed more than 200,000 people. In Colombian history and culture, the killings are known as "La Violencia" (The Violence, 1948–58); most of the people killed were peasants and laborers in rural Colombia. In 1957–1958, the political leadership of the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party agreed to establish a bipartisan political system known as the National Front (Frente Nacional, 1958–74). The Liberal and the Conservative parties agreed to alternate in the exercise of government power by presenting a joint National Front candidate to each election and restricting the participation of other political movements.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: The pact was ratified as a constitutional amendment by a national plebiscite on 1 December 1957 and was supported by the Church as well as Colombia's business leaders. The initial power-sharing agreement was effective until 1974; nonetheless, with modifications, the Liberal–Conservative bipartisan system lasted until 1990. The sixteen-year extension of the bipartisan power-sharing agreement permitted the Liberal and Conservative elites to consolidate their socioeconomic control of Colombian society, and to strengthen the military to suppress political reform and radical politics proposing alternative forms of government for Colombia.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: During the 1960s, the Colombian government effected a policy of Accelerated Economic Development (AED), the agribusiness plan of Lauchlin Currie, a Canadian-born U.S. economist who owned ranching land in Colombia. The plan promoted industrial farming that would produce great yields of agricultural and animal products for worldwide exportation, while the Colombian government would provide subsidies to large-scale private farms. The AED policy came at the expense of the small-scale family farms that only yielded food supplies for local consumption. Based on a legalistic interpretation of what constituted "efficient use" of the land, thousands of peasants were forcefully evicted from their farms and migrated to the cities, where they became part of the industrial labor pool. In 1961, the dispossession of farmland had produced 40,000 landless families and by 1969 their numbers amounted to 400,000 throughout Colombia. By 1970, the "latifundio" type of industrial farm (more than 50 hectares) occupied more than 77 per cent of arable land in the country. The AED policy increased the concentration of land ownership among cattle ranchers and urban industrialists, whose businesses expanded their profits as a result of reductions in the cost of labor wages after the influx of thousands of displaced peasants into the cities. During this period, most rural workers lacked basic medical care and malnutrition was almost universal, which increased the rates of preventable disease and infant mortality.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: Communists were active throughout rural and urban Colombia in the period immediately following World War I. The Colombian Communist Party ("Partido Comunista Colombiano", PCC) was formally accredited by the Comintern in 1930. The PCC began establishing "peasant leagues" in rural areas and "popular fronts" in urban areas, calling for improved living and working conditions, education, and rights for the working class. These groups began networking together to present a defensive front against the state-supported violence of large landholders. Members organized strikes, protests, seizures of land, and organized communist-controlled "self-defense communities" in southern Colombia that were able to resist state military forces, while providing for the subsistence needs of the populace. Many of the PCC's attempts at organizing peasants were met with violent repression by the Colombian government and the landowning class. U.S. military intelligence estimated that in 1962, the size of the PCC had grown to 8,000 to 10,000 active members, and an additional 28,000 supporters.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: In 1961, a guerrilla leader and long-time PCC organizer named Manuel Marulanda Vélez declared an independent "Republic of Marquetalia". The Lleras government attempted unsuccessfully to attack the communities to drive out the guerrillas, due to fears that "a Cuban-style revolutionary situation might develop". After the failed attacks, several army outposts were set up in the area.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: In October 1959, the United States sent a "Special Survey Team" composed of counterinsurgency experts to investigate Colombia's internal security situation. Among other policy recommendations the US team advised that "to shield the interests of both Colombian and US authorities against 'interventionist' charges any special aid given for internal security was to be sterile and covert in nature". In February 1962, three years after the 1959 "US Special Survey Team", a Fort Bragg top-level U.S. Special Warfare team headed by Special Warfare Center commander General William P. Yarborough, visited Colombia for a second survey.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: In a secret supplement to his report to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Yarborough encouraged the creation and deployment of a US-backed force to commit "paramilitary, sabotage and/or terrorist activities against known communist proponents".


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: The new counter-insurgency policy was instituted as Plan Lazo in 1962 and called for both military operations and civic action programs in violent areas. Following Yarborough's recommendations, the Colombian military recruited civilians into "civil defense" groups which worked alongside the military in its counter-insurgency campaign, as well as in civilian intelligence networks to gather information on guerrilla activity. Doug Stokes argues that it was not until the early part of the 1980s that the Colombian government attempted to move away from the counterinsurgency strategy represented by Plan Lazo and Yarborough's 1962 recommendations.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: The Colombian government began attacking many of the communist groups in the early 1960s, attempting to re-assimilate the territories under the control of the national government. FARC was formed in 1964 by Manuel Marulanda Vélez and other PCC members, after a military attack on the community of Marquetalia. 16,000 Colombian troops attacked the community, which only had 48 armed fighters. Marulanda and 47 others fought against government forces at Marquetalia and then escaped into the mountains along with the other fighters. These 48 men formed the core of FARC, which later grew in size to hundreds of fighters.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: In 1982, FARC–EP held its Seventh Guerrilla Conference, which called for a major shift in FARC's strategy. FARC had historically been doing most of its fighting in rural areas and was limited to small-scale confrontations with Colombian military forces. By 1982, increased income from the "coca boom" allowed them to expand into an irregular army, which would then stage large-scale attacks on Colombian troops. They also began sending fighters to Vietnam and the Soviet Union for advanced military training. They also planned to move closer to middle-sized cities, as opposed to only remote rural areas, and closer to areas rich in natural resources, in order to create a strong economic infrastructure. It was also at this conference that FARC added the initials "EP", for ""Ejército del Pueblo"" or "People's Army", to the organization's name.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: In the early 1980s, President Belisario Betancur began discussing the possibility of peace talks with the guerrillas. This resulted in the 1984 "La Uribe" Agreement, which called for a cease-fire, which ended up lasting from 1984 to 1987.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: In 1985, members of the FARC–EP, along with a large number of other leftist and communist groups, formed a political party known as the "Union Patriótica" ("Patriotic Union", UP). The UP sought political reforms (known as "Apertura Democratica") such as constitutional reform, more democratic local elections, political decentralization, and ending the domination of Colombian politics by the Liberal and Conservative parties. They also pursued socioeconomic reforms such land redistribution, greater health and education spending, the nationalization of foreign businesses, Colombian banks, and transportation, and greater public access to mass media. While many members of the UP were involved with the FARC–EP, the large majority of them were not and came from a wide variety of backgrounds such as labor unions and socialist parties such as the PCC. In the cities, the FARC–EP began integrating itself with the UP and forming "Juntas Patrióticas" (or "solidarity cells") – small groups of people associated with labor unions, student activist groups, and peasant leagues, who traveled into the "barrios" discussing social problems, building support for the UP, and determining the sociopolitical stance of the urban peasantry.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: The UP performed better in elections than any other leftist party in Colombia's history. In 1986, UP candidates won 350 local council seats, 23 deputy positions in departmental assemblies, 9 seats in the House, and 6 seats in the Senate. The 1986 Presidential candidate, Jaime Pardo Leal, won 4.6% of the national vote.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: Since 1986, thousands of members of the UP and other leftist parties were murdered (estimates range from 4,000 to 6,000). In 1987, the President of the UP, Jaime Pardo, was murdered. In 1989 a single large landholder had over 400 UP members murdered. Over 70% of all Colombian presidential candidates in 1990—and 100% of those from center-left parties—were assassinated.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: During this period, the Colombian government continued its negotiations with the FARC–EP and other armed groups, some of which were successful. Some of the groups which demobilized at this time include the EPL, the ERP, the Quintín Lame Armed Movement, and the M-19.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: On 10 August 1990, senior leader Jacobo Arenas, an ideological leader and founder of FARC–EP, died of a heart attack at the Casa Verde compound in Colombia's eastern mountains.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: Towards the end of 1990, the army, with no advance warning and while negotiations were still ongoing with the group, attacked and seized four linked bases. The last of these a compound known as Casa Verde, which housed the National Secretariat of the FARC–EP, was seized on 15 December 1990. The Colombian government argued that the attack was caused by the FARC–EP's lack of commitment to the process, demonstrated by continuing its criminal activities and FARC attacks in November.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: On 3 June 1991, dialogue resumed between the Simón Bolívar Guerrilla Coordinating Board and the government on neutral territory in Caracas, Venezuela and Tlaxcala, Mexico. However, the war did not stop, and armed attacks by both sides continued. The negotiation process was broken off in 1993 after no agreement was reached. The Coordinating Board disappeared not long after that time, and guerrilla groups continued their activities independently.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: Before the break off of dialogue, a letter written by a group of Colombian intellectuals (among whom were Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez) to the Simón Bolívar Guerrilla Coordinating Board was released denouncing the approach taken by the FARC–EP and the dire consequences that it was having for the country.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: In the early 1990s, the FARC–EP had between 7,000 and 10,000 fighters, organized into 70 fronts spread throughout the country. From 1996 to 1998 they inflicted a series of strikes on the Colombian Army, including a three-day offensive in Mitú (Vaupés department), taking a large number of soldiers prisoner.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: On 23 September 1994, the FARC kidnapped American agricultural scientist Thomas Hargrove and held him captive for 11 months. After his release, Hargrove wrote a book about his ordeal which inspired the 2000 film "Proof of Life" starring Meg Ryan and Russell Crowe.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: Over this period in Colombia, the cultivation of different drugs expanded and there were widespread coca farmers' marches. These marches brought to a halt several major arteries in southern Colombia. Government officials said that FARC-EP had forced the protesters to participate. According to social anthropologist María Clemencia Ramírez, the relationship between the guerrillas and the marches was ambivalent: FARC-EP promoted the 1996 protests as part of their participatory democracy policies yet also exercised authoritarianism, which led to tensions and negotiations with peasant leaders, but the "cocalero" movement brought proposals on behalf of the coca growers and defended its own interests.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: French sociologist Alain Labrousse, who has conducted extensive research on the illicit narcotics industry in Latin America and Central Asia, has noted similarities in the reliance on the drug trade by both the FARC-EP and the Taliban. In his thesis, Labrousse asserts that the FARC-EP leadership, like that of the Taliban, explicitly bans the use of drugs by its membership and within the local population, but vigorously advocates for legalization of drug trafficking as a tool to finance its military objectives. In both cases, the insurgency groups manage to garner significant political support of farmers who serve to benefit from the illicit drug trade, prompting grassroots mobilization, political activism, and agitation to demand legalization by the government.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: In March 1999 members of a local FARC contingent killed three USA-based indigenous rights activists, who were working with the U'Wa people to build a school for U'Wa children, and were fighting against encroachment of U'Wa territory by multinational oil corporations. The killings were questioned by many and condemned by many others, and led the United States to increase pressure on the Pastrana administration to crack down on FARC guerrillas.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: With the hope of negotiating a peace settlement, on 7 November 1998, President Andrés Pastrana granted FARC-EP a safe haven meant to serve as a confidence building measure, centred on the San Vicente del Caguán settlement.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: After a series of high-profile guerrilla actions, including the hijacking of an aircraft, the attack on several small towns and cities, the arrest of the Irish Colombia Three (see below) and the alleged training of FARC-EP militants in bomb making by them, and the kidnapping of several political figures, Pastrana ended the peace talks on 21 February 2002 and ordered the armed forces to start retaking the FARC-EP controlled zone, beginning at midnight. A 48-hour respite that had been previously agreed to with the rebel group was not respected as the government argued that it had already been granted during an earlier crisis in January, when most of the more prominent FARC-EP commanders had apparently left the demilitarised zone. Shortly after the end of talks, the FARC-EP kidnapped Oxygen Green Party presidential candidate Íngrid Betancourt, who was travelling in Colombian territory. Betancourt was rescued by the Colombian government on 2 July 2008 (see Operation Jaque below).


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: On 24 April 2002, the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on International Relations published the findings of its investigation into IRA activities in Colombia. Their report alleged a longstanding connection between the IRA and FARC–EP, mentioned at least 15 IRA members who had been travelling in and out of Colombia since 1998, and estimated that the IRA had received at least $2 million in drug proceeds for training FARC-EP members. The IRA/FARC-EP connection was first made public on 11 August 2001, following the arrest in Bogotá of two IRA explosives and urban warfare experts and of a representative of Sinn Féin who was known to be stationed in Cuba. Jim Monaghan, Martin McCauley and Niall Connolly (known as the Colombia Three), were arrested in Colombia in August 2001 and were accused of teaching bomb-making methods to FARC–EP.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: On 15 February 2002, the Colombia Three were charged with training FARC-EP members in bomb-making in Colombia. The Colombian authorities had received satellite footage of the men with FARC-EP in an isolated jungle area, where they were thought to have spent five weeks. They could have spent up to 20 years in gaol if the allegations were proved.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: During October 2001, a key witness in the case against the three Irish republicans disappeared. This came as Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams admitted one of the men was the party's representative in Cuba. The missing witness, a former police inspector, said he had seen Mr McCauley with FARC-EP members in 1998. Without his testimony, legal sources said the chances of convicting the three men were reduced.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: They were eventually found guilty of travelling on false passports in June 2004 but were acquitted of training FARC-EP members. That decision was reversed after an appeal by the Attorney General of Colombia and they were sentenced to 17-year terms. However, they vanished in December 2004 while on bail and returned to Ireland. Tánaiste Mary Harney said no deal had been done with Sinn Féin or the IRA over the three's return to Ireland adding that the Irish government would consider any request from the Colombian authorities for their extradition. Colombian vice-president Francisco Santos Calderón did not rule out allowing them to serve their sentences in Ireland.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: For most of the period between 2002 and 2005, the FARC-EP was in a strategic withdrawal due to the increasing military and police actions of new president Álvaro Uribe, which led to the capture or desertion of many fighters and medium-level commanders. Uribe ran for office on an anti-FARC-EP platform and was determined to defeat FARC-EP in a bid to create "confidence" in the country. Uribe's own father had been killed by FARC-EP in an attempted kidnapping in 1983.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: In 2002 and 2003, FARC broke up ten large ranches in Meta, an eastern Colombian province, and distributed the land to local subsistence farmers.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: During the first two years of the Uribe administration, several FARC-EP fronts, most notably in Cundinamarca and Antioquia, were broken by the government's military operations.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: On 5 May 2003, the FARC assassinated the governor of Antioquia, Guillermo Gaviria Correa, his advisor for peace, former defence minister Gilberto Echeverri Mejía, and eight soldiers. The FARC had kidnapped Mr. Gaviria and Mr. Echeverri a year earlier, when the two men were leading a march for peace from Medellín to Caicedo in Antioquia.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: On 13 July 2004, the office of the United Nations' High Commissioner for Human Rights publicly condemned the group, given evidence that FARC-EP violated article 17 of the additional Protocol II of the Geneva Convention and international humanitarian law, as a result of 10 July massacre of seven peasants and the subsequent displacement of eighty individuals in San Carlos, Antioquia.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: In early February 2005, a series of small-scale actions by the FARC-EP around the southwestern departments of Colombia, resulted in an estimated 40 casualties. The FARC–EP, in response to government military operations in the south and in the southeast, displaced its military centre of gravity towards the Nariño, Putumayo and Cauca departments.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: The FARC-EP originally said that they would only release the police and military members they held captive (whom they considered to be prisoners of war) through exchanges with the government for imprisoned FARC-EP members. During the duration of the DMZ negotiations, a small humanitarian exchange took place.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: The group demanded a demilitarised zone including two towns (Florida and Pradera) in the strategic region of Valle del Cauca, where much of the current military action against them has taken place; this region is also an important way of transporting drugs to the Pacific coast. This demand was rejected by the Colombian government based on previous experience during the 2002 peace talks.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: On 2 December 2004, the government announced the pardon of 23 FARC–EP prisoners, to encourage a reciprocal move. The prisoners to be released were all of low rank and had promised not to rejoin the armed struggle. In November 2004, the FARC–EP had rejected a proposal to hand over 59 of its captives in exchange for 50 guerrillas imprisoned by the government.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: In a communique dated 28 November but released publicly on 3 December, the FARC-EP declared that they were no longer insisting on the demilitarisation of San Vicente del Caguán and Cartagena del Chairá as a precondition for the negotiation of the prisoner exchange, but instead that of Florida and Pradera in the Valle department. They state that this area would lie outside the "area of influence" of both their Southern and Eastern Blocks (the FARC-EP's strongest) and that of the military operations being carried out by the Uribe administration.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: They requested security guarantees both for the displacement of their negotiators and that of the guerrillas that would be freed, which were stated to number as many as 500 or more, and ask the Catholic Church to coordinate the participation of the United Nations and other countries in the process.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: The FARC–EP also mention in the communique that Simón Trinidad's extradition, would be a serious obstacle to reaching a prisoner exchange agreement with the government. On 17 December 2004, the Colombian government authorised Trinidad's extradition to the United States, but stated that the measure could be revoked if the FARC-EP released all political hostages and military captives in its possession before 30 December. The FARC-EP rejected the demand.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: On 25 March 2006, after a public announcement made weeks earlier, the FARC–EP released two captured policemen at La Dorada, Putumayo. The release took place some southwest of Bogotá, near the Ecuadorean border. The Red Cross said the two were released in good health. Military operations in the area and bad weather had prevented the release from occurring one week earlier.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: In a separate series of events, civilian hostage and German citizen Lothar Hintze was released by FARC–EP on 4 April 2006, after five years in captivity. Hintze had been kidnapped for extortion purposes, and his wife had paid three ransom payments without any result.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: One prisoner, Julian Ernesto Guevara Castro, a police officer, died of tuberculosis on 28 January 2006. He was a captain and was captured on 1 November 1998. On 29 March 2009, the FARC-EP announced that they would give Guevara's remains to his mother. The FARC handed over Guevara's remains on 1 April 2010.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: Another civilian hostage, Fernando Araújo, later named Minister of Foreign Relations and formerly Development Minister, escaped his captors on 31 December 2006. Araújo had to walk through the jungle for five days before being found by troops in the hamlet of San Agustin, north of Bogotá. He was kidnapped on 5 December 2000 while jogging in the Caribbean coastal city of Cartagena. He was reunited with his family on 5 January 2007.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: Another prisoner, Frank Pinchao, a police officer, escaped his captors on 28 April 2007 after nine years in captivity. He was reunited with his family on 15 May 2007.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: On 28 June 2007, the FARC–EP reported the death of 11 out of 12 provincial deputies from the Valle del Cauca Department whom the guerrillas had kidnapped in 2002. The guerrillas claimed that the deputies had been killed by crossfire during an attack by an "unidentified military group." The Colombian government stated that government forces had not made any rescue attempts and that the FARC–EP executed the hostages. FARC did not report any other casualties on either side and delayed months before permitting the Red Cross to recover the remains. According to the government, the guerrillas delayed turning over the corpses to let decomposition hide evidence of how they died. The Red Cross reported that the corpses had been washed and their clothing changed before burial, hiding evidence of how they were killed. The Red Cross also reported that the deputies had been killed by multiple close-range shots, many of them in the backs of the victims, and even two by shots to the head.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: In February 2009, Sigifredo López, the only deputy who survived and was later released by FARC, accused the group of killing the 11 captives and denied that any military rescue attempt had taken place. According to López, the unexpected arrival of another guerrilla unit resulted in confusion and paranoia, leading the rebels to kill the rest of the Valle deputies. He survived after previously being punished for insubordination and was held in chains nearby but separated from the rest of the group.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: On 10 January 2008, former vice presidential candidate Clara Rojas and former congresswoman Consuelo González were freed after nearly six years in captivity. In a Venezuela-brokered deal, a helicopter flew deep into Colombia to pick up both hostages. The women were escorted out of the jungle by armed guerrillas to a clearing where they were picked up by Venezuelan helicopters that bore International Red Cross insignias. In a statement published on a pro-rebel Web site, the FARC-EP said the unilateral release demonstrated the group's willingness to engage the Colombian government in talks over the release of as many as 800 people who are still being held. In a televised speech, Colombia's U.S.-allied president, Álvaro Uribe, thanked Chávez for his efforts.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: During the period she was held kidnapped in the jungle in 2004, Clara Rojas gave birth to her son by Caesarean. At 8 months old, the baby was removed from the area and Rojas didn't hear of the boy again until 31 December, when she heard Colombian President Álvaro Uribe say on the radio that the child was no longer with her captors. DNA tests later confirmed the boy, who had been living in a Bogotá foster home for more than two years under a different name, was hers. She reclaimed her son. Asked about her opinion of the FARC–EP as group, Rojas called it "a criminal organisation", condemning its kidnappings as "a total violation of human dignity" and saying some captive police and soldiers are constantly chained.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: On 31 January 2008, the FARC–EP announced that they would release civilian hostages Luis Eladio Perez Bonilla, Gloria Polanco, and Orlando Beltran Cuellar to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez as a humanitarian gesture. On 27 February 2008, the three hostages and Jorge Eduardo Gechem Turbay (who was added to the list due to his poor health) were released by FARC–EP. With the authorization of the Colombian government and the participation of the International Red Cross, a Venezuelan helicopter transported them to Caracas from San José del Guaviare. The FARC–EP had called its planned release of the hostages a gesture of recognition for the mediation efforts of Chávez, who had called on the international community to recognize the rebels as belligerents a month prior. Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, who had tense relations with Chávez, thanked the socialist leader and called for the release of all hostages. He said Colombia was still in a fight "against terrorist actions" but was open to reconciliation.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: On 4 February 2008, anti-FARC protests were held in 45 Colombian cities and towns, with an estimated 1.5 million people coming out in Bogotá alone. Solidarity rallies were held in some 200 cities worldwide including Berlin, Barcelona, London, Madrid, Toronto, Dubai, Miami, New York, Brisbane, and La Paz. The protests were originally organised through Facebook and were also supported by local Colombian media outlets as well as the Colombian government. Participation estimates vary from the hundreds of thousands to several millions of people in Colombia and thousands worldwide.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: Kiraz Janicke of the leftist and chavista website Venezuelanalysis criticised the rallies, claiming that "right-wing paramilitary leaders featured prominently" in their organisation and arguing that workers were also pressured to attend the gatherings. According to her, the purpose of the protests was to promote "Uribe's policy of perpetuating Colombia's decades-long civil war." Shortly before the rallies took place thirteen demobilised AUC paramilitary leaders, including Salvatore Mancuso, had expressed their support of the protest through a communique. However, this move was rejected by organiser Carlos Andrés Santiago, who stated that such an endorsement was harmful and criticised the AUC's actions.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: On 20 July 2008, a subsequent set of rallies against FARC included thousands of Colombians in Bogotá and hundreds of thousands throughout the rest of the country.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: On 1 March 2008, Raul Reyes, a member of FARC's ruling Secretariat, in the small village of Santa Rosa, Ecuador, was killed just across the border from Colombia, after Colombian planes bombarded a FARC camp there. The bombardment was "followed by troops in helicopters who recovered the bodies of Reyes and another 16 rebels." Reyes was the former FARC chief negotiator during the unsuccessful 1998–2002 peace process, and was also a key FARC hostage release negotiator. Reyes' demise marked the first time that a FARC Secretariat member had been killed in combat.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: This incident led to a breakdown in diplomatic relations between Ecuador and Colombia, and between Venezuela and Colombia. Ecuador condemned the attack. The incident also resulted in diplomatic strains between the United States and Ecuador, following revelations that the Central Intelligence Agency provided intelligence that allowed the Colombian military to locate the FARC–EP commander and ordnance used in the attack.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: It has been considered the biggest blow against FARC–EP in its more than four decades of existence. This event was quickly followed by the death of Iván Ríos, another member of FARC–EP's seven-man Secretariat, less than a week later, by the hand of his own bodyguard. It came as a result of heavy Colombian military pressure and a reward offer of up to $5 million from the Colombian government.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: After the attack, the Colombian military forces managed to secure six laptop computers belonging to Reyes, in which they found information linking several left-wing Colombian personalities, such as politicians, journalists and human rights activists with terrorist activities.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: Manuel Marulanda Vélez died on 26 March 2008 after a heart attack. His death would be kept a secret, until Colombian magazine "Semana" published an interview with Colombian defence minister Juan Manuel Santos on 24 May 2008 in which Santos mentions the death of Manuel Marulanda Vélez. The news was confirmed by FARC–EP commander "Timochenko" on Latin American television station teleSUR on 25 May 2008. "Timochenko" announced the new commander in chief was Alfonso Cano After speculations in several national and international media about the "softening up" of the FARC and the announcement of Colombian President Álvaro Uribe that several FARC leaders were ready to surrender and free their captives, the secretariat of the FARC sent out a communiqué emphasising the death of their founder would not change their approach towards the captives or the humanitarian agreement.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: On 11 January 2008 during the annual State of the Nation in the Venezuelan National Assembly, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez referred to the FARC as "a real army that occupies territory in Colombia, they're not terrorists ... They have a political goal and we have to recognise that". However, on 13 January 2008, Chávez retracted his previous statement and stated his disapproval of the FARC–EP strategy of armed struggle and kidnapping, saying "I don't agree with kidnapping and I don't agree with armed struggle". President Hugo Chávez repeatedly expressed his disapproval of the practice of kidnapping stating on 14 April: "If I were a guerrilla, I wouldn't have the need to hold a woman, a man who aren't soldiers ... Free the civilians who don't have anything to do with the war. I don't agree with that." On 7 March at the Cumbre de Rio, Chávez stated again that the FARC–EP should lay down their arms "Look at what has happened and is happening in Latin America, reflect on this (FARC-EP), we are done with war ... enough with all this death". On 8 June Chavez repeated his call for a political solution and an end to the war, "The guerrilla war is history ... At this moment in Latin America, an armed guerrilla movement is out of place".


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: On 2 July 2008, under a Colombian military operation called Operation Jaque, the FARC–EP was tricked by the Colombian Government into releasing 15 captives to Colombian Intelligence agents disguised as journalists and international aid workers in a helicopter rescue. Military intelligence agents infiltrated the guerrilla ranks and led the local commander in charge of the captives, Gerardo Aguilar Ramírez, alias Cesar, to believe they were going to take them by helicopter to Alfonso Cano, the guerrillas' supreme leader. The rescued included Íngrid Betancourt (former presidential candidate), U.S. military contractors Marc Gonsalves, Thomas Howes, and Keith Stansell, as well as eleven Colombian police officers and soldiers. The commander, Cesar and one other rebel were taken into custody by agents without incident after boarding the helicopter. On 4 July, some observers questioned whether or not this was an intercepted captive release made to look like a rescue. In a 5 July communique, FARC itself blamed rebels Cesar and Enrique for the escape of the captives and acknowledged the event as a setback but reiterated their willingness to reach future humanitarian agreements. Immediately after the captive rescue, Colombian military forces cornered the rest of FARC–EP's 1st Front, the unit which had held the captives. Colombian forces did not wish to attack the 1st Front but instead offered them amnesty if they surrender. Colombia's Program for Humanitarian Attention for the Demobilized announced in August 2008 that 339 members of Colombia's rebel groups surrendered and handed in their weapons in July, including 282 guerrillas from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: Óscar Tulio Lizcano, a Colombian Conservative Party congressman, was kidnapped 5 August 2000. On Sunday, 26 October 2008, the ex-congressman escaped from FARC–EP rebels. Tulio Lizcano was a hostage for over 8 years, and escaped with a FARC–EP rebel he convinced to travel with him. They evaded pursuit for three days as they trekked through mountains and jungles, encountering the military in the western coastal region of Colombia. Tulio Lizcano is the first hostage to escape since the successful military rescue of Íngrid Betancourt, and the longest held political hostage by the organization. He became the 22nd Colombian political hostage to gain freedom during 2008.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: During his final days in captivity, Lizcano told Santos, they had nothing to eat but wild palm hearts and sugar cane. With the military tightening the noose, a FARC–EP rebel turned himself in and provided Colombian authorities with Lizcano's exact location in the northwest state of Choco. As police and army troops prepared to launch a rescue operation, Lizcano escaped alongside one of his guerrilla guards who had decided to desert. The two men hiked through the rain forest for three days and nights until they encountered an army patrol. Speaking from a clinic in the western city of Cali, Mr Lizcano said that when soldiers saw him screaming from across a jungle river, they thought he was drunk and ignored him. Only when he lifted the FARC–EP rebel's Galil assault rifle did the soldiers begin to understand that he was escaping from the FARC–EP rebels. "They jumped into the river, and then I started to shout, 'I'm Lizcano'", he said.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: Soon after the liberation of this prominent political hostage, the Vice President of Colombia Francisco Santos Calderón called Latin America's biggest guerrilla group a "paper tiger" with little control of the nation's territory, adding that "they have really been diminished to the point where we can say they are a minimal threat to Colombian security", and that "After six years of going after them, reducing their income and promoting reinsertion of most of their members, they look like a paper tiger." However, he warned against any kind of premature triumphalism, because "crushing the rebels will take time". The of jungle in Colombia makes it hard to track them down to fight.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: On 21 December 2008, The FARC–EP announced that they would release civilian hostages Alan Jara, Sigifredo López, three low-ranking police officers and a low-ranking soldier to Senator Piedad Córdoba as a humanitarian gesture. On 1 February 2009, the FARC–EP proceeded with the release of the four security force members, Juan Fernando Galicio Uribe, José Walter Lozano Guarnizo, Alexis Torres Zapata and William Giovanni Domínguez Castro. All of them were captured in 2007. Jara (kidnapped in 2001) was released on 3 February and López (kidnapped in 2002) was released on 5 February.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: On 17 March 2009, The FARC-EP released Swedish hostage Erik Roland Larsson. Larsson, paralyzed in half his body, was handed over to detectives in a rugged region of the northern state of Córdoba. Larsson was kidnapped from his ranch in Tierralta, not far from where he was freed, on 16 May 2007, along with his Colombian girlfriend, Diana Patricia Pena while paying workers. She escaped that same month following a gun battle between her captors and police. Larsson suffered a stroke while in captivity. The FARC-EP had sought a $5 million ransom. One of Larsson's sons said that the ransom was not paid.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: On 22 December 2009, the body of Luis Francisco Cuéllar, the Governor of Caquetá, was discovered, a day after he had been kidnapped from his house in Florencia, Caquetá. Officials said the abduction and execution had been carried by the FARC. According to officials, he had been killed soon after the abduction. The kidnappers cut the governor's throat as they evaded security forces. In a statement broadcast on radio, the acting governor, Patricia Vega, said, "I no longer have any doubts that FARC has done it again." The FARC claimed responsibility for Cuéllar's kidnapping and murder in January 2010. The group said that they kidnapped him in order to "put him on trial for corruption" and blamed his death on an attempt to rescue him by force.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: On 16 April 2009, the FARC-EP announced that they would release Army Corporal Pablo Emilio Moncayo Cabrera to Piedad Córdoba as a humanitarian gesture. Moncayo was kidnapped on 21 December 1997. On 28 June 2009, the FARC announced that they would release soldier Josue Daniel Calvo Sanchez. Calvo was kidnapped on 20 April 2009. Calvo was released on 28 March 2010. Moncayo was released on 30 March 2010.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: On 13 June 2010, Colombian troops rescued Police Colonel Luis Herlindo Mendieta Ovalle, Police Captain Enrique Murillo Sanchez and Army Sergeant Arbey Delgado Argote in an event known as Operation Chameleon, twelve years after the individuals were captured; Argote was kidnapped on 3 August 1998. Ovalle and Sanchez were kidnapped on 1 November 1998. On 14 June, Police Lieutenant William Donato Gomez was also rescued. He was also kidnapped on 3 August 1998.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: President Juan Manuel Santos began his term with a suspected FARC bomb-blast in Bogotá. This followed the resolution of the 2010 Colombia–Venezuela diplomatic crisis which erupted over outgoing President Álvaro Uribe's allegations of active Venezuelan support for FARC.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: In early September 2010, FARC-EP attacks in the Nariño Department and Putumayo Department in southern Colombia killed some fifty policemen and soldiers in hit-and-run assaults.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: According to a December report by the Corporación Nuevo Arco Iris NGO, 473 FARC-EP guerrillas and 357 members of the Colombian security forces died in combat between January and September 2010. An additional 1,382 government soldiers or policemen were wounded during the same period, with the report estimating that the total number of casualties could reach 2,500 by the end of the year. Nuevo Arco Iris head León Valencia considered that FARC guerrillas have reacted to a series of successful military blows against them by splitting up their forces into smaller groups and intensifying the offensive use of anti-personnel land mines, leading to what he called a further "degradation" of the conflict. Valencia also added that both coca crops and the drug trade have "doubled" in areas with FARC-EP presence. Researcher Claudia López considered that the Colombian government is winning the strategic and aerial side of the war but not the infantry front, where both the FARC-EP and ELN continue to maintain an offensive capacity.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: The International Crisis Group claimed that the military offensives carried out under former President Álvaro Uribe and President Juan Manuel Santos had led to the number of FARC-EC combatants being reduced to around 7,000, less than half the 20,000 combatants estimated to have been employed by the FARC-EC in the early 2000s. The same organisation also stated that the military offensive had been able to reduce FARC territorial control and push guerillas to more remote and sparsely populated regions, often close to territorial or internal borders.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: Colombian authorities announced the death of Víctor Julio Suárez Rojas, also known as "Mono Jojoy", on 23 September 2010. President Juan Manuel Santos stated that the FARC commander was killed in an operation that began in the early hours of 21 September in the department of Meta, south of the capital Bogotá. According to Santos, he was "the impersonation of terror and a symbol of violence". After this event, the FARC-EP released a statement saying that defeating the group would not bring peace to Colombia and called for a negotiated solution, not surrender, to the social and political conflict.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: In January 2011 Juan Manuel Santos admitted that FARC-EP had killed 460 government soldiers and wounded over 2,000 in 2010. In April 2011 the Colombian congress issued a statement saying that FARC has a "strong presence" in roughly one third of the municipalities in Colombia, while their attacks have increased. Overall FARC operations, including attacks against security forces as well as kidnappings and the use of land mines, have increased every year since 2005. In the first six months of 2011 the FARC carried out an estimated 1,115 actions, which constitutes a 10% increase over the same period in 2010.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: By early 2011 Colombian authorities and news media reported that the FARC and the clandestine sister groups had partly shifted strategy from guerrilla warfare to "a war of militias", meaning that they were increasingly operating in civilian clothes while hiding amongst sympathizers in the civilian population. In early January 2011 the Colombian army said that the FARC has some 18,000 members, with 9,000 of those forming part of the militias. The army says it has identified at least 1,400 such militia members in the FARC strongholds of Valle del Cauca and Cauca in 2011. In June 2011 Colombian chief of staff Edgar Cely claimed that the FARC wants to "urbanize their actions", which could partly explain the increased guerrilla activity in Medellín and particularly Cali. Jeremy McDermott, co-director of Insight Crime, estimates that FARC may have some 30,000 'part-time fighters' in 2011, consisting of both armed and unarmed civilian supporters making up the rebel militia network, instead of full-time fighters wearing uniforms.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: According to Corporación Nuevo Arco Iris, FARC-EP killed 429 members of the Colombian government's security forces between January and October 2011. During this same period, the rebel group lost 316 of its own members. The year 2011 saw over 2,000 incidents of FARC activity, which was the highest figure recorded since 1998. The NGO has stated that while most of these incidents remain defensive in nature and were not like the large offensives from years past, FARC actions grew since 2005, and the rebel group was carrying out intense operations against small and medium-sized Colombian military units in vulnerable areas.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: Colombian troops killed FARC leader Alfonso Cano in a firefight on 4 November 2011. The 6th Front of the FARC, which was in charge of Cano's security at the time of his death, retaliated by killing two policemen in Suarez and Jambaló some 24 hours after the death of Cano.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: On 26 November 2011, the FARC killed Police Captain Edgar Yesid Duarte Valero, Police Lieutenant Elkin Hernández Rivas, Army Corporal Libio José Martínez Estrada, and Police Intendant Álvaro Moreno after government troops approached the guerrilla camp where they were held in an area of the Caqueta department. Police Sergeant Luis Alberto Erazo Maya managed to escape his captors and was later rescued.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: The Colombian military had information indicating that there could be captives in the area and initiated Operation Jupiter in October 2011, using a 56 men Special Forces unit to carry out surveillance for preparing a future rescue mission that would involve additional troops and air support. According to the Colombian military, this same unit remained in the area for 43 days and did not find the captives until they accidentally ran into the FARC camp on the way back, which led to a shootout. Relatives of the captives, former victims and civil society groups blamed both the government and FARC for the outcome, questioning the operation as well as criticizing military rescues.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: In 2012, FARC announced they would no longer participate in kidnappings for ransom and released the last ten soldiers and police officers they kept as prisoners, but it has kept silent about the status of hundreds of civilians still reported as hostages, and continued kidnapping soldiers and civilians. On 26 February 2012, the FARC announced that they would release their remaining ten political hostages. The hostages were released on 2 April 2012. The president of Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos, said that this incident was "not enough", and asked the FARC to release the civilian hostages they possess.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: On 22 November 2012, the FARC released four Chinese oil workers. The hostages were working for the Emerald Energy oil company, a British-based subsidiary of China's Sinochem Group, when they were kidnapped on 8 June 2011. Their Colombian driver was also kidnapped, but released several hours later. Authorities identified the freed men as Tang Guofu, Zhao Hongwei, Jian Mingfu, and Jiang Shan.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: Santos announced on 27 August 2012 that the Colombian government has engaged in talks with FARC in order to seek an end to the conflict:


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: Exploratory conversations have been held with the FARC to find an end to the conflict. I want to make very clear to Colombians that the approaches that have been carried out and the ones that will happen in the future will be carried out within the framework based on these principles: We are going to learn from the mistakes made in the past so that they are not repeated. Second, any process must lead to the end of the conflict, not making it longer. Third, operations and military presence will be maintained across the entire national territory.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: He also said that he would learn from the mistakes of previous leaders, who failed to secure a lasting ceasefire with FARC, though the military would still continue operations throughout Colombia while talks continued. An unnamed Colombian intelligence source said Santos has assured FARC that no one would be extradited to stand trial in another country. "Al Jazeera" reported that the initiative began after Santos met with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and asked him to mediate. Former President Uribe has criticized Santos for seeking peace "at any cost" and rejected the idea of holding talks. "Telesur" reported that FARC and the Colombian government had signed a preliminary agreement in Havana the same day. The first round of the talks will take place in Oslo on 5 October and then return to Havana for approximately six months of talks before culminating in Colombia. However, Santos later ruled out a ceasefire pending the talks in Oslo and reiterated that offensive operations against FARC would continue.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: ELN leader Nicolás Rodríguez Bautista, otherwise known as Gabino, added that his group was interested in joining the talks too: "Well we are open, it's exactly our proposal, to seek room for open dialogue without conditions and start to discuss the nation's biggest problems. But the government has said no! Santos says he has the keys to peace in his pocket, but I think he has lost them because there seems to be no possibility of a serious dialogue, we remain holding out for that."


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: Colombia's RCN Radio reported on 29 September that a preliminary draft of the proposals indicated that a resolution would involve answering FARC's historic grievances including rural development and agrarian reform; democracy development via an enhancement of the number of registered political parties; security and compensation for the victims of the conflict. In this regards, the Colombian government has already passed a series of laws that entail compensation for the victims and a return of land to the displaced. FARC also indicated a willingness to give up their arms. Former M19 member Antonio Navarro Wolff said: "If the government wants a serious peace plan they will have to take control of the coca leaf plantations that are currently owned by the FARC because if not another criminal group will take over it." Santos later told "Al Jazeera" that peace was possible if there was "goodwill" on both sides. Santos told the General debate of the sixty-seventh session of the United Nations General Assembly on 26 September, that Venezuela and Chile were also helping in the discussion along with Cuba and Norway.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: Peace talks were formally started on 18 October in a hotel 30 miles north of the Norwegian capital Oslo with a joint-press conference by both delegations. The representatives of the government, led by Humberto de la Calle and the FARC, led by Iván Márquez, said the so-called second phase of the peace process will be inaugurated in Oslo on 15 November, after which the delegations will go to Cuba to work on the negotiation of the peace accord, which will ultimately lead to a permanent agreement and ceasefire. The Colombian government has also stated that they expect that a post-Chávez government will continue to support the peace process. In late 2012, FARC declared a two-month unilateral cease-fire and said that they would be open to extending it as a bilateral truce afterwards during the rest of the negotiations. The Colombian government refused to agree to a bilateral cease-fire, alleging violations of the truce by FARC.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: Shortly after lifting the ceasefire, FARC conducted attacks on a coal transport railway, which derailed 17 wagons and forced a suspension of operations and assaulted Milan, a town in the southern Caquetá, killing at least seven government soldiers and injuring five others.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: Santos has been far more responsive to threats against social leaders than his predecessors. He has also been decisive in combatting the New Illegal Armed Groups that emerged as a result of the paramilitary process, especially in fighting threats and violence against human rights defenders and social leaders. During Santos' presidency, private security and proclaimed self-defense movements have also lost their legitimacy.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: On 27 May 2013, it was announced that one of the most contentious issues had been resolved. Land reform and compensation was tackled with promises to compensate those who had lost land. This is the first time the government and FARC have reached an agreement on a substantive issue in four different negotiating attempts over 30 years. The peace process then moved on to the issue of "political participation", during which FARC insisted on its demand for an elected Constituent Assembly to rewrite Colombia's constitution. This demand has been forcefully rejected by Colombia's lead government negotiator, Humberto de la Calle.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: On 1 July 2013, FARC and the second-largest guerrilla group in Colombia, ELN, announced that they would be working together to find a "political solution to the social and armed conflict." The details of this partnership, however, were far from clear; Washington Office on Latin America's Adam Isacson explains that two issues central to peace accords with ELN—resource policy and kidnapping—are currently off the table in the talks in Havana with FARC, and the addition of these topics may complicate and slow down an already sluggish process.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: On 6 November 2013 the Colombian government and FARC announced that they had come to an agreement regarding the participation of political opposition and would begin discussing their next issue, the illicit drug trade.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: On 23 January 2014 Juan Fernando Cristo, the President of the Senate of Colombia, proposed a second Plan Colombia during a conference on the Colombian peace process in Washington, D.C. Cristo stated that this new plan should be "for the victims" and should redirect the resources from the original Plan Colombia towards supporting a post-conflict Colombia.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: On 16 May 2014, the Colombian government and the FARC rebels agreed to work together against drug trafficking, added to the development of these peace talks.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: On 28 June 2015, humanitarian and spiritual leader Ravi Shankar, on a three-day-visit to Cuba, had several rounds of discussions with FARC members in an exercise of confidence-building in the peace process, which had many hurdles from the past three years.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: FARC requested Shankar to actively participate in the peace process. He said, "In this conflict, everyone should be considered as victims. And inside every culprit, there is a victim crying for help."


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: After many discussions, FARC finally agreed to embrace the Gandhian principle of non-violence. Commander Ivan Marquez declared in the press conference that they would adopt it. The FARC agreed that hatred had derailed the peace process. Marquez said, "We will work for peace and justice for all the people of Colombia."


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: On 30 September 2015, Ravi Shankar accused Norway of sidetracking his effort at brokering a peace deal between the Colombian government and FARC, after Norway, which was part of a four-nation group (along with Cuba, Chile and Venezuela) acting as guarantors in the talks, released a statement saying that the peace deal was a result of "painstaking efforts undertaken by a league of Western nations".


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: On 23 June 2016 a ceasefire accord was signed between the FARC Guerilla Army and the Colombian Government, in Havana, Cuba. Leaders of several Latin American countries which contributed to the deal, including Cuba and Venezuela, were present. The final peace accord required a referendum to be approved.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: Under the accord, the Colombian government will support massive investment for rural development and facilitate the FARC's reincarnation as a legal political party. FARC promised to help eradicate illegal drug crops, remove landmines in the areas of conflict, and offer reparations to victims. FARC leaders can avoid prosecution by acts of reparation to victims and other community work.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: The government met with victims and peace opponents after the referendum was rejected, receiving over 500 proposed changes, and continued to negotiate with FARC. A revised agreement announced on 12 November 2016, which would require parliamentary approval rather than a nationwide referendum. Former President and chief peace opponent Álvaro Uribe met with President Juan Manuel Santos and thereafter issued a noncommittal statement that he awaited release of the full text. Among the reported 60 new or modified terms was a provision for FARC assets to be distributed for victim compensation. FARC members would be able to establish a political party, and would in general be granted full immunity for full confession and cooperation, although drug trafficking would be assessed on a case-by-case basis. Peace terms would be enforced by a Special Justice for the Peace, who would report to the Constitutional Court and not to an international body, and both Parliament and the Special Justice would have the ability to modify the terms of the agreement as seen necessary.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: The Colombian government and the FARC on 24 November signed a revised peace deal, which Congress approved on 30 November.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: On 18 February 2017, the last FARC guerrillas arrived in a designated transition zone, where they began the process of disarming. The rebels stayed in the zones until 31 May, after which they were registered and reintegrated into civilian life.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: On 27 June 2017, the FARC ceased to be an armed group, with its forces disarming and handing more than 7,000 weapons to the United Nations at a ceremony hosted by the FARC leadership, and the Colombian government, which included the Cabinet and President Juan Manuel Santos. Peace observers had received the coordinates of 873 weapons caches hidden in Colombia's remote jungles and mountains. The UN was able to remove 510 of these weapons caches, leaving the remaining 363 caches for the military to pick up.


title: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

text: The last batch of weapons belonging to former FARC rebels has been removed under UN supervision. The United Nations collected 8,112 guns, 1.3 million bullets, 22 tons of explosives, 3,000 grenades and 1,000 land mines from the FARC.