BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) - Key developments in the half-century of hostilities between Colombia’s government and the country’s largest rebel movement:
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- May 1964: Rebel leader Manuel Marulanda, alias “Sureshot,” founds the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as FARC.
- Aug. 7, 1982: Government of President Belisario Betancur starts peace negotiations with FARC.
- June 1987: Tenuous-at-best cease-fire wounded when rebels attack kills 25 soldiers in southern Colombia.
- April 1991: FARC, along with fellow rebel groups National Liberation Army and Popular Liberation Army, sit down for talks with government delegates in Venezuela. Talks are later moved to Mexico.
- October 1992: Negotiations end with no agreement.
- August 1998: President Andrés Pastrana announces new peace effort with FARC. Sets up Switzerland-sized demilitarized zone in southern Colombia where talks can be held.
- Feb. 20, 2002: Rebels hijack plane and take captive a senator who is member of peace commission. Pastrana breaks off negotiations.
- December 2004: Undercover Colombian agents capture Rodrigo Granda, considered FARC’s “foreign minister,” in Venezuela and bring him to Colombia.
- Aug. 16, 2007: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez offers to mediate between FARC and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe. Effort collapses a few months later.
- March 26, 2008: Top FARC leader Marulanda dies of natural causes after more than four decades fighting government.
- Sept. 22, 2010: No. 2 FARC commander and top military strategist Jorge Briceño, alias Mono Jojoy, killed by air strike.
- Nov. 4, 2011: Top FARC commander Gullermo Saenz, alias Alfonso Cano, killed in attack by military.
- Feb. 26, 2012: FARC renounces kidnapping for extortion and frees all military officers in captivity.
- Aug. 12, 2012: President Juan Manuel Santos announces new peace talks with FARC.
- Aug. 24, 2016: Santos’ government and FARC announce peace accord.
- Sept. 26, 2016: Santos and FARC’s top commander formally sign accord.
- Oct. 2, 2016: Colombian voters narrowly reject the deal. Many consider it too favorable to rebels.
- Nov. 24, 2016: Santos and FARC sign revised peace deal. A U.N. mission is larger appointed to oversee disarmament and reintegration of ex-combatants.
- Aug. 27, 2017: FARC begins process of turning itself into a legal political party.
- April 9, 2018: Authorities arrest a former FARC leader, Seuxis Hernández, known as “Jesús Santrich,” who is wanted in the U.S. on drug charges. The case strains relations between the FARC and government. Santrich is later released due to legal immunity as a congressman, but he disappears in July 2019.
- Aug. 2, 2018: The National Center for Historical Memory reports that about 262,000 people had died in six decades of violence in Colombia.
- Aug. 31, 2018: Government says former senior FARC leader Luciano Marin, alias Iván Márquez, has disappeared. U.S. officials reportedly had sought him on drug charges.
- July 3, 2019: U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres calls on government to respect commitments to ex-rebels and says that the U.N. mission in Colombia has verified 123 killings of former combatants since the peace deal was signed.
- Aug. 29: Marin - “Ivan Márquez” - releases a video showing him with Hernández and other ex-rebels declaring they are again taking up arms, saying government failing to meet commitments.
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