Patriotic Union (Colombia)
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Patriotic Union
Unión Patriótica |
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| President | Omer Calderón |
| Founded | May 28, 1985 |
| Headquarters | Bogotá, Colombia |
| Youth wing | Union of Patriotic Youth |
| Ideology |
Socialism Democratic socialism Patriotism |
| Political position | Left-wing |
| Colours | Yellow, Green |
| Website | |
| unionpatriotica.org | |
The Patriotic Union or UP (in Spanish: Unión Patriótica) is a leftist Colombian political party. It was founded by the FARC and the Colombian Communist Party in 1985, as part of the peace negotiations that the guerrillas held with the Conservative Belisario Betancur administration. The party was subject to political violence from drug lords, paramilitaries and security forces agents during the mid-1980s, leading to its eventual decline, virtual disappearance and extermination.
After September 2002, the UP no longer had formal and legal representative status as a political party, nonetheless in July 2013 the Council of State of Colombia gave the UP its political status back, habilitating its members to run for office.
According to internal FARC documents from the group's 1982 Seventh Guerrilla Conference, the FARC originally intended for the creation of a group of clandestine party cells to be its political branch for recruitment and ideological propaganda purposes, while simultaneously maintaining its armed strength intact, at least initially, as part of the "combination of all forms of struggle". In theory, as the FARC developed a new form of army structure (the "People's Army", Ejército del Pueblo or EP), it would eventually be able to surround the cities with its armed columns, making the support of urban cells and mass movements decisive in order to finally seize power.
When the negotiations with the Betancur administration began after a 1982 amnesty, a cease-fire was declared in October 1984. The cease-fire was initially respected by both parties, but the FARC as a whole did not demobilize or directly renounce to the armed struggle as a means of resolving Colombia's problems. The UP was founded in May 1985 and several prominent FARC members were among the party's original founders, as well as members of the Colombian Communist Party (PCC). Almost a decade later, towards the early 1990s, the PCC ended its affiliation with the FARC, and the FARC's current political structure has become a separate body, known as the Clandestine Colombian Communist Party.
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