Although there are many different guerrilla groups currently active in Colombia, the two main rebel armies are the Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN).

Initially growing out of a grassroots communist movement that swept much of Latin American during the 1940s and 50s, FARC and ELN have now become sophisticated political terrorists, preying on an innocent populace and hiding behind the high-tech machinery of Colombia’s all-powerful drug lords, who for the past two decades have supplied the guerrillas with cutting-edge weapons in exchange for protection.

This strange alliance came partially out of need and partially out of geography: Each guerrilla group has a certain amount of territory in remote parts of the Colombian countryside staked out as their own. Government troops and paramilitaries have been unable to wrest it from them in the past, and have now stopped trying, preferring instead to cede it the guerrillas. Colombia’s drug lords, realizing these tracts of guerrilla dominated land - relatively safe from government troops - would be ideal for their illicit business, immediately befriended the guerrilla groups, offering them money, support, arms, everything they needed, in exchange for permission to cultivate drugs.

Apparently neither guerrilla group, both of which follow Marxist theories, finds the protection of drug lords to be incompatible with their political beliefs. Both ELN and FARC seek to overthrow the Colombian government and establish a government sympathetic to Communist ideals.