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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2022
During the past decade—more precisely during the last five to seven years—the increased use of urban guerrilla warfare and terrorism have characterized the activities of many revolutionary groups in the less developed world. High-lighted by the olympic assassinations of 1972, this phenomenon has also been evident in various African and Asian states. It is in Latin America, however, that the change from the traditional rural base for guerrilla operations to an urban environment has been most pronounced. The years from 1962 to 1967 saw many Latin American insurgents copying the Cuban revolutionary model, with its emphasis on rural guerrilla operations and the peasantry as the ultimate motive force, but recent years have seen an equally strong pull toward either purely urban insurgency or a more balanced strategy according equal importance to both rural and urban activities. In either case, the identifiable shift away from a totally rural guerrilla strategy for most Latin American revolutionary groups seems an established fact.
The authors thank Professor John Finan of The American University for his support and advice in developing this article. They also acknowledge the invaluable assistance of the Library Staff at the Interamerican Defense College and their permission to use the research facilities of the college.
Although the volume of materials relating to guerrilla activity in Latin America has grown enormously in recent years, the emphasis in such writing invariably has been on the rural aspects of this revolutionary struggle. Analyses of purely urban elements are virtually non-existent. With the exception of brief works by Robert Moss (1970, 1971) and Robert Lamberg (1970, 1971), and the more polemic writing of Abraham Guillén (1966) and Carlos Marighella (1970), the field is lightly explored. No one-volume study on the urban guerrilla, similar to Richard Gott's wide-ranging examination of Latin American guerrilla groups (1971), has been attempted. Accordingly, the reader interested in pursuing the subject of urban guerrilla activity in the region must be prepared to mine available data from a wide spectrum of sources. In this article, materials considered particularly useful by the authors are listed under the headings Cuban Guerrilla Theory, Urban Guerrilla Tactics, General Surveys, and Counterinsurgency Techniques.
For continuing information on urban and rural guerrilla activity in Latin America, the Cuban Armed Forces journal Verde Olivo and the Communist Party organ Granma are very useful. The latter is particularly valuable as it often publishes, in series format, rather detailed articles on guerrilla groups within a particular nation. (See Items #114 through 117 on Argentine urban terrorist organizations). Also useful for continued coverage of guerrilla activity are the quarterly Tricontinental and the monthly Boletín Tricontinental, both published in Havana by the Secretariado de la Organización de Solidaridad de los Pueblos de Africa, Asia y América Latina. The latter contains a regular section entitled Frentes Guerrilleros, which summarizes significant developments in worldwide guerrilla activity.
As a supplement to these Cuban publications, Punto Final, a Santiago (Chile) weekly, was an excellent source of current information on guerrilla operations, as is the more conservative Caracas Este & Oeste. From the military point of view, the Argentine army's Manual de Informaciones is excellent and frequently provides a rather objective analysis of insurgency activity. (See Item #8). The London weekly news report Latin America also furnishes relatively unbiased and unemotional accounts of guerrilla operations on a hemispheric and country-by country basis. Finally, on a daily basis, the respected Madrid ABC and the Spanish news agency EFE provide broad coverage of Latin America in general as well as the operations of guerrilla groups within the area. In this regard, dailies of the major Latin American cities also are valuable although often somewhat less accurate in their reporting.
A. Cuban Guerrilla Theory
Argentina
Following the 1964 repression of the Cuban-backed Ejército Guerrillero del Pueblo (EGP) in Salta-Jujuy (Item #112), guerrilla activity in Argentina became quiescent until the late 1960s. By 1969, however, Peronist, Fidelista, and Trotskyite urban terrorist cadres all had become very active. Operating under an umbrella organization known as the Organizaciones Armadas Peronistas, three guerrilla units, the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias (FAR), the Fuerzas Armadas Peronistas (FAP) and the Montoneros (Items 115–117), all were involved in various acts of terrorism including the assassination of former President Pedro Aramburu, the capture for a few hours of the small cities of Garin and La Calera, the execution of police/intelligence personnel, and the kidnapping of wealthy national and foreign industrialists for ransoms in excess of 3 million dollars. Fidelista urban guerrillas also were active in 1969 and the early 1970s, leading an April 1969, assault on the Buenos Aires Campo de Mayo military base and directing the 1970 kidnapping of Paraguayan Consul Waldemar Sánchez. Although activities of the Fidelistas had faded by 1972–73, and those of the Peronists slowed with the return to power of Perón, the Trotskyite Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo (ERP) continued its program of political executions and kidnappings.
Despite the intense nature of Argentine urban guerrilla activity over the past four years, little serious study has been devoted to the groups involved, their linkages to other national or transnational organizations, the tactics they have employed, or their political objectives. Thus, the best and most complete material now available on these organizations remains the rather biased series of articles in Granma by Héctor Víctor Suárez.
Although Bolivia was once considered by Fidel Castro as an ideal place to implement the foco concept, Che Guevara's 1967 defeat and the subsequent unsuccessful attempts at rural insurgency by Guido (‘Inti’) and Osvaldo (‘Chato’) Peredo have forced even the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) toward increased urban activities. (Items #118, 119, 122–26). Since the 1970 Teoponte guerrilla fiasco led by “Chato” Peredo, the ELN seems to have focused its efforts primarily on the city-centered student and worker populations of La Paz, Cochabamba, Potosí and Santa Cruz, where it is attempting to create an urban insurgent or support apparatus. Although this trend would seem to indicate a significant change in ELN strategy and the locus of its future operations, the move has received little attention and most research on guerrilla activity in Bolivia continues to be centered on the Guevara failure and the unsuccessful rural efforts of the ELN.
Like Argentina and Uruguay, Brazil has been a focal point for urban guerrilla activity since the late 1960s. Following the 1965 failure of rural operations in the Sierra do Caparão (Item #144) and Carlos Marighella's early 1968 call to revolutionary action after the Tricontinental Conference in Havana, urban guerrilla groups multiplied rapidly throughout Brazil. In addition to Marighella's own Acão Libertadora Nacional (ALN), by 1969–70 other significant groups included the Vanguarda Armada Revolucionária—Palmares (VAR-P), Comando da Libertacão Nacional (COLINA), Movimento Revolucionário-8 (MR-8), and the Vanguarda Popular Revolucionário (VPR). Well described by João Quartim in his excellent analysis of the Brazilian revolutionary movement (Item #155), these organizations engaged in violence in most Brazilian cities during 1968–69. In São Paulo alone, bank robberies by revolutionary groups during 1969 resulted in the loss of over 1.5 million dollars. Strongly supported by student elements (Items #146, 149), these groups also were responsible for kidnapping and holding for the release of political prisoners the U. S., West German, and Swiss Ambassadors, as well as the Japanese Consul in São Paulo. With the death of Marighella in late 1969, however, these organizations lost their spiritual leader and unifying force. This fact, and severe governmental repression, caused the movement to crumble almost as rapidly as it had grown. By late 1972 it was largely inactive. As Quartim indicates, it appears to have failed because violence became an end in itself without supportive political goals, a comment also made by another perceptive observer (James Petras) about most urban guerrilla movements (Item #76).
In contrast to the rather limited research into urban insurgency in Argentina and Bolivia, Brazil has been somewhat more adequately explored. In addition to the excellent text by Quartim (Item #155) and his earlier article (Item #156), the series of short studies by the Caracas magazine Este & Oeste are most useful (Items #135, 145). Also valuable are the works of and about Marighella and his guerrilla strategy (Items #30, 43, 152). As in most other nations of the hemisphere, however, a serious and in-depth analysis of the Brazilian guerrilla movement awaits preparation.
For over two decades, guerrilla activity in Colombia has posed a significant problem for the national government. Centered in operations of the communist-backed Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias Colombianas (FARC) during much of the 1954–1968 period, the 1960s saw the growth of two competing groups, the Maoist-influenced Ejército Popular de Liberación (EPL) and the Castroite Ejército de Liberación National (ELN). With the FARC operating during recent years in Caquetá, Tolima, and Huila departments, south of Bogotá, and the EPC and ELN in Northern Colombia (Antioquia, Córdoba, and Santander), most guerrilla operations of these groups were rural in nature. Since approximately 1970, however, all three organizations have expanded their activities in urban areas, employing the tactics of kidnapping, political execution of police officials, arson, bank robberies, and bombings. The ELN and FARC have been most involved with attacks against targets in Bogotá, Medellín, Barrancabermeja, Bucarmanga, Santa Marta, and Cali.
As in the case of Uruguay, a substantial volume of material is available on insurgency in Colombia, including both its urban and rural aspects. Fortunately, the bulk of the documents of real value are listed, with critical commentary, in Russell Ramsey's excellent bibliography on La Violencia. (See Item #5). Accordingly, the following items are furnished only to supplement that work, particularly with respect to the urban aspects of guerrilla warfare in Colombia.
Initiated in late 1960 as a reaction to the ineffective and corrupt government of President Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes, guerrilla activity in Guatemala accelerated rapidly during the early and mid-1960s. By 1964–65, two distinct insurgent organizations had emerged; the largely rural-based Movimiento Revolucionario 13 de Noviembre (MR-13) and the urban-rural Fuerzas Armadas Rebeldes (FAR). Both had grown from a common source, the November 13, 1960, revolt of military personnel in Guatemala City, led by Lieutenants Marco Antonio Yon Sosa, Luis Turcios Lima, and Luis Trejos Esquivei.
Defeated in their initial rural encounters with government forces, the guerrillas moved to urban terrorism during 1962–63, working in coordination with the self-defense units of the Partido Guatemalteca del Trabajo (PGT) and student elements in Guatemala City. Although subsequently shifting to rural activity, the death in 1966 of FAR leader Turcios (in an auto accident which occurred when he was driving), and the severe anti-guerrilla campaigns of the government in that and the following year forced the FAR from its “safe areas” in Zacapa and Isabal back into the cities. The subsequent death in May 1970 of MR-13 chief Yon Sosa, who was killed by a Mexican Army patrol when his unit strayed across the border from Guatemala, ended the effectiveness of that group.
FAR urban operations, commencing in 1968, included the January murder of two U. S. military advisors assigned to the embassy, the assassination in August of U. S. Ambassador John Gordon Mein, and the 1970 abduction and execution of West German Ambassador Karl von Spreti. In the latter year, the FAR also abducted the former Guatemalan foreign minister and the U. S. Labor Attaché. Other acts of terrorism included political executions, assaults on police posts, the bombing of military facilities, and additional kidnappings. In the case of the primarily rural-based MR-13, its only urban element, the Frente Rodolfo Chacón in Guatemala City, was eliminated in 1965–66.
In contrast to many Latin American nations, materials on insurgency in Guatemala are found relatively easily. Primarily documents of a polemical nature, as in the case of articles by Adolfo Gilly, Alvaro López, or Prensa Latina correspondent Eduardo Galeano (Items #188, 189, 192, 197), or reports in a journalistic style, such as the Este & Oeste article (Item #181), no really detailed and objective study has been made of either the FAR or MR-13. The closest thing to such an analysis is Kenneth Johnson's monograph (Item #196) prepared for the Institute for the Study of Conflict. Accordingly, despite available data, substantial room remains for serious research on both rural and urban insurgency in Guatemala.
Since the early 1960s, urban insurgency in Latin America has been almost synonymous with the term Tupamaro. Completely rejecting the Guevara-Debray concept of a rural foco, the Tupamaros, as in the case of Brazil's urban revolutionaries, have opted totally for city-centered guerrilla warfare. (See Items #217, 225, 227, 231). In contrast to Brazil, however, the Tupamaros see no real possibility for an ultimate rural revolution in Uruguay.
Operating almost at will during the greater part of a decade (1964–1972), the Tupamaros have been the most successful of all Latin American urban guerrilla groups. As a result of this success and their linkages to other Latin American revolutionary organizations, Tupamaro strategy, tactics, and material support apparently have been made available to the urban components of these groups. (See Items #110, 116, 169, 209).
Tupamaro success also has resulted in the development of a rather large volume of literature on the Uruguayan guerrilla movement. While much of this material is propagandistic in nature, it also includes a significant number of useful studies. Particularly noteworthy is Ernesto Mayans' outstanding documentary anthology on virtually all aspects of Tupamaro activity (Item #226), as well as the shorter but more analytical text by Mercader and de Vera (Item #227). Together, these two works provide the best available picture of the Tupamaro movement, its aims, objectives, and operations. Also useful are the reasonably in-depth writings of Robert Moss (Items #228, 229) as well as the excellent 1969 and 1971 articles in Este & Oeste, (Items #205, 209). Similarly useful, although highly biased, are several reports on Tupamaro activity in Punto Final (Items #206, 211, 212). Finally, of little value, despite the publicity it has received, is Maria Ester Gilio's work on the Tupamaros. (Item #221). Purporting to be a study of Tupamaro strategy and tactics, according to its subtitle, the book contains no information on these subjects but instead presents a sociological study of the movement. Thus, even in the case of Uruguay, where perhaps more has been written on the urban guerrilla movement than in any other nation of the hemisphere, there exists no definitive study of the urban guerrilla.
As in the cases of Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay, guerrilla activity in Venezuela has received considerable attention. In addition to the usual journalistic coverage afforded these operations, a number of rather complete analyses have been prepared on various aspects of the insurgency. Among these are studies focusing on those periods of essentially urban operations (1960–62 and 1963–64) by the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional (FALN) and the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR). Failing in their city-based efforts to prevent the election of President Leoni in December 1963, the guerrillas, with Cuban advice and logistic support, turned to a program of rural revolution following the Guevara-Debray foco concept. Although somewhat successful for a short period during the mid- and late 1960s, these operations faded as a result of the vigorous anti-guerrilla programs of the Venezuelan government, friction within the FALN as well as its internal division, its split from the Venezuelan Communist Party, and, finally, the guerrilla amnesty program of the former Caldera government. As a result of these problems, guerrilla groups deemphasized rural operations and stressed a combined urban-rural strategy captioned “la linea de insurrección combinada.”
A number of good studies have been prepared on the urban aspects of insurgency in Venezuela. Possibly the best of these for the 1960–64 period is the 236–page analysis by the Atlantic Research Corporation—Georgetown Research Project (litem #233). Also very valuable, as companion pieces, are the shorter and less detailed works by Norman Gall, Moses Moliero, Thomas Snodgrass, and John L. Sorenson. (Items #253, 257, 258, 259). Good coverage of specific FALN and MIR operations, plans, and strategy is found in Este & Oeste, Punto Find, and in various FALN and MIR documents. (See Items #232, 235, 236, 240, 243, 249). Untouched from an analytical point of view, however, are the years since 1968 when both the FALN and MIR have turned more and more toward urban operations. A careful examination of this period is needed.
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