Tupamaros

   The popular name for the Movimiento de Liberación Nacional (MLN, Movement for National Liberation), an urban guerrilla organization active in Uruguay in the 1960s and 1970s. The name is a contraction of Tupac Amaro (the organization’s spelling of Tupac Amaro [José Gabriel Condorcanqui]), the Inca who in 1780– 1781 led a revolt against the Spanish in Peru. The Tupamaros were a colorful group, earning a reputation for carrying out operations with precision and panache. Although often described as a middleclass movement (reflecting Uruguay itself), they recruited men and women from all classes and sectors of society. Recruiting took place within networks of family and friends, each recruit known to someone already in the movement. As a further precaution against betrayal and leaks of information, the movement (below the executive level) was divided into columns, which, in turn, were divided into cells. Each column was a replica of the movement as a whole. The movement’s origins can be traced to 31 July 1963, when a group of leftists raided the Swiss Rifle Club in Colonia, a town 80 miles from Montevideo. At the center of the group was a band of Socialists led by Raúl Sendic Antonaccio, a former law student who had organized sugar workers in northern Uruguay. But the group also attracted leftists of other persuasions (Anarchists, Maoists, Trotskyists)-all committed to bringing about change through armed insurrection. The guerrillas spent several years in preparation—recruiting and training, gathering weapons, and establishing safe houses. In 1965 they adopted the name Movimiento de Liberación Nacional (Tupamaros) and in 1967—following some premature encounters with the police—published their first communiqué, declaring themselves outside the law.

   Their first two years of public activity are often described as their “Robin Hood” period, in which they attracted attention to themselves and discredited the government rather than attacking the government head-on. In 1969 they made a leap to another level of guerrilla warfare, seizing the town of Pando on 8 October. When it was learned that captured guerrillas were being tortured by the police, the Tupamaros responded by assassinating the torturers. On 31 July 1970 the Tupamaros made an international statement by abducting Daniel Mitrione, a USAID police advisor whom they accused of being a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) member and torture instructor. They demanded as ransom the release of 150 political prisoners. As the government was about to give in, the police captured several Tupamaro leaders in the process of planning their next move. The government broke off negotiations, thinking it had gained the upper hand. On 8 August 1970 Mitrione was found dead.

   After the Mitrione killing, the Tupamaros—who until then had enjoyed much public support—lost some of their mystique. They also lost many of their members to capture. They were far from defeated, however, conducting an enormous bank heist in November 1970 and kidnapping British ambassador Sir Geoffrey Jackson in January 1971. On 9 September Sendic Antonaccio (captured the year before) led 105 other Tupamaros in a daring escape from Punta Carretas Prison, tunneling to a nearby house. They conducted the operation with Tupamaro flair: a sign left in the tunnel read, “Movement for National Liberation Transit Authority—Please keep to your left.” The organization, triumphant, released Sir Geoffrey unharmed. The government, embarrassed, put antiguerrilla operations in control of the military. The Tupamaros, however, had called a truce, having decided to support a leftist coalition—the Frente Amplio (Broad Front)—in the election scheduled for November 1971. After Juan María Bordaberry, a staunch conservative, won the presidency in a controversial election, they ended their truce, assaulting and abducting police officers suspected of participating in death squads during the election period. On 14 April 1972 they assassinated four government officials in Montevideo, provoking the government to declare a “state of internal war” (martial law). The military seized the opportunity to escalate its counterinsurgency campaign, and by the end of the year the Tupamaros were crushed. Guerrilla hideouts were discovered, scores of prisoners rounded up, weapons captured, and “people’s prisons” liberated. In September 1972 Sendic Antonaccio was shot in the face during a gun battle and recaptured. In 1973 the military took control of the weakened government and held power for 12 years. When civilian rule returned in March 1985, the Tupamaros and other political prisoners were released under an amnesty. Sendic Antonaccio remade the Tupamaros into a legal political party, which joined the Frente Amplio. In February 1987 they began a campaign—joined by trade unions, human-rights organizations, and other leftist political parties—to force a referendum on whether to overturn an amnesty that had been granted to the police and military in December 1996. The issue was put to a vote in 1989, and the amnesty law was upheld.

   The actions of the Tupamaro guerrillas—especially the Mitrione killing—were the subject of the film State of Siege, directed by Costa-Gavras, and the novel El color que el infierno me escondiera (published in English as El infierno), by Carlos Martínez Moreno.