Ação Libertadora Nacional

(ALN)

   / National Action for Liberation

   A leftist urban guerrilla organization in Brazil. It was founded in 1967 by Carlos Marighella as an offshoot of the Partido Comunista Brasileiro (PCB, Brazilian Communist Party). Unlike the PCB, the ALN adopted armed struggle. In 1968 the ALN members robbed banks, honing their guerrilla skills and gathering funds. Then they turned to major operations. On 4 September 1969, the ALN and the Movimento Revolucionário 8 de Outubro (MR-8, 8th of October Revolutionary Movement) kidnapped U.S. Ambassador Charles Elbrick, an event dramatized in the feature film Four Days in September. Elbrick was released unharmed on 8 September 1969 after the government broadcast the guerrillas’ manifesto and released 15 political prisoners, exiling them to Mexico. Though successful, the kidnapping brought reprisals. Between 1969 and 1971, government death squads rounded up hundreds of ALN members across Brazil. In September 1969 Marighella was ambushed and shot, and in October 1970 his successor, Joaquim Câmara Ferreira, was tortured to death.

   The ALN sought to escape the repression by suspending armed struggle and organizing at the grassroots level. But the repression continued, and in early 1974 the ALN dissolved.