Tupamaros


Tupamaros, also known as the MLN-T, was a left-wing urban guerrilla group in Uruguay in the 1960s and 1970s. The MLN-T is inextricably linked to its most important leader, Raúl Sendic, and his brand of social politics. José Mujica, who later became president of Uruguay, was also a member. In their low-level insurgency against the Uruguayan government, the Tupamaros killed 50 soldiers, policemen and also civilians like Pascasio Baez, an innocent rural worker killed via pentothal injection after he discovered, by chance, one of the many tupamaro hideaways or "tatuceras". 300 Tupamaros died either in action or in prisons, according to officials of the group. About 3,000 Tupamaros were also imprisoned.

Origins of the Tupamaros

For most of the 1900s, Uruguay was one of the most flourishing nations in Latin America. President José Batlle y Ordóñez raised Uruguay's living standard to nearly match that of European industrialized nations by creating a complex social welfare system, after the civil war that preceded his presidency. During both world wars, Uruguay was considered the "Switzerland of the Americas" as it made the majority of its profits through exporting agricultural goods. After World War II, food prices decreased in Europe and Asia, causing exports from Uruguay to decrease and resulting in lower wages for unionized workers, fewer social services, and increased national tension. The Tupamaros formed in this time of instability, as a youthful group of students and professionals. They attracted trade union members, students, and people of poor socioeconomic status from rural areas.

Activity

The Tupamaro movement was named after the revolutionary Túpac Amaru II, who in 1780 led a major indigenous revolt against the Viceroyalty of Peru. Its origins lie in the union between the Movimiento de Apoyo al Campesino, members of trade unions founded by Sendic in poverty-stricken rural zones, and radicalized cells of the Socialist Party of Uruguay.
The movement began by staging the robbing of banks, gun clubs and other businesses in the early 1960s, then distributing stolen food and money among the poor in Montevideo. It took as its slogan, "Words divide us; action unites us."
Later on as the Tupamaros grew, they helped develop the 'Frente Amplio' political coalition, serving as the counterpart to their underground organization. The Frente Amplio combined leftist and centre-left views.
At the beginning, it abstained from armed actions and violence, acting not as a guerrilla group but a political movement. In June 1968, President Jorge Pacheco, trying to suppress labour unrest, enforced a state of emergency and repealed all constitutional safeguards. The government imprisoned political dissidents, used torture during interrogations, and brutally repressed demonstrations. In 1969 they occupied the city of Pando. The Tupamaro movement engaged then in political kidnappings, "armed propaganda" and assassinations. Of particular note are the kidnapping of powerful bank manager and of the British ambassador to Uruguay, Geoffrey Jackson, as well as the assassination of Dan Mitrione, a U.S. FBI agent that was also working for the CIA, who the Tupamaros learned was advising the Uruguayan police in torture and other security work.
The Tupamaros peaked as a guerrilla group in 1970 and 1971. During this period they made liberal use of their Cárcel del Pueblo where they held those that they kidnapped and interrogated them, before making the results of these interviews public. A number of these hostages was later ransomed for considerable sums of money, including the Brazilian Consul in Montevideo,. In September 1971 over 100 imprisoned Tupamaros escaped the Punta Carretas prison by digging a hole across their cells and then a tunnel that led from the floor of one ground-level cell to the living room of a nearby home. As a result of this, the government summoned the military to prepare a counter-insurgency campaign to suppress the MLN.
Nonetheless, in 1972 the group was quickly crippled by a series of events. First, it had started to engage in political violence since 1970, a choice that weakened its popular support. Second, the group responded to the assassination and/or disappearance of four Tupamaros on the part of illegal parapolice squads with a wave of high-profile assassinations that concentrated political opposition against them. Later on, the MLN directly attacked the military and killed a number of soldiers. The army's response was swift; it included the heavy use of torture and the flipping of high-ranking Tupamaros, including Héctor Amodio Pérez, towards collaborating with them.
The Tupamaros collapsed in mid-1972, with the army killing many of them and capturing a majority of the rest. Shortly after defeating the MLN the military successively confronted the independence of the judiciary in October 1972, of the civilian executive branch in February 1973, and lastly the independence of the parliament in June 1973. On this latter occasion, it completed its coup d'état by deploying armored vehicles in the capital and shutting down the legislative branch by request of the Uruguayan President. Nine Tupamaros were specially chosen to remain in squalid conditions, including Sendic, Fernández Huidobro, José Mujica, Henry Engler, and Mauricio Rosencof. They remained there until the restoration of liberal democracy in Uruguay in 1985. During the intervening years, the military regime killed and "disappeared" additional numbers of people, focusing particularly on the Communist Party of Uruguay.
The dictatorship in Uruguay ended in 1984 when democratic elections were held. Under Julio María Sanguinetti, the new president, amnesty was granted to the Tupamaros. The Tupamaros were released from prison after over a decade and they joined together in representing the Frente Amplio coalition party. In 2004, Tabaré Vásquez was the first to become president on the "Frente Amplio" ticket.

List of attacks