Zarate Willka Armed Forces of Liberation


Zarate Willka Armed Forces of Liberation was a Bolivian guerrilla terrorist group which was organized about 1985 and surfaced with a series of bombings, assassinations, and attempted assassinations in La Paz, Bolivia, during 1988 and 1989.

History

They claimed responsibility for an assassination attempt on United States Secretary of State George P. Shultz in August 1988, the bombing of the Bolivian Parliament in December 1988, another bombing which caused a local blackout, the bombing of a The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints meetinghouse, the slaying of two American missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on May 24, 1989, and the bombing of the US Embassy in a failed attempt to assassinate US Ambassador Robert S. Gelbard on December 20, 1989. By 1991, most members of the group had been apprehended, tried, convicted and imprisoned, and the organization was effectively disbanded.
The group was named after Pablo Zárate, known as Willka, who died in 1905 after leading a large Indian rebellion.