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Terrorism in Bolivia has occurred since the 1960s and continues sporadically until the present. A number of bombings targeted public places, such as bank branches, ATM's, commercial institutions and interests generally leaving material damage. [1] [2]
Several international terrorist meetings were reported to have been held in Bolivia in the 1980s, including three in 1985 and 1986 that were attended by terrorist representatives from other South American countries. [3] Two meetings between Bolivian left-wing extremists and representatives of other South American terrorist organizations allegedly were held in Cobija, Pando Department, and in La Paz in 1985. [3] According to the deputy minister of interior, migration, and justice, representatives of terrorist organizations from eight countries held another meeting in Santa Cruz de la Sierra in February 1986. [3]
In early 1987, Peru's Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) began to concern Bolivian civilian and military authorities after they learned that its strategic plan called for expanding terrorist actions into Bolivia and Ecuador. [3] Various press reports in 1987 and 1988 suggested that Sendero Luminoso guerrillas were using Bolivian territory, especially La Paz, to obtain medical assistance, medicine, food, weapons, and other supplies to support their revolutionary activities in Peru. [3]
A total of six international terrorist incidents took place in Bolivia in 1988, compared with three in 1987. [3] A previously unknown group called the Revolutionary Labor Movement (Movimiento Obrero Revolucionario—MOR) claimed responsibility for assassinating the Peruvian military attaché in La Paz in December 1988, an act that the Bolivian police commander attributed to Sendero Luminoso. [3] A number of politically oriented terrorist incidents took place in the months leading up to the May 1989 elections. [3]
A terrorist group called the Zarate Willka Armed Forces of Liberation (Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Zárate Willka—FALZW), presumably another name for the FIPZW, took responsibility for a bombing in December 1988 that caused much damage to the offices of the president of the Chamber of Deputies and for machine gunning to death two young Mormon missionary from Utah in a La Paz barrio in May 1989. [3] Pre-election terrorism by unknown perpetrators in March 1989 included bombings at various political party offices in the La Paz area that caused considerable property damage and a bomb attempt at the United States embassy. [3]
Ejército de Liberación Nacional de Bolivia (National Liberation Army of Bolivia; ELN) was a group of mainly Bolivian and Cuban guerrillas led by the guerrilla leader Che Guevara which was active in the Cordillera Province of Bolivia from 1966 to 1967. The group established its base camp on a farm across the Ñancahuazú river, a seasonal tributary of the Rio Grande, 250 kilometers southwest of the city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra. The guerrilla was intended to work as a foco , a point of armed resistance to be used as a first step to overthrow the Bolivian government and create a socialist state. The guerrillas defeated several Bolivian patrols before they were beaten and Guevara was captured and executed. Only five guerrillas managed to survive and flee to Chile.
Later that morning on October 9, Bolivian President René Barrientos ordered that Guevara be killed. The order was relayed by Félix Rodríguez to the Bolivian army unit holding Guevara, reportedly despite the US government's desire that Guevara be taken to Panama for further interrogation. [4] The executioner was Mario Terán, a sergeant in the Bolivian army who had requested to shoot Che on the basis of the fact that three of his friends from B Company, all named "Mario", had been killed in an earlier firefight with Guevara's band of guerrillas. [5]
On June 11, 1990, members of the CNPZ group kidnapped businessman Jorge Lonsdale, the manager of the Vascal bottling firm (a Coca-Cola distributor), shareholder in La Razón newspaper, and member of La Paz's Club Social. Lonsdale's family members and the authorities were initially unaware that his kidnapping was the act of a political organization rather an ordinary attempt to extract ransom. [6]
Members of the Néstor Paz Zamora Commission publicized its existence with graffiti bearing its initials and the phrase Bolivia digna y soberana (Bolivia dignified and sovereign) in August 1990. [6] The group first gained international attention following an attack on the marine guardhouse at the United States embassy in October 1990. [7] During the October attack a police guard was shot dead. [6] On December 4, police with the Centro Especial de Investigaciones Policiales (CEIP) captured Evaristo Salazar, one of two members of the Peruvian Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement operating within the CNPZ, during a sting operation in which Lonsdale's family promised to deliver ransom. [6] Bolivian police fatally tortured Salazar, discovered the location where the group was keeping Lonsdale, and finally shot him later that night. [6]
During a police operation to retrieve Lonsdale, the kidnapped businessman and three CNPZ guerrillas were killed by gunshots, while two other CNPZ members were captured alive. [6] A forensic report indicates that at least one of the guerrillas, Italian national Michael Northfuster, was shot at close range in an apparent execution. [6]
Another group, the Zarate Willka Armed Forces of Liberation 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 the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints meetinghouse, the killings 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. [8]
The most important of this group were the Túpac Katari Guerrilla Army, of indigenist inspiration, the movement had a multiracial membership. The organization descended directly from the original revolutionaries trained by Che Guevara in the 1960s.[ dubious – discuss ] Their objective was to fight for social equality in Bolivia and amongst its indigenous population. They carried out their first attack on July 5, 1991, destroying an electric power pylon in El Alto, a major city which adjoins La Paz, Bolivia's administrative capital. Most of the group's attacks have been similarly small-scale and they had confined their activities largely to Bolivia. The group suffered a major setback in a crackdown in 1992, when much of its leadership was neutralized through incarceration.
In 13 may of 2005 an "cachorro" in front of the Petrobras offices in the city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Subsequently, different media received a video in which a Frente Nacional Anti-Corruption claims the action, in a video statement which claim a letter to Carlos Mesa and demanding 15 days for the Government to nationalize hydrocarbons and confiscate all the assets of former President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada. [9] [10] [11]
On 10 February 2018, an explosion occurred in the afternoon of the Bolivian city of Oruro during the traditional carnival of the city. [12] Three days later in a street food stand, 8 people were killed by an explosion near the main street of Oruro. At first it was thought that it was the explosion of a gas canister due to mishandling, but not finding fragments of the alleged canister or a gas leak that caused it, the government has discarded this theory. [13] It also left more than fifty people were injured. The culprit of both explosions is unknown, but there have been several detainees. Three suspects who were in the explosion site of the second explosion were arrested the following day.
Another suspect of the first explosion continues apprehended since 27 March 2018. [14] The 2018 Oruro attacks were considered the worst attack against civilians in the 21st century. [15] [16]
Ismael Montes Gamboa was a Bolivian general and political figure who served as the 26th president of Bolivia twice nonconsecutively from 1904 to 1909 and from 1913 to 1917. During his first term, the Treaty of Peace and Friendship with Chile was signed on 20 October 1904.
Haydée Tamara Bunke Bider was an Argentine-born East German revolutionary known for her involvement in feminism, leftist politics, and liberation movements.
Simeón Cuba Sarabia, also known as Willy, was a member of the Ñancahuazú guerrilla column led by Che Guevara in Bolivia. Born in the Cochabamba region of Bolivia, he became a leader among tin miners in Huanuni and served as the secretary of organization and secretary of militias of the local mine workers' union. He also carried out various social service activities for the benefit of the miners' families. Cuba Sarabia joined the Communist Party of Bolivia (PCB) but resigned from it in 1965 to become a member of the Bolivian Marxist–Leninist Party which favored armed struggle. When he urged that group to put its principles into practice, he was expelled from it along with Moisés Guevara. It was Moisés Guevara who brought him into Che Guevara's Ñancahuazú guerrilla group in March 1967.
Severo Fernández Alonso Caballero was a Bolivian lawyer and politician who served as the 24th president of Bolivia from 1896 to 1899 and as the tenth vice president of Bolivia from 1892 to 1896. He is best remembered as the last president of the 15-year period of Conservative Party hegemony (1884–99).
Mario Terán Salazar was a Bolivian Army warrant officer who executed Che Guevara as a young sergeant in 1967. Guevara, a Marxist revolutionary from Argentina, had played a major role in the Cuban Revolution, in which the 26th of July Movement, led by Fidel Castro, ousted U.S.-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista and replaced his government with a revolutionary socialist state.
The Peruvian Civil War of 1980–2000 was an armed conflict between the Government of Peru and the Maoist guerrilla group Shining Path. The conflict's main phase began on 17 May 1980 and ended in December 2000. From 1982 to 1997 the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement waged its own insurgency as a Marxist–Leninist rival to the Shining Path.
Ernesto "Che" Guevara was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, guerrilla leader, diplomat, and military theorist. A major figure of the Cuban Revolution, his stylized visage has become a ubiquitous countercultural symbol of rebellion and global insignia in popular culture.
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.
The Ñancahuazú Guerrilla or Ejército de Liberación Nacional de Bolivia was a group of mainly Bolivian and Cuban guerrillas led by the guerrilla leader Che Guevara which was active in the Cordillera Province of Bolivia from 1966 to 1967. The group established its base camp on a farm across the Ñancahuazú River, a seasonal tributary of the Rio Grande, 250 kilometers southwest of the city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra. The guerrillas intended to work as a foco, a point of armed resistance to be used as a first step to overthrow the Bolivian government and create a socialist state. The guerrillas defeated several Bolivian patrols before they were beaten and Guevara was captured and executed. Only five guerrillas managed to survive, including Harry Villegas, and fled to Chile.
The Assault of Ayacucho prison was an incident in the Peruvian city of Ayacucho, also known as Huamanga, on March 2, 1982. A group of 150 armed terrorists, members of the Sendero Luminoso, or Shining Path, staged simultaneous assaults on two local police stations before staging an assault on the prison, resulting in the release of 255 inmates. After a 5-hour battle, 16 people, including two prison guards, were dead and 12 people were wounded.
Elders Jeffrey Brent Ball and Todd Ray Wilson, two American missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were killed in La Paz, Bolivia on May 24, 1989, by members of the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación-Zarate Willka terrorist group who associated them and the church they represented with perceived American imperialist activities. Later, three Peruvians, Elders Manuel Hidalgo, Cristian Ugarte, and Oscar Zapata were killed in Peru for similar reasons on August 22, 1990, and March 6, 1991.
The Bolivian Civil War, also known as the Federal War was a civil war in Bolivia fought from 1898 to 1899. The war saw two factions, a conservative side supported by the political, economic and religious elite of the country with control of the armed forces and who defended a unitary state, and a liberal faction opposed to the policies set by the state and that intended to transform the country into a federation, with support of the peasantry, the indigenous peoples and small Catholic businesses.
On 10 February 2018, an explosion occurred in the afternoon of the Bolivian city of Oruro during the traditional carnival of the city. In a street food stand, eight people were killed by an explosion near the main street of Oruro. At first it was thought that it was the explosion of a gas canister due to mishandling, but not finding fragments of the alleged canister or a gas leak that caused it, the government has discarded this theory. It also left more than forty people injured.
Guillermo Capobianco Ribera was a Bolivian lawyer, writer and politician.
The Anarchic Cell For Revolutionary Solidarity was an anarchist urban guerrilla group that was active in the city of La Paz, where it carried out several explosive attacks in the first half of 2012, causing material damage.
The Militarized Communist Party of Peru is a political party and militant group in Peru that follows Marxism–Leninism–Maoism and participates in the communist insurgency in Peru. It is considered a terrorist organization by the government of Peru. The MPCP operates primarily in the VRAEM area and is involved in the area's coca production. Comrade José has been the leader of the MPCP since its official creation in 2018 after its final split from the declining Shining Path guerilla group.
Atanasio de Urioste Velasco was a Bolivian diplomat, politician, and socialite who served in Bolivian delegations to France and Russia. He belonged to the prominent Urioste family, grandson of the magnate Atanasio de Urioste, brother of the Princess of La Glorieta, Clotilde de Urioste, and father to the industrialist and business magnate Armando Julio Urioste Arana. He was secretary of the special mission to represent Bolivia at the coronation of Alfonso XIII of Spain in 1902. He would be the recipient of the Spanish civil Order of Isabella the Catholic, an honor he received due to his distinguished services in the field of diplomacy.
The 1987 North Korean embassy attack in Lima was a terrorist attack that took place on April 30, 1987, against the trade office and official residence of the delegation of North Korea in Peru. The attack left two people injured.
The 1986 Soviet embassy attack in Lima was a terrorist attack on July 7, 1986, against the official residence of the delegation of the Soviet Union in Peru. The attack failed to result in the death of any Soviet citizen, killing one terrorist.
On December 6, 1988, Juan Carlos Vega Llona was assassinated one block away from the Peruvian embassy in the district of Cotahuma, La Paz, Bolivia, by armed members of the fictitious "Revolutionary Workers Movement", created in name by Shining Path, a Peruvian terrorist organisation. The murder of the embassy's naval attaché was carried out in reprisal for the Peruvian prison massacres that took place two years prior.
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{{cite encyclopedia}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)More details on the torturing of the accused can be found here.
