Tupamaros

Tupamaros , urban guerrilla organization and political party in Uruguay, also known as the National Liberation Army. Named for the Inca revolutionist, Tupac Amaru , it became active as a guerrilla force in the early 1960s, distributing stolen food and money among the poor in Montevideo. By the late 1960s, it was engaged in urban terrorism, political kidnappings, and murder. The military unleashed a bloody campaign of mass arrests and selected disappearances in the early 1970s, virtually defeating the guerrillas. Despite the diminished threat, the civilian government of Juan María Bordaberry Arocena ceded government authority to the military (1973), a bloodless coup which led to further repression against the population. Democracy was restored in 1985, and the Tupamaros were reorganized as a legal political party. Becoming part of the Broad Front leftist coalition, they helped it win power in 2004.

Tupamaros Members of the Movimento de Liberación Nacional (National Liberation Movement) in Uruguay. An urban guerrilla organization, it was founded in Montevideo in 1963 and led by Raúl Sendic. It sought the violent overthrow of the Uruguayan government and the establishment of a socialist state. Its robberies, bombings, kidnappings and assassinations of officials continued until the early 1970s, when the movement was severely weakened by police and military repression. The Tupamaros derived their name from the 18th-century Inca revolutionary against Spanish rule, TUPAC AMARÚ.