Yon Sosa, Marco Antonio (1932–1970)

Marco Antonio Yon Sosa (b. 1932; d. June 1970), Guatemalan guerrilla leader. On 13 November 1960, Yon Sosa led a revolt of nationalist army officers against the corrupt government of Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes (1958–1963). After a brief exile, he returned to eastern Guatemala as a proponent of radical revolution through guerrilla warfare, and organized the Rebel Armed Forces (FAR) with Luis Turcios Lima and the Communist Party. Yon Sosa broke from the FAR in 1965 over ideological issues, but he continued the guerrilla struggle as leader of the Revolutionary Movement of November 13 (MR-13). An advocate of immediate socialist revolution through general insurrection, Yon Sosa rejected the electoral strategies of the FAR, although the two guerrilla movements forged a tenuous alliance during the devastating counterinsurgency program supported by the United States in the late 1960s. After a confrontation with the army, he fled Mexico, where he was killed by Mexican authorities. The FAR and MR-13 provided the training ground for the rebel leaders of the 1970s.

See alsoYdígoras Fuentes, Miguel .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Susanne Jonas and David Tobis, eds., Guatemala (1974), esp. pp. 176-203.

Jim Handy, Gift of the Devil: A History of Guatemala (1984), esp. pp. 230-234.

Additional Bibliography

Landau, Saul. The Guerrilla Wars of Central America: Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1993.

Pinto Soria, Julio César. El estado y la violencia en Guatemala (1944–1970). Guatemala: Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala, Centro de Estudios Urbanos y Regional, 2004.

                                        Paul J. Dosal