Embedded with the Tupamaros

[magbana]

EXCERPT:

"The Myth of the "Tupamaros"

The late 1970s saw a waning of the Venezuelan guerrilla struggle, weakened by defeats on both the military and political fronts. Strategic errors and state repression had left what few armed units remained almost entirely isolated from any kind of mass political base. A period of reflection and self-criticism ensued, with some former revolutionaries seeking to reconnect with the masses through new electoral movements like Teodoro Petkoff's Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) or Alfredo Maneiro's more grassroots Radical Cause (LCR).

This emergence from the shadows of clandestinity, however, did little to temper state violence: rather, as longtime revolutionary Roland Denis puts it, the 1980s saw a "socialization of violence." As the state's capacity to provide necessary services declined alongside oil prices, popular protest was met with hot lead, most prominently in the 1989 Caracazo riots, which saw as many as 3,000 slaughtered in the poorest barrios.

It was in this context of repression that the Venezuelan popular militia movement was born. Neither entirely clandestine nor fully open, small groups began to spring up to defend local barrios from both the state and the burgeoning parallel violence of narcotrafficking. Small groups, masked and armed, began to make semi-public appearances, giving an ultimatum to local drug-dealers: either you stop selling drugs or you'll be killed. The police, too, found themselves all the more frequently victims of armed ambushes and shootouts with masked militias. In order to explain this phenomenon, the police, government officials, and even more appreciative local residents adopted a single moniker, derived from the Uruguayan urban guerrilla struggle: in mythical fashion, these militias were deemed "Tupamaros."

FULL ARTICLE:
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/3378

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