The guerrillas are back in action. After several months of relative inactivity, Latin America's left-wing terrorists struck out in a series of incidents last week, proving that they are as alive and intransigent as ever.
In Argentina, leftist terrorists ambushed and murdered Major General Juan Carlos Sánchez. Recently, Sánchez had boasted that he had eliminated 85% of the guerrillas from the region he controlled in the northeastern part of the country. Only three hours later, another group of guerrillas shot Oberdan Sallustro, the Italian manager of Argentina's Fiat auto plant, who had been kidnaped 20 days earlier.
In nearby Uruguay, meanwhile, 15 members of the notorious Tupamaros guerrilla organization escaped from Montevideo's Punta Carretas prison through a recently built tunnel. Two days later, Tupamaros staged six fatal ambushes around Montevideo, killing two policemen, a naval officer, and a former Cabinet under secretary. Eight Tupamaros, including two of the prison escapees, also lost their lives. The outbreak of violence caused President, Juan María Bordaberry to ask the Uruguayan Congress to suspend individual rights and to declare a "state of internal war." At week's end, Congress approved his requested measures, but only for 30 days.
No Solution. Unlike the revolts led by such classic guerrillas as Mexico's Emiliano Zapata and Nicaragua's Augusto Sandino in the earlier part of this century, most contemporary terrorist movements are strongly ideological. Their leaders emulate Cuba's late Che Guevara and such flamboyant Guevarists as Brazil's Carlos Marighella, who was killed by Brazilian police in 1969. No Latin American government has yet found a way to deal with its guerrillas effectively except by repression—a strategy that may control the terrorists for a time, but does nothing to solve the root cause of their revolt.
Thus, the movements persist. In Chile, the M.I.R. (Movement of the Revolutionary Left), which is militant but has seldom employed murderous tactics, has made a strong appeal to landless peasants in the southern part of the country. With only token resistance from the police, they have seized more than 150 farms and illegally occupied 2,000 or so apartments in government housing projects this year. Marxist President, Salvador Allende Gossens, has been reluctant to move decisively against the squatters for fear of further weakening his already shaky left-wing coalition of support. Last week, a massive protest parade in Santiago by an estimated 400,000 people—the largest street rally in Chilean history—demonstrated that he also faces mounting pressure from the moderate right.
Even in relatively stable Mexico, a dozen or so terrorist organizations spasmodically stage bank holdups and political kidnapings. The government's campaign against the guerrillas was aided by the death of Guerrilla Leader Genaro Vásquez Rojas in an auto accident last February. But another leader, Lucio Cabañas, is still free somewhere in the remote Guerrero mountains. He is believed responsible for kidnaping the son of a wealthy coffee farmer last month.