The Armed Forces of National Liberation (in Spanish: ''Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional'', FALN) was a

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

guerrilla group Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare in which small groups of combatants, such as paramilitary personnel, armed civilians, or Irregular military, irregulars, use military tactics including ambushes, sabotage, Raid (military), raids ...

formed by the

Communist Party of Venezuela The Communist Party of Venezuela ( es, Partido Comunista de Venezuela, PCV) is a communist party and the oldest continuously existing party in Venezuela. It was the main leftist political party in Venezuela from its foundation in 1931 until its ...

to foment revolution against the democratically elected governments of

Rómulo Betancourt Rómulo Ernesto Betancourt Bello (22 February 1908 – 28 September 1981; ), known as "The Father of Venezuelan Democracy", was the president of Venezuela, serving from 1945 to 1948 and again from 1959 to 1964, as well as leader of Acción De ...

and Raul Leoni.

Background

In 1958, Betancourt's Democratic Action (''Acción Democrática'', AD) party largely sidelined the left-wing, notably the

(''Partido Comunista de Venezuela'', PCV). The 1959

Cuban Revolution The Cuban Revolution ( es, Revolución Cubana) was carried out after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état which placed Fulgencio Batista as head of state and the failed mass strike in opposition that followed. After failing to contest Batista in co ...

influenced PCV and student groups. Many leftist students formed the Revolutionary Left Movement (''Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria'', MIR) in April 1960. Betancourt's firm stance against Castro, especially Cuba's expulsion from the Organization of American States (OAS) led to bloody military uprisings in 1962, first at Carúpano on the Península of Paria, then at Puerto Cabello. After the unsuccessful revolts, Betancourt suspended civil liberties and arrested the MIR and PCV members of the forerunner to the

National Assembly of Venezuela The National Assembly ( es, Asamblea Nacional) is the legislature for Venezuela that was first elected in 2000. It is a unicameral body made up of a variable number of members, who were elected by a "universal, direct, personal, and secret" vo ...

bicameral Congress in 1962. This drove the leftists underground and founded the FALN on January 1, 1963. The FALN were engaged in rural and

urban guerrilla An urban guerrilla is someone who fights a government using unconventional warfare or domestic terrorism in an urban environment. Theory and history The urban guerrilla phenomenon is essentially one of industrialised society, resting both ...

activities, including seized the Venezuelan cargo ship ''Anzoátegui'', kidnapping Real Madrid soccer star Alfredo DiStefano (both performed by Paul del Rio), sabotaging oil pipelines, kidnaping of American Colonel Michael Smolen, bombing a

Sears Roebuck Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...

warehouse, and bombing the

United States Embassy The United States has the second most diplomatic missions of any country in the world after Mainland China, including 166 of the 193 member countries of the United Nations, as well as observer state Vatican City and non-member countries Kosovo a ...

in Caracas. FALN failed to rally the rural poor and to disrupt the December 1963 elections. The FALN fought through the Llanos of Venezuela and along the Colombian border near the city of San Cristóbal for many years. The president of Venezuela at the time, Raul Leoni, sent troops to fight against the guerrillas. General Rafael Sanchez Agüero eliminated the FALN in the state of

Táchira Táchira State ( es, Estado Táchira, ) is one of the 24 states of Venezuela. The state capital is San Cristóbal. Táchira State covers a total surface area of and as of the 2011 census, had a population of 1,168,908. At the end of the 19t ...

in 1969. Alongside Colonel Arturo Julio Salazar.

In popular culture

The 1975 film '' Chronicle of a Latin American Subversive'' (Spanish: ''Crónica de un subversivo latinoamericano'') by director Mauricio Walerstein, narrates the real life FALN kidnapping of American Colonel Michael Smolen (portrayed as ''Colonel Robert Whitney'' by actor

Claudio Brook Claudio Brook (born Claude Sydney Brook Marnat, 28 August 1927 – 18 October 1995) was a Mexican actor. Life Born in Mexico City, Brook had a prolific career, making around 100 film and television appearances in his 38 years as an actor. ...

) in revenge for Nguyen Van Troi's death sentence.

References

External links

The Triumph of Democracy
via U.S. Library of Congress Country Studies/Area Handbook Series sponsored by the U.S. Department of the Army between 1986 and 1998. {{Authority control Communism in Venezuela Communist Party of Venezuela Defunct communist militant groups Guerrilla movements in Latin America Political organizations based in Venezuela Paramilitary organizations based in Venezuela

Background

In popular culture

See also

References

External links