Luis Augusto Turcios Lima (23 November 1941 – 2 October 1966) was a Guatemalan army officer and leader of the Rebel Armed Forces (''Fuerzas Armadas Rebeldes'', or FAR). Turcios Lima entered military service at age 15, graduating as second lieutenant. He then received commando training at

Fort Benning, Georgia Fort Benning is a United States Army post near Columbus, Georgia, adjacent to the Alabama–Georgia border. Fort Benning supports more than 120,000 active-duty military, family members, reserve component soldiers, retirees and civilian employees ...

USA. On his return to Guatemala he undertook military service in Petén, and later participated in the 13 November 1960 military uprising against President Miguel Ydígoras. He was killed in 1966 when a bomb exploded inside his car. Eduardo Galeano writes about the mythic aspect attributed to Turcios Lima in his 1967 ''Guatemala: Occupied Country:'' "The previous leader of the Rebel Armed Forces, Luis Augusto Turcios, was also a legendary figure for the peasants, who attributed supernatural virtues to him. He was a hot-blooded young officer who learned the technique of the guerrilla from the Yanquis themselves--in a course at Fort Benning, Columbus, Ga. .e. School of the Americas on how to combat it. Dictator Peralta Azurdia put a price on his head and he put one on dictator Peralta Azurdia's. After he took to the hills in 1960, he mocked death a thousand times. Absurdly, death won because his car caught fire on the highway."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Turcios, Luis Guatemalan military personnel People of the Guatemalan Civil War 1941 births 1966 deaths Road incident deaths in Guatemala 20th-century Guatemalan people