Page 242 - Encyclopedia Of Terrorism

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220———Manuel Rodriguez Patriotic Front

Most of the money disappeared with Victor Manual In 1991, the FPMR carried out two famous opera-
Gerena, the Machetero who worked at the Wells Fargo tions. On April 1, the group assassinated right-wing
depot as a guard. Gerena fled first to Mexico, then senator Jaime Guzman, killing him as he left a Catholic
to Cuba, where he remains in exile. (Macheteros is University campus in Santiago. On September 9, three
believed to have had significant ties to Cuba, with hooded FPMR members kidnapped Cristian Edwards,
many of its members trained there.) Once out of the whose family runs Chile’s most prominent newspaper.
United States, the money was used to fund nationalist Edwards was wrapped in a sleeping bag and taken to a
activities, including a toy giveaway in Hartford and FPMR hideout. His captors kept Edwards for 145 days
Puerto Rico. in a small room without natural light, playing music
In August 1985, investigators apprehended 13 sus- continually. After his family paid $1 million in ransom,
pects in the robbery—11 in Puerto Rico, one in Mas- the FPMR freed him. Edwards has since kept a low
sachusetts, and one in Dallas. Four others, including profile and moved to the United States.
Gerena, were indicted. Juan Segarra Palmer and The dissident wing of the FPMR has also attacked
Filiberto Ojeda Rios, two of Macheteros’s founders, international targets, including U.S. businesses and
were the first to be tried. Eventually, all were found Mormon churches. In 1993, FPMR operatives bombed
guilty on charges connected to the robbery and sen- two McDonald’s restaurants and attempted to bomb
tenced to more than 35 years. Most were released in a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant. In December
1999, when U.S. president Bill Clinton commuted the 1996, four FPMR members managed a spectacular
sentences of 16 Puerto Rican nationalist prisoners. escape from a Chilean high-security prison; the facil-
ity had been widely considered escape proof. FPMR
See also FALN; PUERTO RICAN NATIONALIST TERRORISM
operatives on the outside hijacked a helicopter that had
Further Reading been rented by tourists and flew it over the prison.
They then dropped a 15-meter rope with a basket into
Fernandez, Ronald. Los Macheteros: The Wells Fargo the prison yard. As guards began to shoot, the four
Robbery and the Violent Struggle for Puerto Rican Inde- escapees climbed into the basket and were lifted
pendence. New York: Prentice Hall, 1987.
Heine, Jorge, and Juan M. García-Passalacqua. The Puerto to safety. Landing the helicopter in a park in south
Rican Question. New York: Foreign Policy Association, Santiago, Chile’s capital, they escaped in waiting vehi-
1984. cles. Chile mounted a massive police search, but the
FPMR members had fled—many went to Cuba, where
they received asylum.
MANUEL RODRIGUEZ One of the fugitives, Patricio Ortiz Montenegro,
PATRIOTIC FRONT fled to Switzerland and requested political asylum.
Extradition requests were denied because the Swiss
government was not assured that Ortiz would be safe
Founded in 1983 as the armed wing of the Chilean if returned to Chile.
Communist Party, the Manuel Rodriguez Patriotic On December 11, 2002 frentistas kidnapped Braz-
Front (Frente Patriotico Manuel Rodriguez; FPMR) ilian publicist Washington Olivetto as he rode home
was formed to carry out armed attacks against mem- from work in São Paulo. The kidnappers, disguised
bers and institutions of the brutal Pinochet regime as police officers, stopped Olivetto’s driver and forced
in Chile. The Pinochet regime dealt severely with the their way into his car. The FPMR held Olivetto for
FPMR and other dissident groups and is said to have 53 days in a small, windowless room located in
tortured frentistas, as FPMR members are called. After the countryside near São Paulo. Again, music blared
the regime fell in 1990, the group, named for a hero of 24 hours a day; Olivetto attempted to determine how
Chile’s war of independence against Spain, continued much time had passed by counting the number of
its attacks on civilians and international targets. albums played. Shortly after Olivetto’s family agreed to
In the late 1980s, the FPMR splintered into two pay $10 million in ransom, the landlord who rented to
factions, one of which became a political party in 1991. the kidnappers told the police he had suspicions about
The other dissident faction continued its terrorist his strange young tenants. The Brazilian police soon
activity; the U.S. State Department has considered the freed Olivetto. After his release, Chilean experts sug-
group to be a terrorist organization for many years. gested that the dissident branch of the FPMR carried