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316———Revolutionary United Front

finally ripe for a communist revolution. The ELA See also REVOLUTIONARY ORGANIZATION 17 NOVEMBER
hoped to help inspire that revolution.
For much of its history, the ELA, unlike its more Further Reading
nationalist and secretive compatriot, the Revolutionary
Kassimeris, George. Europe’s Last Red Terrorists: The
Organization 17 November (RO-17N, or 17N), engaged Revolutionary Organization 17 November. New York:
in violence primarily as a political tool rather than an New York University Press, 2001.
end in itself. While the ELA’s ideological position held U.S. State Department. Terrorist Background Information.
that revolution could come only through violence, the http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2000/2450.htm.
group organization believed strongly that it needed to
“educate the proletariat” before revolution could take
place. This ideological necessity of appealing to the REVOLUTIONARY UNITED FRONT
working classes directed the organization’s strategy and
for some time confined its acts of violence to largely
symbolic, propaganda-oriented targets. In keeping with The Revolutionary United Front (RUF), an infa-
this goal, the ELA periodically printed a newsletter, mously brutal guerrilla unit in Sierra Leone, sought to
Andipliroforissi, to explain its ideology and attract create instability in the region and overthrow the
followers. government. Formed in 1990, the group later financed
From 1975 through 1992, the ELA engaged in itself through control of the country’s diamond
hundreds of bombings, mostly at Western and capital- resources, and for 11 years carried out extremely vio-
ist targets within Greece: large corporations, banks, lent attacks on civilians that are said to have claimed
American military facilities, European Union offices, about 50,000 lives. The group was especially notori-
and U.N. offices. After 1986, some Greek institutions ous for recruiting children into its ranks and its prac-
were targeted as well. Although these bombings tice of raping women and girls and dismembering its
caused millions of dollars in property damage, no one victims. As of 2002, U.N. military efforts had disabled
was killed and few were wounded by them; the ELA the group and restored peace in Sierra Leone.
seems to have deliberately planned this lack of blood- RUF’s roots date back to the early 1990s. Foday
shed, evidenced by the bombs’ construction, place- Sankoh was a former student activist who in the 1970s
ment, and timing. In February 1992, however, the had spent time in exile in Libya, where he came under
character of the organization changed drastically after the philosophical influence of Muammar el-Qaddafi.
it announced an alliance with a group called the 1st While in Liberia in 1991, Sankoh aligned himself
May Organization. On February 26, 1982, the ELA with a Liberian guerrilla unit, the National Patriotic
detonated a bomb under a Greek police bus, injuring Front for Liberia (NPFL), and their leader, Charles
18 policemen. This was the group’s first attempt to Taylor. Taylor, who later would become president of
deliberately cause casualties, and it involved a remote- Liberia following an eight-year terror campaign, had
control device considerably more sophisticated than tried a few months earlier to invade Sierra Leone. He
those used in previous attacks. Clearly, the alliance and Sankoh founded the RUF to carry out attacks on
with 1st May had led the ELA in a new direction. towns along Sierra Leone’s eastern border. At that
On November 22, 1993, the ELA offered to initiate time, the Sierra Leone government and military were
a cease-fire in return for the release of certain prison- quite weak, and within a month, the RUF had not only
ers. The government rejected this offer, and the ELA taken control of a sizable region of the east but were
responded with a series of bombings over the next on track to overtake the government.
year, culminating in the September 20, 1994, bombing The nation’s economy was in shambles by 1992, and
of another police bus that killed one police officer and a small military group unconnected to the RUF staged
wounded 10 others. Since 1995, the ELA has not a coup. The RUF continued its campaign against this
claimed responsibility for any more bombings, and new military junta, murdering and dismembering
some experts believe the organization to be defunct. unarmed civilians. The atrocities rippled throughout the
However, the U.S. State Department believes that a country, and thousands fled to neighboring Guinea.
new group in Greece, the Revolutionary Nuclei, may By 1994, the RUF had systematically eliminated
be succeeding the ELA. many rural workers in the country’s diamond mine