| Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front Frente Patriótico Manuel Rodríguez (FPMR) | |
|---|---|
 Official and historical flag of the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front (FPMR) | |
| Leader |
|
| Dates of operation | 14 December 1983 – 1999 |
| Motives | OverthrowAugusto Pinochet's dictatorship and establish asocialist state inChile |
| Active regions | Chile |
| Ideology | |
| Political position | Far-left |
| Notable attacks |
|
| Size | 1,500–4,000 militants (1986) |
| Part of |  Communist Party of Chile(until 1987) |
| Allies |  MIR |
TheManuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front (in Spanish:Frente Patriótico Manuel Rodríguez,FPMR) was aMarxist-Leninistguerrilla organisation officially founded on 14 December 1983 as the military wing of theCommunist Party of Chile in the context of this party policy denominated as the "Política de Rebelión Popular de Masas", created with the goal of a violent overthrow of thecivic-military dictatorship of GeneralAugusto Pinochet.
It was described as a terrorist organization by theUS Department of State and byMI6 until 1999, when the FPMR ceased its armed activity, 9 years after the end of the Pinochet transfer of power.
The FPMR was estimated to be made up of 1,500 to 4,000 militants and combatants.[1]
The organization is named afterManuel Rodríguez Erdoiza, a hero of theChilean War of Independence considered one of the founding fathers of independent Chile.[2]
On 7 September 1986, after months of planning, the FPMRattacked dictator Augusto Pinochet's car in an assassination attempt. Five of Pinochet's bodyguards were killed and eleven wounded. Pinochet, however, only suffered minor injuries. He was riding the car with his then 10-year-old grandson who survived unharmed.[3] Also in 1986, Chilean security forces caught the FPMR smuggling an 80-ton shipment of weapons inCarrizal Bajo, including C-4plastic explosives,RPG-7 andM72 LAW rocket launchers as well as more than three thousandM-16 rifles.[4]
The failure of Pinochet's attempted assassination led to an internal crisis in the FPMR, leading to splits and to the group's complete autonomy towards thePCCh.[5]
On 8 April 1986, FPMR guerrillas kidnapped and held the Carabinero corporal Germán Obando captive for 48 hours. After nationwide coverage of the incident, the press reported mass condemnation which included political groups normally sympathetic to the cause of the FPMR.[6][failed verification]
On 13 April 1987, the FPMR simultaneously assaulted the offices of Associated Press (AP) and eight radio stations in Santiago, killing an off-duty security guard.[7]
In the period 1988–1994, the FPMR conducted 15 attacks againstLDS Chapels andtemples.[8]
On 5 November 1990, FPMR guerrillas detonated a bomb inside the restaurant Max und Moritz in a seaside resort ofViña del Mar, wounding three sailors from the United States aircraft carrierUSS Abraham Lincoln. Three British tourists and two waitresses were also injured in the attack.[9]
After therestoration of democratic rule in Chile in 1990, main FPMR targets included LDS Chapels and temples, the kidnapping of Cristian Edwards, son of the owner of the nation's most prominent newspaper,El Mercurio, and US businesses in Chile such asMcDonald's andKentucky Fried Chicken restaurants.[10]
On 1 April 1991, Senator and close Pinochet advisorJaime Guzmán was shot at the exit of thePontifical Catholic University of Chile where he was a professor of constitutional law. He was driven to a nearby hospital by his driver but died three hours later from several bullet wounds. His assassination was executed by FPMR members Ricardo Palma Salamanca and Raúl Escobar Poblete; the operation is believed to have been planned by the leaders of the movement Galvarino Apablaza,Mauricio Hernández Norambuena and Juan Gutiérrez Fischmann, who had been planning the murder of Guzman since the 1980s.
In 1993, FPMR guerrillas bombed two McDonald's restaurants and attempted to bomb a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant.[11]
In 2005 FPMR member Patricio Ortiz receivedpolitical asylum in Switzerland. He was sentenced in Chile to ten years of prison for the assassination of a police officer in 1991, during the beginning of thetransition to democracy. Ortiz escaped from a Chilean prison in 1996 and reached Switzerland the following year. Following anextradition request by Chile, he was detained by Swiss authorities, who later refused to extradite him as his physical integrity could not be assured (i.e., possibility oftorture: extraditing him would have violated article 3 of theEuropean Convention of Human Rights[12]). Swiss authorities then freed him and granted him asylum.[13] In 2007 theSocialist PresidentMichelle Bachelet, who had been herself tortured by the army, criticized the political asylum given to Ortiz,[14] to indignation of the Chilean Left.[15]
On 13 September 2011, judge Mario Carroza from Santiago's Court of Appeals, requested the Chilean Supreme Court the extradition from Belgium of former FPMR guerrilla Miguel Ángel Peña, accused of UDI's Senator Jaime Guzmán's murder that took place on 1 April 1991.[16]
