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TupamarosTupamaros, also known as the National Liberation Army, was an urban guerrilla organization in Uruguay in the 1960s and 1970s. Named for the Inca revolutionist, Tpac Amaru II, it began by robbing banks, gun clubs and other businesses in the early 1960s, then distributing stolen food and money among the poor in Montevideo. By the late 1960s, it was engaged in political kidnappings, "armed propaganda" and assassinations. While the Tupamaros received a certain amount of public support for their kidnapping of unpopular politicians and business leaders, they lost almost all of that after their murder of Dan Mitrione, an American contractor advising Uruguayan security forces, in 1970. The government, which had devoted roughly one percent of its national budget to security forces at the beginning of the 1960s, spent roughly 25% of public funds on the army and police by the end of the decade. It imposed a state of emergency in 1968, followed by further curtailments of civil liberties in 1972, when the government brought in the military to fight the guerrillas. The military unleashed a bloody campaign of mass arrests and selected disappearances in response, dispersing those guerrillas who were not killed or arrested. Despite the diminished threat, the civilian government of Juan Mara Bordaberry ceded government authority to the military in 1973 in a bloodless coup that led to further repression against the population and the suppression of all left-wing parties. The Tupamaros returned to public life as a legal political party after democracy was restored in 1985. Today the party is the largest single group in the ruling Frente Amplio coalition. After the electoral victory of 31 October2004 two old-time Tupamaros, Jos Mujica and Nora Castro, became presidents of the two Chambers of the Congress.
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