Last modified: 2005-04-29 by francisco gregoric
Keywords: tupamaros | tupac amaru | national liberation movement | movimiento de liberación nacional | mln | sendic (raúl) | mujica (josé) | fernández huidobro (eleuterio) | t | star: 5 points (yellow) | artigas (josé gervasio) |
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![[Flag of the Tupamaros]](../images/u/uy}tupa.gif)
The date of foundation of Tupamaros (MLN, Movimiento de Liberación
Nacional = National Liberation Movement) is 1965. There are a few
variants of the circle and star in the flag.
Rodolfo Tizzi, 10 Jul 2002
In 1971, the National Liberation Movement reinforced.
It was also called Tupamaros, from the name of the Indian
Tupac Amaru, who was quartered by the Spaniards on 18 May
1781 in Cuzco (Peru) after having fought against colonization
for 4 years. (The name Tupac Amaru was reused by the Peruvian
revolutionary group (M.R.T.A.)
which assaulted the Japanese embassy in Lima last year.)
The Uruguayan Army defeated the Tupamaros in 1972 and
overthrew the elected President Juan Maria Bordaberry on 27
June 1973. Civil government was reestablished in 1985 with
the election of Julio María Sanguinetti as President.
Ivan Sache, 18 Jun 1998
The MLN - Movimiento de Liberación Nacional - Tupamaros was founded in the early 1960s by journalist Raúl Sendic.
In some aspects, the group took as a model Fidel Castro's Revolution in Cuba. However, following Uruguay's geography and conditions, the Tupamaros used "urban guerrilla" methods.
The group founded a political party as a "political wing" named
Movimiento de Independientes 26 de Marzo (March 26th Independent Movement).
As it was quoted before, the Uruguayan Armed Forces defeated militarily the Tupamaros in 1972 and after that overthrew the Civil government in 1973. Most of the members of MLN (included its founder Raúl Sendic) where kept in military prisons until 1985 when there was an amnesty law.
After that, they returned to politics as a political group and declined guerrilla methods. Raúl Sendic, the founder of the MLN-Tupamaros, died in 1989.
The MLN-Tupamaros continues to exist today as a political group (and legal now), and former