Terrorist Organizations
With Cuba State
Affiliation
Glossary of Terrorist
Organizations
BPP - Black Panther Party - Founded in the United States in
1966 by Huey P.
Newton and Bobby Seale. It adopted Marxist-Leninist
principles along with
urban guerrilla warfare, and a structure similar to the
American Communist
party.
DGI - Directrio
General de Inteligencia - The Cuban Department in charge of
collecting intelligence and carrying out covert operations
outside Cuba.
DA - America
Department - Centralized control over Cuban activities for
supporting national liberation movements, responsible for
planning and
coordinating Cuba's secret guerrilla and terrorist camps,
and propaganda
apparatus.
DLN - National
Liberation Directorate - Organization created in Cuba to
support revolutionary groups throughout the world.
Responsible for planning
and coordinating Cuba's terrorist training camps in the
island, covert
movement of personnel and military supplies from Cuba, and
propaganda
apparatus.
EGP - Ejercito
Guerrillero de los Pobres - A political-military
Marxist-Leninist organization that followed Cuba and Vietnam
as
revolutionary models. This Guatemalan insurgent organization
was trained in
Cuba and was very active during the 1970s, seeking to depose
the political
and military structure of the country.
ELF - Eritrean
Liberation Front - The most influential Eritrean
organization
fighting for secession from Ethiopia in the 1960s, actively
supported by the
Cuban and Syrian regime since 1965. Various internal
divisions developed
later on until the late 1970s, when a new front was built
based on very
different domestic and external alliances and, eventually
led the Eritreans
to victory. Cuba's support to Mengistu Haile Mariam's regime
in 1978 meant
the cessation of previous Cuban backing to the Eritrean
cause.
ELN - National
Liberation Army - Organized by the Castro regime, this
Colombian Marxist insurgent group was founded in 1965. Its
main terrorist
activities includes kidnapings and extortion targeting
foreign employees of
large corporations.
ETA - Basque
Separatist Movement - This organization was founded by
militants and leftist students from the University of Madrid
in 1962. They
formed guerilla units that commit violent terrorist acts
claiming that they
are fighting for freedom of the Basque Region, in Spain.
This group has
close relations with the IRA. The two groups have offices in
Havana and
their members have found safe haven in Cuba.
FALN - Fuerzas
Armadas de Liberacion Nacional - A Venezuelan
guerrilla
organization trained by Cuba in violence and terrorism.
FARC - Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia - Established in 1964, the
FARC is the oldest and best-equipped Marxist insurgency in
Colombia. It is a
well-organized terrorist group that controls several rural
and urban areas.
It has received financial and military aid from Cuba and
many of its members
were trained in Havana.
FATAH - Palestine
National Liberation Movement - Founded in 1959 by younger
generations of Palestinians that had experienced the defeats
of 1948 and
1956. The FATAH are strongly committed to a radical
nationalist platform to
fight for Palestine and against Arab intervention and
manipulations of the
Palestinian problem. Mostly an underground organization
until the June War
in 1967 when it transformed itself into the most powerful
and influential
party inside Palestinian and Arab politics.
FLN - Front de
Liberation National - The political and military
organization
that led the war of national liberation against French
colonial rule between
1954 and 1962. Ruling political party until the 1980s in
Algeria.
FMLN - Farabundo
Mart National Front - Formed in 1970, the FMLN is a
terrorist Marxist-Leninist organization intent on
establishing a communist
revolutionary regime in El Salvador. The FMLN was extremely
active in its
terrorist campaign, receiving assistance from Nicaragua and
Cuba.
FSLN - Frente
Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional - This organization was
founded in Havana in 1961 when Carlos Fonseca-Amador's
Nicaraguan Patriotic
Youth organization merged with Tomas Borge's Cuban-supported
insurgent
group. The group adopted Marxist-Leninist ideology and
gained support from
the Castro government, employing low-level guerrilla warfare
and urban
terrorism tactics to overthrow the Somoza dictatorship.
IRA - Irish
Republican Army - The IRA is the most dangerous terrorist
organization of Northern Ireland dating back to the early
1920s. Although,
it wasn't until the 1970's when the IRA began terrorist
actions and
resurrected the historical conflicts. The IRA targets
political
transformation for United Ireland by eliminating Britain
from Northern
Ireland and replacing the government of Northern Ireland
with a socialist
government. Its Latin American headquarters are in Havana.
LASO - Latin
American Solidarity Organization - A Cuban controlled
organization founded during the 1966 Tri-Continental
Conference in Havana to
"coordinate and foment the fight against North American
imperialism."
M-19 - Movimiento 19
de Abril - A Castro supported group formed in 1974 to
disrupt Colombia's government through acts of terrorism and
violence. The
M-19 was very active throughout the 1980s receiving
assistance and training
from the Montoneros and Tupamaros groups and the Cuban
government, causing
Colombia to temporarily sever diplomatic relations with
Cuba.
M-6-14 - Agrupacion
Politica Catorce de Junio - Dominican guerrilla
organization trained in Cuba.
MACHETEROS - This
terrorist organization is composed of four Puerto Rican
groups: 1) the Macheteros, 2) the Ejercito Popular Boracua
(EPB), 3) the
Movimiento Popular Revolucionario, and 4) the Partido
Revolucionario de
Trabajadores Puertorriqueħos. Most of the Macheteros
have been trained in
Cuba, were they have established relations with other
terrorist groups. They
are responsible for several terrorist acts within the United
States and
throughout Puerto Rico.
MIR - Movimiento de
la Izquierda Revolucionaria - A Chilean insurgent
organization founded in 1965 and supported by Castro. The
MIR was very
active in the mid-1970s when they promoted violence and
occupied several
rural areas in Chile. The group encountered several set
backs during the
1980s that essentially ended their activity.
MONTONEROS - An
Argentinean guerilla organization that was formed in 1968 as
a Peronist urban anti-government group. It adopted a Marxist
ideology in the
mid-1970s after it united with the Fuerzas Armadas
Revolucionarias de
Argentina. In 1977, many of its members were exiled and its
numbers reduced
to less than 300.
MRTA - Tupac Amaru
Revolutionary Movement - Marxist-Leninist revolutionary
organization formed in 1983 and supported by the Castro
regime. The MRTA's
intent was to establish a Marxist regime in Peru through
terrorism, although
Peru's counter terrorism program diminished the groups'
ability to
effectively carry out terrorist attacks.
NLF - National Front
for the Liberation of South Yemen - Created in 1962 in
the course of the revolution in North Yemen against the
monarchy and
supported by Nasser, the NLF is another important and
successful branch of
the Arab Nationalist Movement. Since 1965 it has had very
close relations
with Cuba. In 1966-1967, it broke with Nasser and finally
forced the British
to negotiate and evacuate Aden.
OSPAAL [OSPAAAL] -
Organization for the Solidarity of the Peoples of Africa,
Asia and
Latin America - Founded in 1966 in Cuba at the
Tri-Continental Conference,
this organization aims to support the struggle of the people
of Africa, Asia
and Latin America against imperialism, colonialism and
neo-colonialism.
PLO - Palestine
Liberation Organization - This organization was founded in
Cairo in 1964 under the auspices of Egypt (then known as the
United Arab
Republic) to serve Nasser's manipulations of the Palestinian
cause. The
group was composed mostly of conservative Palestinian
intellectuals and
bureaucrats serving Arab governments. The PLO was an
instrument of Nasser's
foreign policy until the June War of 1967, when the old PLO
leadership
collapsed to be replaced by FATEH's leadership headed by
Arafat.
POLISARIO - People's
Front for the Liberation of Western Sahara and Rio del
Oro - The Frente POLISARIO was inspired by the ANM
tradition and the
Algerian FLN and was created to fight against the
Spanish-Morrocan-Mauritinian arrangements to split the
former colony of
Sagu a el Hamra/Rio del Oro (known as Western Sahara)
between the two
African states. This group enjoyed active support from
Algeria and Libya and
Cuba.
POPULAR FRONT FOR THE
LIBERATION OF PALESTINES - The most important
branch
of the Arab Nationalist Movement (ANM), created in the 1950s
as radical
followers of Nasser. After the June War of 1967, the group
disassociated
itself from Nasser and focused on building a more radical
alternative within
the Palestinians under the name of Popular Front. The group
has strong
alliances within Lebanon, Jordan, Yemen, and the Gulf, and
was heavily
engaged in terrorist activities during the 1970s.
TRICONTINENTAL -
Cuban publication disseminated by the Organization for the
Solidarity of the Peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America
(
OSPAAL) [OSPAAAL]
in four
languages: Spanish, English, French, and Italian / promoting
the Castro line
of armed struggle.
TUPAMAROS or MNL -
Movimiento Nacional de Liberacion Tupamaros - This
Uruguay insurgent group was organized in the early 1960s by
law student Raul
Sendic. The Tupamaros were one of the first terrorist groups
to use
guerrilla warfare in urban areas and established independent
terrorist cells
throughout the country.
WORLD MATHABA - A
Libyan project from the late 1970s to promote political,
financial, and military support for revolutionary movements
throughout the
world. Ghaddafi called on other "revolutionary governments"
to support this
project, which Cuba did. MATHABA was essentially a
tool in the hands of the
Libyans to project their individual goals and agenda.
Financial and military
assistance was never a collective decision, but responded
for the most part
to bilateral arrangements between Ghaddafi's regime and
individual
organizations, some of which resorted, at different stages,
to terrorist
methods like the IRA and ETA. Insurgencies in Central
America, like the
Sandinistas and others, were privileged beneficiaries along
with the African
National Congress, Frente POLISARIO, and others.
The Institute for Cuban & Cuban-American Studies
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