The Armed Forces of National Liberation (in Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

: Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional, FALN) was a Venezuela

Venezuela

Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...

n guerrilla group

Guerrilla warfare

Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare and refers to conflicts in which a small group of combatants including, but not limited to, armed civilians use military tactics, such as ambushes, sabotage, raids, the element of surprise, and extraordinary mobility to harass a larger and...

 formed to foment revolution against the democratically elected government of Rómulo Betancourt

Rómulo Betancourt

Rómulo Ernesto Betancourt Bello , known as "The Father of Venezuelan Democracy", was President of Venezuela from 1945 to 1948 and again from 1959 to 1964, as well as leader of Accion Democratica, Venezuela's dominant political party in the 20th century...

.

Background

In 1958, Betancourt's Democratic Action (Acción Democrática, AD) party largely disenfranchised the extreme left wing, notably the Communist Party of Venezuela

Communist Party of Venezuela

The Communist Party of Venezuela is a Marxist-Leninist political party, and the oldest continuously existing party in Venezuela...

 (Partido Comunista de Venezuela, PCV). The 1959 Cuban Revolution

Cuban Revolution

The Cuban Revolution was an armed revolt by Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement against the regime of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista between 1953 and 1959. Batista was finally ousted on 1 January 1959, and was replaced by a revolutionary government led by Castro...

 influenced PCV and student groups hoping to repeat Fidel Castro

Fidel Castro

Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011...

's success in Venezuela. Many leftist students formed the Revolutionary Left Movement

Revolutionary Left Movement (Venezuela)

The Revolutionary Left Movement , was a left-wing Marxist political party in Venezuela...

 (Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria, MIR) in April 1960.

Betancourt's firm stance against Castro, especially Cuba's expulsion from the Organization of American States

Organization of American States

The Organization of American States is a regional international organization, headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States...

 (OAS) led to bloody military uprisings in 1962, first at Carúpano

Carúpano

Carúpano is a city in the eastern Venezuelan state of Sucre. It is located on the Venezuelan Caribbean coast at the opening of two valleys, some 120 km east of the capital of Sucre, Cumaná...

 on the Península de Paria, then at Puerto Cabello

Puerto Cabello

Puerto Cabello is a city on the north coast of Venezuela. It is located in Carabobo State about 75 km west of Caracas. As of 2001, the city has a population of around 154,000 people. The city is the home to the largest port in the country and is thus a vital cog in the country's vast oil...

. After the unsuccessful revolts, Betancourt suspended civil liberties and arrested the MIR and PCV members of the forerunner to the National Assembly of Venezuela

National Assembly of Venezuela

The National Assembly is the legislative branch of the Venezuelan government. It is a unicameral body made up of a variable number of members, who are elected by "universal, direct, personal, and secret" vote partly by direct election in state-based voting districts, and partly on a state-based...

 bicameral Congress (Congreso) in 1962. This drove the leftists underground, where they engaged in rural and urban guerrilla activities, including sabotaging oil pipelines, bombing a Sears Roebuck warehouse, and bombing the United States Embassy in Caracas

Caracas

Caracas , officially Santiago de León de Caracas, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela; natives or residents are known as Caraquenians in English . It is located in the northern part of the country, following the contours of the narrow Caracas Valley on the Venezuelan coastal mountain range...

. FALN failed to rally the rural poor and to disrupt the December 1963 elections

Venezuelan presidential election, 1963

General elections were held in Venezuela on 1 December 1963. The presidential elections were won by Raúl Leoni of Democratic Action, who received 32.8% of the vote, whilst his party won 66 of the 179 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 22 of the 47 seats in the Senate...

.

The head of the Office of Public Safety

Office of Public Safety

The Office of Public Safety was a US government agency, established in 1957 by US President Dwight D. Eisenhower to train police forces of US allies. It was officially part of USAID , and was close to the Central Intelligence Agency . Police-training teams were sent to South Vietnam, Iran, Taiwan,...

 (OPS), Byron Eagle, sent LAPD

Los Angeles Police Department

The Los Angeles Police Department is the police department of the city of Los Angeles, California. With just under 10,000 officers and more than 3,000 civilian staff, covering an area of with a population of more than 4.1 million people, it is the third largest local law enforcement agency in...

officers to Venezuela in 1962 to train local police officers and assist them in their fight against the FALN.

External links

• The Triumph of Democracy via U.S. Library of Congress Country Studies/Area Handbook Series sponsored by the U.S. Department of the Army between 1986 and 1998.