Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

64 • BANNA, SABRI KHALIL ALits activities through kidnapping for ransom and by extorting protectionpayments from wealthy individuals and firms. In 1972 theGBR began abducting wealthy businessmen for ransom, kidnappingCaracas industrialist Carlos Domínguez Chávez in a joint operationwith MIR activists, and releasing him for $1 million in ransom. AfterGBR leaders Carlos Betancourt and Gabriel Rafael Puerta Apontewere captured in 1973, the GBR arranged for both to escape fromCaracas’s San Carlos prison in January 1975, along with 21 otherguerrillas, by means of a 60-meter tunnel that the GBR had dug intothe prison, apparently with the cooperation of other leftist guerrillas.In March 1975 the GBR renounced all ties to leftist parties workingwithin the constitutional order and published a death list against 20prominent landowners.From 1976 to 1977, the GBR conducted sporadic attacks on militaryconvoys and temporarily captured small towns. After Betancourtwas recaptured in 1977, Bandera Roja activity halted. In December1981 the GBR hijacked three domestic flights, demanding therelease of Betancourt and other prisoners, but the Venezuelan governmentrejected those demands. In April 1982 Puerta Aponte wasrecaptured in a firefight in which 25 militants were killed. BanderaRoja operated mainly in eastern Venezuela and along the Colombianborder and had contact with Colombia’s M-19 and National LiberationArmy (ELN) groups. Membership in the armed wing wasestimated at no more than 50.After May 1994 the group reconstituted itself as simply a left-wingpolitical party, renouncing violence. Following the election of PresidentHugo Chávez in 1998, the GBR aligned itself with moderateleftists and conservatives opposing Chávez, which led to a split in theparty and the defection of several members who supported Chávez.In the 2006 presidential elections the GBR supported the challenger,Manuel Rosales, a political moderate, and itself won only about 0.16percent of the vote in the National Assembly elections.BANNA, SABRI KHALIL AL. See ABU NIDAL.BASQUE FATHERLAND AND LIBERTY (ETA). The Euzkadi TaAskatasuna is a nonstate Basque ethnonationalist separatist group thathas undertaken terrorist operations to win independence for Euzkadi,the Basque fatherland, consisting of the Spanish provinces of Vizcaya(Basque: Bizkaia), Alava (Arava), Guipuzcoa (Gipuzkoa), and Navarra