Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

174 • FARABUNDO MARTÍ NATIONAL LIBERATION FRONTThe PRTC compensated for its small numbers by some audaciousterrorist actions, including the 19 June 1985 Zona Rosa massacre inwhich four off-duty U.S. Marine embassy guards, two private U.S.citizens, and seven Salvadoran civilians were machine-gunned todeath at a sidewalk café in the Zona Rosa district of San Salvador.The perpetrator, Nidia Díaz, was captured but freed on 24 October1985 in exchange for the kidnapped daughter of Salvadoran PresidentJosé Napoleón Duarte.5. Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación (FAL, Armed Forces of Liberation)was the armed wing of the Communist Party of El Salvador(PCES). While numerically small, having around 500 combatants,it was of great importance to the FMLN during the Salvadoran civilwar due to its close connections with the Soviet and Cuban leadership.Its leader, Shafik Handal, served as the FMLN spokesman informerly Communist countries and also played a role in creatingsupport networks in non-Communist countries, including the UnitedStates. Its urban guerrillas on 10 September 1985 kidnapped InezGuadalupe Duarte Durán, daughter of the then Salvadoran PresidentJosé Napoleón Duarte. Both she and another kidnap victim,the Civil Aviation Director, Colonel Omar Napoleón Avalos, werereleased along with 33 kidnapped mayors and municipal officials on24 October 1985 in a prisoner exchange between the FMLN and theSalvadoran government.While the Salvadoran transitional regime was often criticized forits human rights abuses due to its failure to suppress the operationof right-wing death squads, the FMLN also was guilty of humanrights violations in conducting its rural insurgency and urban terroristcampaigns. By 1986 the United Nations report on human rightsin El Salvador noted that the FMLN was guilty of increasing humanrights violations whereas the Salvadoran government’s record hadimproved substantially.Prior to 1980, the constituent groups of the FMLN believed in thetheory of prolonged popular warfare. With the Sandinista victory inNicaragua in July 1979, the leftist guerrillas already active were encouragedto redouble their own efforts at revolution. On 15 October1979, a reformist coup ousted the ineffective and corrupt PresidentCarlos Humberto Romero and sought to implement badly neededsocial and economic reforms to forestall a Nicaraguan-style revolutionin El Salvador. The leftist rebels, not to be deterred from their