Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

472 • NATIONAL LIBERATION ARMYformed its own guerrilla organization, the Revolutionary ArmedForces of Colombia (FARC), largely to counter the ELN initiative.Although the ELN began with Cuban material and moral support,in 1968 due to Soviet pressure on Cuba to cease support for Colombianguerrilla groups, the ELN experienced a hiatus in activity andits membership fell to around 80. In 1969 it began to finance itselfthrough a series of kidnappings for ransom and by bank robberies.From 1969 until 1973 the ELN was considered the most effectiveof Colombia’s guerrilla groups until military anti-insurgency effortsdestroyed its support network in the cities. After 1975 the ELN reemergedand by the late 1980s numbered around 500 to 1,000 combatants.From 1988 to 1995 it became the most active terrorist groupin Colombia, until FARC resumed its insurgency. The ELN’s mainarea of activity has been in the eastern plains of Colombia.Some of the ELN’s more noteworthy actions include the following:On 6 October 1975 the ELN killed the inspector general of the army,Ramón Arturo Rincón Quiñones. On 21 January 1976 it bombed theSpanish embassy in Bogotá. During July 1983 the ELN conducted abombing campaign called Operation Free Central America in whichthe Salvadoran consulate in Medellín and police stations in Aranjuezwere struck. On 23 November 1983 the ELN kidnapped Dr. JaimeBetancur Cuartes, the brother of the Colombian president. This action,as well as ELN reluctance to undertake peace talks with thegovernment, drew forth a rebuke from Fidel Castro, who persuadedthe ELN to release Dr. Cuartes three weeks after his capture.Although the ELN gained publicity from having recruited theCatholic priest Fr. Camilo Torres Restrepo, a member of a prominentColombian family who was killed in guerrilla warfare in 1966, andalthough another priest, Fr. Manuel Pérez Martínez, became an ELNleader, there is no evidence that the group’s secular ideology owesany of its inspiration to liberation theology, whose emergence it antedatesby several years. Actually, the ELN has been active in targetingreligious groups or figures of whatever denomination they viewas being politically conservative or aligned with U.S. “imperialism.”In October 1987, in addition to bombing a naval facility in Barrancabermeja,the ELN bombed three Mormon churches in Boyaca, andin October 1989 the ELN killed the Catholic bishop of Aracua.The ELN has tried to destroy systematically the economic infrastructureof Colombia. In December 1986 it attacked U.S.-associated