Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

676 • LAS TURBAS DIVINASwith operating theater and a covert arms factory. By November 1972some 2,600 members and supporters were arrested and 42 killed.The last known Tupamaro attack was the attempted hijacking of aUruguayan airplane in Argentina on 20 October 1973. After the Tupamaros’leader, Raul Sendic Antonaccio, was captured, the movementcollapsed. Ironically, although the Tupamaros had succeededin destroying Uruguayan democracy, since the military seized powershortly after the crackdown on the Tupamaros, once in power themilitary then pursued its own ruthless suppression of leftists andsubversives that precluded any mass-based leftist revolution. Followingthe restoration of civilian rule in 1984, a general amnestywas declared in 1985. Upon his release from prison, Sendic and othersurviving Tupamaros reconstituted themselves as a legal politicalparty, the Movimiento de Participación Popular (Popular ParticipationMovement), becoming a part of the left-wing Frente Ampliocoalition that won the parliamentary election of 31 October 2004. AlthoughSendic had died in 1989, two former Tupamaro leaders, JoséMujica and Nora Castro, became presiding officers of the Senate andChamber of Representatives, respectively, of the National Congressfollowing the 2004 election.LAS TURBAS DIVINAS. The “divine mobs” were Nicaraguan statesponsoredgroups used to intimidate and suppress domestic opponentsof the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua. These mobs consistedof Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN) activists andmembers of the Sandinista Defense Committees, a network of blockwatchorganizations. The turbas divinas and Defense Committeeswere under the control of Department F-8 for Mass Organizationswithin the General Directorate for State Security (DGSE).During the first year after the 17 July 1979 Sandinista victory,the FSLN appeared to share power with a number of non-Marxistdemocratic groups. As hard-line Marxist Tomás Borge Martínezconsolidated FSLN control over the Interior Ministry, toleration ofnon-FSLN political groups ended. On 7 November 1980 organizedmobs attacked an opposition rally at Nandaime led by NicaraguanDemocratic Movement (NDM) leader Alfonso Robelo, and on 9 Novembermobs attacked the offices of the NDM, destroying files andequipment and torching an NDM vehicle. When the non-FSLN paperLa Prensa sought to publish details of the attack, it was censored by