Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

14 • AL FATAHleader Rosa Cardenas. On 16 October 1985 it seized the Mexicanembassy, telexing messages to other Latin American countries condemningthe severing of diplomatic relations between Ecuador andNicaragua and denouncing U.S. support for the contras. In May1986 it kidnapped a Constitutional Court member, who was laterfreed after a negotiated surrender. In April 1987 it bombed a policestation in Quito.At its height the AVC had 200 to 300 members and financed itselfprimarily by bank robberies. The AVC exploited its activities as ameans to gain publicity for its cause, once even seizing a radio stationin February 1986 to broadcast a propaganda tape celebrating its thirdanniversary. Due to the death of its leader in 1986 and the killingsand arrests of its rank and file in 1986–1989, accomplished largely bydeath squad activity conducted by security forces, the organizationlost its strength and is apparently defunct.AL FATAH. See FATAH, AL.ALIANZA APOSTÓLICA ANTI-COMMUNISTA (AAA). TheAnti-Communist Apostolic Alliance was a guerrilla group underSpanish state sponsorship with the limited aims of suppressing leftismand separatism. The AAA conducted attacks on Basque separatistsof the Basque Fatherland and Liberty group within the Basqueregions of Spain and France and bombed both the Catalan Center inMadrid and the Catalonian paper El Papus in Barcelona in 1977. InJanuary 1977, two AAA gunmen killed four prominent leftist lawyersin Madrid. The arrest of these gunmen led to more convictionsof other AAA activists. The activities of this group ceased in theearly 1980s.ALIEN TORT CLAIMS ACT. Also known as the Alien Tort Statute(28 U.S. Code s. 1350), this obscure section of the Judiciary Act of1798 allows U.S. citizens or foreigners to sue foreign people for civildamages in U.S. district courts for personal damages suffered in violationof the law of nations or of a treaty law of the United States. Inthe case Forti v. Suarez-Mason (1987), Argentinean nationals suedretired General Carlos Guillermo Suarez-Mason, who was a principalin carrying out the Argentinean junta’s Dirty War against suspectedleftists, for damages resulting from their family members sufferingdegrading treatment and being tortured, arbitrarily detained, falsely