National Liberation Army Colombia

The following information is based on "Patterns of Global Terrorism" - US State Dept.

The ELN is a Marxist guerilla group founded in 1963 under the inspiration of the Cuban Revolution.

History
The group conducted peace talks with the Colombian government during 1992 which were unsuccessful. Recently talks were scheduled for june 1998, but were called off by ELN until after the June 21 presidential elections in Colombia.

Activities
The group periodically kidnaps foreign employees of large corporations and holds them for large ransom payments. It conducts frequent assaults on oil infrastructure and has inflicted major damage on pipelines. It often employs extortion and bombings against US and other foreign businesses, especially the petroleum industry. The group forces coca and opium poppy cultivators to pay protection money and attacks the government's efforts to eradicate these crops.

 

National Liberation Front of Corsica

Fronte di Liberazione Naziunale di a Corsica, Front de Lib?ration Nationale de la Corse

The FLNC was founded in 1976, after a merger of two other Corsican terrorist organizations: Ghjustizia Paolina and the Fronte Paesanu Corsu di Liberazione.

At the end of the eighties and the beginning of the nineties, political rivalry within the nationalist movement led to several schisms in the underground scene. As a consequence, the FLNC split into the ‘canal historique’ (historic channel) and the ‘canal habituel’ (usual channel), followed by a whole series of new splits and the creation of a number of other terrorist organizations: Resistenza, Fronte Ribellu, Front Arm? R?volutionnaire Corse... Some of these groups only existed for a few years, did not represent much in terms of activities or merged again after a while. The FLNC-canal historique and the FLNC-canal habituel thus remained the most important terrorist organizations, although the latter decided to end activities in 1997.

In 1999, the FLNC-canal historique merged with some of the other underground organizations, adopting the name ‘FLNC’ again.

The main objectives of the FLNC actually are :

  • Self-determination for Corsica through independence.
  • The regrouping of imprisoned terrorists – currently serving sentences in continental France – in a Corsican prison.

The FLNC has a loose commitment to leftist ideologies and claims to fight the ‘internal colonialism’ of France, but is not well rooted on the ideological level.

The organization is closely linked to a political party, A Cuncolta Independentista, which is considered as its legal representative. A Cuncolta is the only nationalist party with a delegation in the Corsican Assembly. All other – more moderate – nationalist parties failed in this respect due to a 5%-threshold at the regional elections of 1999.

The actual number of FLNC-members is hard to ascertain but is estimated at 600. This number corresponds with the number of armed militants present during a nocturnal press conference of the FLNC on 11 January 1996 in the Corsican village of Tralonca. The organization is primarily organized and active in Corsica and not as such in continental France, although a significant share of the Corsican diaspora – mainly living in cities close to the Mediterranean like Marseille, Nice, Toulon or major cities like Paris and Lyon – supports the Front. The FLNC is organized in a atomized, horizontal manner rather than a rigid piramid-structured way and consists of relatively independent cells which cover a well defined geographical area of Corsica for its military, political or financial activities.

The financial sources of the FLNC are armed robberies of banks, extortion through the practice of ‘revolutionary taxes’ and criminal activities alike. The organization has probably links with the ‘Arm?e R?volutionnaire Bretonne’ (ARB), a small terrorist group striving for an independent Brittany.

Most of the attacks of the FLNC are perpetrated on Corsica, whereas only a minor number takes place in continental France. The organization must be regarded as responsible for some thousands of attacks since its creation in 1976, although - at least until the beginning of the nineties - there were only occasionally casualties to deplore. The attacks of the FLNC are principally aimed at public infrastructure, banks, tourist facilities, military or police buildings and other symbolic targets of the ‘colonial state’ in Corsica. The nineties showed another picture, however. Due to the fast growing rivalry between different factions of the underground nationalist scene, dozens of people were killed in a ‘fratricidal war’ and the number of mortal attacks on French officials like mayors, policemen, etc. mounted as well. An evolution that culminated in 1998 in the assassination of prefect Claude Erignac, the highest representative of the French Republic on the island (although the FLNC denied any responsability and publicly even rejected this attack). Despite this radicalization, inter-communal violence or blind terror is – contrary to Northern-Ireland or the Basque Provinces in Spain, for example – not a common feature in Corsica.

Since the reconciliation of the different nationalist factions at the end of the nineties, violence between these groups has decreased. The total number of casualties due to nationalist violence since the mid-seventies (all armed groups together) is estimated at 220, although it is sometimes difficult to ascertain whether an assassination is politically motivaded or a purely criminal act. This counts for lot of terrorist attacks in Corsica, since underground nationalist organizations are increasingly involved with maffia-style activities on the island.

For a chronology of the most important attacks of the FLNC and other Corsican terrorist organizations, see http://www.bsos.umd.edu/cidcm/mar/frcorsic.htm

 

Nestor Paz Zamora Commission (CNPZ)

National Liberation Army (ELN) Bolivia

The following information is based on "Patterns of Global Terrorism" - US State Dept.

Structure
This is not a large group. Possibly about 100 members.

History
The ELN is a group which was originally established by Che Guevara in the 1960s. They include several smaller groups including CNPZ which is not active.

Activities
Their aim is to attack Bolivian domestic targets. In the past, they also attacked U.S. interests.

 

New People's Army

The following information is based on "Patterns of Global Terrorism" - US State Dept.

The guerrilla arm of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), an avowedly Maoist group formed in December 1969 with the aim of overthrowing the government through protracted guerrilla warfare. Although primarily a rural-based guerrilla group, the NPA has an active urban infrastructure to carry out terrorism; uses city-based assassination squads called sparrow units. Derives most of its funding from contributions of supporters and so-called revolutionary taxes extorted from local businesses. They have about 16,000 members and several support groups.

Activities
NPA is in disarray because of a split in the CPP, a lack of money, and successful government operations. With the US military gone from the country, NPA has engaged in urban terrorism against the police, corrupt politicians, and drug traffickers.