SECTION OF PAPER - TERRORIST LINKS IN LATIN AMERICA

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 06693349
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: March 8, 2023
• Document Release Date: December 3, 2019
• Case Number: F-2016-02161
• Publication Date: June 29, 1979

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STATE EQUITIES/CIA
Terrorist Links in Latin America: Post-Mortem
On The JCR (U)
The Junta de Coordinacion Revolucionaria (known
as JCR or the Junta) represents one of the most ambi-
tions attempts by terrorist groups over the last dec-
ade to form an effective international terrorist net-
work. Founded in Argentina in 1974 by terrorist lead-
ers from Chile, Bolivia, Uruguay, and Argentina, the
JCR opened its membership to guerrilla and terrorist
formations that were "Harxist-Leninist" in orienta-
� tion, agreed to form a "revolutionary army," and ac-
cepted the "socialist" nature of the revolution. At
first the JCR seemed a formidable threat to several
governments in Latin America, particularly in view of
Cuba's initial interest and conditional support. The
potential threat increased as the JCR contacted revo-
lutionary groups elsewhere in Latin America and even
in Western Europe. However, the intensive counterter-
rorist campaign in 'Argentina and other Southern Cone
countries effectively curbed the armed activities of
those terrorist groups that formed the base of the
JCR. With little room for maneuver in Latin America,
the JCR turned largely to propaganda efforts directed
at Latin American exiles. The organization's recent
lack of initiative, even in propaganda, indicates its
strength is greatly diminished, its influence almost
negligible, and its future quite dim. Its failure has
some implications for efforts at collaboration by ter-
rorist groups elsewhere.
The JCR Today: A Paper Tiger
The JCR is moribund, though on paper it still looks
impressive. Had it retained all the staff it ever re-
cruited, all the international contacts it ever made,
and all the terrorists theoretically respbnding to its
direction or receiving its aid, it would have become a
"Terrorist International" for Latin America. US military
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'3relitto J.
estimates of September 1978 noted that -about 200 JCR ac-
tivists had been "identified." Two hundred full-time
terrorists can do much damage; for comparative purposes,
the current active service units of the Provisional Irish
Renuhliran Army probably total less than that number.
The JCR still has an internal structure of a kind--
including a leader in Europe, Federico Chavez, married
to the sister of the late Ernesto "Che" Guevara of Cuba,
and at least eight other officials, most of whom, like
Chavez, are living in Paris. At one time or another it
had contacts with at least 20 revolutionary organizations
in Latin America with memberships totaling in the thou-
sands and nearly as many other groups in Western Europe,
the Middle East, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
In Paris the JCR occasionally publishes a journal
called the Guevara, and maintains an anti-Argentine re-
gime propaganda center, the Centre Argentina de Informa-
cion y Solidaridad (ens). The Agencia de Prensa America
Latina'(PRELA) in Caracas functions as another JCR propa-
ganda outlet. Through such instruments, the JCR has
tried to influence not only disaffected Latin Americans
but international human rights investigators from Amnesty
International, the UN Human Rights Commission and even
members of US Congressional committees. For more than a
year, however, no new evidence has come to light that it
sponsors training, directs terrorist or revolutionary
activities, spends money to support terrorists, or even
sends observers to revolutionary events that may be under
way. It has been conspicious by its absence during the
latest Sandinista offensive in Nicaragua,
that a handful of JCR activists in
Costa Rica may have played a minor role in helping Cuba
gain Latin American support for the earlier Sandinista
offensive. At present, therefore, the JCR is hardly
more than a nuisance.
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When the Threat Seemed Real
The JCR was formed in February 1974 at a clandestine
meeting in Argentina by terrorist leaders from Argentina's
People's Revolutionary Army (ERP), Uruguay's Tupamaros,
Chile's Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR), and
Bolivia's National Liberation Army (ELN). Mario Santucho
of the ERP was the driving spirit in establishing the
body. For.the first two years his ERP provided most of
the money and other logistical support for JCR activites.
He also served as the main JCR contact with the Cuban
Government.
Cuba apparently encouraged formation of the Junta
(although the idea probably originated with Santucho),
and at least for the first two years supplemented the
ERP contributions with some monetary support as well as
a promise of training assistance. Havana probably con-
sidered that the JCR could be of some use in influencing
the ideological direction of Latin American revolution-
aries; that it could serve as a surrogate instrument for
subverting what Havana regarded as "reactionary" regimes
without greatly jeopardizing Cubes state-to-state rela-
tions elsewhere; and that it could run the risk of fail-
ure without making it appear to be Cuba's failure.
The JCR's early months showed several accomplishments.
It seems to be Kell financed, with an income of more than
$30 million duriri9 trperidd 1974 to 1976, and access
to sources of additional funds from kidnapings, bank rob-
beries and, reportedly, two narcotics networks. It at-
tracted other terrorist, groups as affiliates, notably
from Paraguay (National Liberation Front--Frepalina),
Argentina (Montoneros), Peru (Movement of the Revolution-
ary Left--MIR), Guatemala (Revolutionary Armed Forces of
National Liberation--FALN), Colombia (Revolutionary Armed
Forces--FARC), and Nicaragua (the Sandinista). Its rep-
resentatives fanned out to Paris, Lisbon, Frankfurt,
Rome, Stockholm and elsewhere to establish contact with
additional terrorist groups, with local Communist parties,
and with any other organization willing to provide ma-
terial or moral support. It established a system for
providing safehouses and false documentation. It set up
a guerrilla training base in Argentina, complete with
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airstrip, and arranged for other guerrillas to rPreiVP
training
The governments of the so-called Southern Cone
countries reacted decisively to this perceived "interna-
tional" threat, including a cooperative effort dubbed
"Operation Condor." Between October 1975 and May 1977
security forces overran the Argentinian training base,
killing Santucho, decimated the four founding terrorist
groups, and thwarted every terrorist operation in Latin
America bearing the signature of JCR. Some of these
operations were near misses, such as the plot to assas-
sinate Paraguayan President Stroessner in December 1975.
Indeed, a JCR-sponsored plot in Paris to kill the Bolivian
Ambassador to France in May 1976 was successful Other
operations, however, were caught at such an early stage
that they seem in retrospect to have been badly con-
ceived--notably "Operation Red Boomerang," which involved
the invasion of Chile by 140 guerrillas on horseback.
Indeed, the security forces seem to have had little
trouble in penetrating the JCR and thereby countering
onerations almost as soon as they had been conceived.
The last known terrorist operations that may have
included significant involvement by the JCR occurred in
April 1977 in Western Europe. One was an unsuccessful
attempt to kidnap a former Swedish Government minister
in order to gain the release of Baader-Meinhof Gang mem-
bers imprisoned in West Germany. The other occurred
when the director-general of Fiat-France was kidnaped
and ransomed for $2 million; the Swiss police recovered
more than three-fourths of the ransom. Present or former
members of the Tupamaros, Montoneros, and the ERP par-
ticipated in this bizarre episode.
During 1978 terrorist groups loosely affiliated
with the JCR attacked Nicaraguan consulates and airline
offices in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Colombia. While
this represented a significant gesture of sympathy for
the Sandinista by other Latin American terrorists, it
was not, as far as can be determined, a JCR-sponsored
operation.
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Why the Failure?
By 1978, what was left of the JCR itself was
reduced to a European-based publishing enterprise
ing a continually decreasing readership.
thus
serv-
The failure of the JCR to remain an effective ter-
rorist threat can be accounted for by both particular
and general factors. Santucho's death in 1976 clearly
was one blow from which the JCR never recovered; his
particular leadership skills proved tote irreplaceable.
This situation has parallels in other terrorist organiza-
tions. Since terrorism requires the use of small units
to commit spectacular incidents, an individual's personal
qualities often play a decisive role in the ultimate
success or failure of the entire organization. When the
opposing security forces succeed in putting a few key
terrorists out of action, the results can thus be signif-
icant. For example, the deaths of two important Belfast
IRA leaders at the hands of the British Army in 1972 and
1973 (Joe McCann, believed to have assassinated 15 Brit-
ish soldiers, and Jimmy Bryson, a particularly resource-
ful IRA battalion commander) weakened the capabilities
and apparently the resolve of the IRA to engage British
forces directly in Belfast, though not elsewhere in
Northern Ireland. The recent passivity of the interna-
tional terrorist "Carlos"--Ilich Ramirez Sanchez*--has
coincided with a worldwide decline in the complex multi-
country terrorist "spectaculars" for which he has shown
a special flair. Santucho, like McCann, Bryson, and
Carlos, was a special type, and his also was a special
loss.
Other factors, however, clearly affected the JCR as
well. Even before his demise, Santucho admitted to his
associates that the JCR had failed. In addition to ex-
ternal pressures from governmental security forces, the
JCR had been weakened internally by factionalism. The
four founding groups never bore equal burdens, and
Santucho's group (ERP) grew tired of supporting the other
three, which were weaker. Moreover, when the Montoneros
applied for membership they were not given a position on
*Carlos is a Venezuelan-born operative of the Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine who was involved in several sensational
terrdrist attacks in the past.
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the ruling secretariat. Their second-class status was a
reflection of their previous rivalry with the ERP in
Argentina. Once the Montoneros had been relegated to a
secondary position, no other group joining the JCR could
be raised to the same level as the original four. The
stage was set for bickering and mutual rather than effec-
tive collaboration.
The Cuban relationship to the JCR proved another
source of the'organization's decline. Some affiliates
feared Cuban domination, and JCR efforts to show dis-
tance from Havana reduced Castro's interest in providing
support.
The factional, ideological, and ultimately nation-
alistic differences which contributed to the JCR's demise
tend to inhibit the creation of any effective interna-
tional network of terrorist groups. Coordination of
terrorist groups tends to work-best on an ad hoc, essen-
tially bilateral basis. In any event, such coordination
tends to be less important than the relationship of the
terrorist group to a patron state or some internal popular
base of support. When the number of terrorist groups
involved in coordination, or the number of target coun-
tries is greater than two the situation becomes unwieldr
and unworkable.
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