Manuel Rodriguez Patriotic Front

Founded in 1983 as the armed wing of the Chilean Communist Party, the Manuel Rodriguez Patriotic Front (Frente Patriotico Manuel Rodriguez; FPMR) was formed to carry out armed attacks against members and institutions of the brutal Pinochet regime in Chile. The Pinochet regime dealt severely with the FPMR and other dissident groups and is said to have tortured frentistas, as FPMR members are called. After the regime fell in 1990, the group, named for a hero of Chile's war of independence against Spain, continued its attacks on civilians and international targets.

In the late 1980s, the FPMR splintered into two factions, one of which became a political party in 1991. The other dissident faction continued its terrorist activity; the U.S. State Department has considered the group to be a terrorist organization for many years.

In 1991, the FPMR carried out two famous operations. On April 1, the group assassinated right-wing senator Jaime Guzman, killing him as he left a Catholic University campus in Santiago. On September 9, three hooded FPMR members kidnapped Cristian Edwards, whose family runs Chile's most prominent newspaper. Edwards was wrapped in a sleeping bag and taken to a FPMR hideout. His captors kept Edwards for 145 days in a small room without natural light, playing music continually. After his family paid $1 million in ransom, the FPMR freed him. Edwards has since kept a low profile and moved to the United States.

The dissident wing of the FPMR has also attacked international targets, including U.S. businesses and Mormon churches. In 1993, FPMR operatives bombed two McDonald's restaurants and attempted to bomb a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant. In December 1996, four FPMR members managed a spectacular escape from a Chilean high-security prison; the facility had been widely considered escape proof. FPMR operatives on the outside hijacked a helicopter that had been rented by tourists and flew it over the prison. They then dropped a 15-meter rope with a basket into the prison yard. As guards began to shoot, the four escapees climbed into the basket and were lifted to safety. Landing the helicopter in a park in south Santiago, Chile's capital, they escaped in waiting vehicles. Chile mounted a massive police search, but the FPMR members had fled—many went to Cuba, where they received asylum.

One of the fugitives, Patricio Ortiz Montenegro, fled to Switzerland and requested political asylum. Extradition requests were denied because the Swiss government was not assured that Ortiz would be safe if returned to Chile.

On December 11, 2002 frentistas kidnapped Brazilian publicist Washington Olivetto as he rode home from work in São Paulo. The kidnappers, disguised as police officers, stopped Olivetto's driver and forced their way into his car. The FPMR held Olivetto for 53 days in a small, windowless room located in the countryside near São Paulo. Again, music blared 24 hours a day; Olivetto attempted to determine how much time had passed by counting the number of albums played. Shortly after Olivetto's family agreed to pay $10 million in ransom, the landlord who rented to the kidnappers told the police he had suspicions about his strange young tenants. The Brazilian police soon freed Olivetto. After his release, Chilean experts suggested that the dissident branch of the FPMR carried [Page 221]out the Olivetto kidnapping in an attempt to gain enough funds to regroup as an armed force.