Lautaro Youth Movement

Named for a famous Araucanian Indian warrior, the Lautaro Youth Movement (MJL, aka Lautaro Faction of the United Popular Action Movement and Lautaro Popular Rebel Forces) is a militant Chilean leftist group that became active in the 1980s. Now said to be largely disbanded, the MJL has been linked to bank robberies, the killing of policemen, and attacks on Mormon churches.

The movement was formed as a splinter group of the political party United Popular Action Movement (Movimiento de Accion Popular Unitario, or MAPU). The breakaway group called itself the Lautaro Faction of the MAPU, and it developed a separate youth movement, the MJL, and a militia, the Lautaro Popular Rebel Forces. A major goal of the MJL and its sister organizations was to overthrow the regime of the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.

After Chile returned to democracy in 1990, the MJL continued its violent activities. But in 1990, a foiled rescue attempt turned tragic for the MJL. On November 14, guards transferred Marco Ariel Antonioletti, a top MJL militant, from the public jail to a hospital for treatment. International human rights groups have said that Antonioletti had been beaten and tortured by the police and was taken to be treated for his injuries. An MJL commando team burst into the hospital and began firing at the guards and police officers watching Antonioletti. The officials returned fire, and the gunfight left four guards and one police officer dead. Marcela Rodriguez, the MJL member known in the right-wing Chilean press as the mujer metralleta, or “machine gun girl,” was in charge of taking Antonioletti from the hospital and driving him to a safe haven. However, in the exchange of bullets, Rodriguez was shot in the back and gravely wounded. Her companions fled, and she was arrested. Police later shot Antonioletti in the forehead, killing him.

Paralyzed by her injuries, Rodriguez underwent multiple surgeries. In 1999, despite being confined to a hospital bed, Rodriguez was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Appeals for her pardon by various human rights groups and the Chilean Catholic Church moved the Chilean government to allow her to serve her sentence outside of the country.

Many top leaders of the MJL are in prison, and its members have scattered. MJL members imprisoned in Chile's high-security prisons have engaged in hunger strikes, demanding better conditions for prisoners.