The Tupamaros During The 1950's

During the 1950s Uruguay was unique amongst most South American countries due to its sociopolitical stability and economic prosperity. Uruguay had fostered a large and growing middle class as well as a stable welfare-state which gave a wide degree of democratic and civil freedoms more so than any other south American government. Due to relative peace in Uruguay in the mid-1960s there were only 12,000 men in the armed forces and less than 22,000 police in a country with a population of nearly 3million. Roughly half of Uruguay’s population lived in the capital Montevideo. “Having avoided ethnic wars, world wars, and other types of conflict during the twentieth century, the society that emerged there was significantly averse to violence. Crime
“The name comes from Tupac Amaru, the 18th century Inca cacique who led an unsuccessful rebellion against Spain” (Gerassi). The group was founded in 1962 by Raul Sendic, a Law student in Montevideo who had organized the sugar beet workers and then the sugar cane workers in northern Uruguay. “Sendic led the cañeros, their wives and children on a 350-mile march to publicize their demands. His long and arduous struggle, reminiscent of Cesar Chavez’s drive with California’s grape workers, finally paid off. He organized the UTAA (Unión de Trabajadores Azucareros de Artigas) and obtained the implementation of legislation long ignored by the local landowners” (Gerassi). The UTTA transformation into the Tupamaros occurred between 1962-1963 when they decided that tactics and strategy so far had led them to a dead end and chose to form a paramilitary group. The group decided to employ Urban strategy, as 80% of the population livened in large towns & cities and that the countryside would not support insurgent cells. They would concentrate nearly all of their activity in and around the capital Montevideo. The Tupamaros drew its membership from young, radical, middle class people who were mostly students and white collar workers. They were organized in a cellular structure of 4-5 man groups with the leader as the only link to other cells. This was mainly done for security reasons, as the fall of one cell would have little impact on the group as a whole. Between 1963 and 1968 The Tupamaros focused on most of their activity gathering resources. They did this by bank robberies, robbing Gun shops and private businesses. They claimed that this was a part of their goal to make the government look powerless to defend its allies and unnecessary in its reactions. The main tactic the group began to use was political