Venezuela: Return of the F.A.L.N.

During the term of President Romulo Betancourt, Venezuela was inflamed by the Castroite terrorists who like to call themselves the Armed Forces of National Liberation. The F.A.L.N. hijacked a freighter and airliner, kidnaped a U.S. Army colonel, robbed banks, blew up oil pipelines, burned stores and factories. But the Castroites failed to upset the constitutional election last December of Betancourt’s successor, Raul Leoni, and little was heard from them for months. Now the un declared truce has been broken, and the F.A.L.N. seems more dangerously vicious than before.

In one four-day period last week, terrorists in Caracas ambushed three policemen walking their beats, machine-gunned them to death; another cop was shot as he bicycled home from duty. What the F.A.L.N. was doing out in the countryside worried officials even more. Guerrilla bands have suddenly appeared in eight of Venezuela’s 20 states. Last week, in a dozen skirmishes, the F.A.L.N. blew up an important highway bridge, attacked police patrols and national-guard posts, killing one and wounding two government men.

The most heavily infested area is the hilly El Bachiller region 90 miles east of Caracas. There, for the past three weeks, the government has been mounting a small war against an estimated 100 to 300 guerrillas. Acting on a tip from loyal peasants, the government brought in combat troops to wipe out the Castroites. Venezuelan air force B-25s swept overhead, dropping anti-personnel bombs; 105-mm. artillery shelled the heavily wooded hillsides—a tactic more likely to produce a psychological than a military advantage. In 21 days of sniping and patrol-sized fire fights, seven Castroites were killed and 26 captured (the Venezuelan army did not report its own casualties). Then the guerrillas melted away into the hills.

Some estimates put the total number of Castroites in the eight states at 1,500, and they are growing bold enough to terrorize small towns for a few hours until army troops come to the rescue. So far, most of them have kept a jump ahead of the army, which has little experience in counterinsurgency warfare. With help from officers who have gone through the U.S. anti-guerrilla school in Panama, the Venezuelans are training a force of cazadores (hunters), patterned after the U.S. rangers right up to their green berets.