Rebel Armed Forces

Rebel Armed Forces
Fuerzas Armadas Rebeldes
LeadersLuis Augusto Turcios Lima (Until 1966)
Dates of operation1960–1971
Active regionsGuatemala
IdeologyCommunism
Marxism-Leninism
Sizeunknown
Part ofURNG
AlliesEGP
ORPA
MR-13
PGT
URNG
Cuba (Support)
Soviet Union (Until 1991)
Nicaragua (1979–1990)
FMLN
OpponentsGuatemala
United States (Support)
Israel (Support)
Taiwan (Support)
Chile (Support)
Argentina (Support)
South Africa (Support)
Battles and warsGuatemalan Civil War
Emblem
Preceded by
MR-13

The Rebel Armed Forces (Spanish: Fuerzas Armadas Rebeldes, FAR) was a Guatemalan guerrilla organization established in 1961 and lasting until the peace agreements in 1996.

In the late 1960s, the Guatemalan government began a United States-backed counter-insurgency campaign that killed between 2,800 and 8000 FAR supporters in eastern Guatemala. The survivors of this campaign, which devastated the FAR, regrouped in Mexico City in the 1970s, and founded the Guerrilla Army of the Poor (EGP), which succeeded in mobilizing tremendous popular support over the next few years.[1]

FAR is most significantly known for having killed the U.S. ambassador to Guatemala, John Gordon Mein, in 1968. Also killed that year were two U.S. military advisers, Colonel John Webber and Ernest Munro, although they might have been killed at the command of PGT leader Leonardo Castillo Johnson.[citation needed]

In 1970, the group briefly kidnapped Guatemala's foreign minister Alberto Fuentes Mohr, but freed him in exchange for the release of a student leader. Karl von Spreti, German ambassador to Guatemala, was kidnapped and murdered by the FAR as well in that year. Further actions that year included the kidnapping of U.S. labor attaché Sean Holly, he was freed for the release of FAR prisoners.[citation needed]