Word: brazilians
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Guerrilla warfare has plagued the hinterlands of Latin America for more than a decade. But the Brazilian kidnapers who seized Ambassador Elbrick two weeks ago and held him captive for 77 hours represent a relatively recent, and rapidly spreading, phenomenon-organized urban guerrilla warfare. Kidnapings, bombings and bank robberies in the great cities of the continent seem to be overshadowing the tactics devised by Mao Tse-tung, Vo Nguyen Giap and Ernesto Che Guevara -all of whom hold that the proper arena for armed revolutionary struggle is the countryside. With the exception of Fidel Castro's Cuba, that kind...
...guerrillas have scored a number of impressive successes. The terrorists who held Elbrick managed in one stroke to embarrass the Brazilian government, set free 15 political prisoners, and seriously impair Elbrick's effectiveness. Indebted to the military regime for securing his release, the ambassador may find it impossible to function as an independent observer in Brazil...
Urban guerrillas are blamed for a long list of other incidents. Since January, 74 Brazilian banks have been robbed, and the government suspects that at least half of the holdups were carried out to refill guerrilla war chests. Almost daily, bombs explode in São Paulo, the nation's commercial and industrial center. Last year U.S. Army Captain Charles Rodney Chandler was shot and killed in the city by terrorists who claimed that he was a Viet Nam "war criminal." Dissidents have taken over local radio stations on at least two occasions to broadcast antigovernment propaganda. They also...
Scrupulously Formal. A witty career diplomat who has served as the U.S. ambassador in Yugoslavia and Portugal, Elbrick had been a hit with Brazilians almost from the moment he arrived on July 8. While maintaining scrupulously formal relations with the military regime, he mixed enthusiastically among the civilian population. One evening he and his wife danced past midnight at a party with Brazilians from Rio's ramshackle favelas. After the murder of U.S. Ambassador John Gordon Mein in a kidnap attempt in "Guatemala a year ago, Elbrick's predecessor, John Tuthill, kept a bodyguard and frequently changed cars...
Most of the racket comes from automobiles, and most automobiles are small Volkswagens, assembled in Sāo Paulo. The whine of their four-cylinder engines and the beep of their horns are, at least to Brazilian ears, disappointingly meek. As a result, manufacturers of install-it-yourself kits do a booming business in noisemakers. The beetles' mewling toot is replaced by full-throated klaxons that belt out bars of hard-rock music or soar into the oscillating wail of European ambulances. The VW's short-stroke engine remains untouched, but its exhaust is channeled through complicated "extractors...