Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front

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The Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front (Spanish: Frente Patriótico Manuel Rodríguez) (FPMR) is a communist militant organization in Chile, named for a figure in Chile's independence movement, Manuel Rodríguez. The group was founded in 1983, during the rule of General Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet had banned the Communist Party of Chile (for which the FPMR served as an armed wing) after overthrowing President Salvador Allende and seizing power in the Chilean coup of 1973.

In September 1986, the FPMR attacked Pinochet's car in an assassination attempt. Five of Pinochet's body guards were killed. Pinochet, however, only suffered minor injuries. Also in 1986, Chilean security forces caught the FPMR smuggling an 80-ton shipment of weapons, including T-4 plastic explosives, RPG-7 and M72 LAW rocket launchers as well as more than three thousand M-16 rifles.

Marcelo Barrios Andres, a 21 years-old member of the FPMR, was assassinated on August 31, 1989 in Valparaíso, by a group which included military official Marina Óscar Aspe, captain Sergio Schiffelle Kirby, sergent Jorge Figueroa, and Silverio Fierrio and Luis Ceballos, along with 18 Marines. They were supposed to arrest him on orders of Valparaíso's public prosecutor. However, they simply executed him. Tens of ammunitions were found in his body, and the trace of almost 500 shots found in his house. Marcelo Barrios is on the Rettig Report's list of executed activists, and Marina Óscar Aspe is included as guilty of human rights violations in the 2001 Comisión Ética contra la Tortura ^[1].^[1]

After the restoration of democratic rule in Chile in 1991, the FPMR split into two parts: one which returned to seeking change through the political system, and another which continued to advocate armed struggle. The latter faction continued to commit kidnappings and robberies, including the murder of the Independent Democrat Union senator Jaime Guzmán on April 1, 1991 (the suspects escaped to Cuba). Other main targets included Mormon churches, the kidnapping of Cristian Edwards, son of the owner of the principal countries newspaper El Mercurio, and US businesses in Chile such as McDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant franchises^[2].