Sergio Apablaza

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Sergio Galvarino Apablaza (b. 1950), nicknamed "Comandante Salvador", is a Chilean Marxist guerilla and former member of the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front (FPMR) (Spanish: Frente Patriótico Manuel Rodríguez). He has participated in several highly publicized kidnappings and murders.

[edit] Background

Galvarino Apablaza was the leader of the Marxist group FPMR, founded in 1983 as the armed wing of the Communist Party of Chile (PCCh). Its mission was to carry out guerilla attacks against the Chilean military government of the Augusto Pinochet. It is named after Manuel Rodriguez, considered a hero in the war of the independence of Chile against Spain.

After the fall of Pinochet's government and the return to democracy in 1989, the organization broke up into two factions: the FPMR Party, which gave up the armed fight, and the FPMR-Dissidents, which continued terrorist activities. Some of the FPMR most recent attacks include the explosion of a building in which the American company Flour Daniel has offices (August 1994), an attempted bombing of a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in Santiago (September 1993), an explosion near the Chinese Embassy in Santiago (May 1993), and a bombing of a Mormon church in Santiago (December 1992).

Apablaza participated in the kidnapping of the Brazilian advertising executive Washington Olivetto in 2001, according to Brazilian police authorities. He has been charged by the Chilean judge Hugo Dolmestch for the following crimes: the kidnapping of Cristian Edwards (son of Agustín Edwards Eastman, owner of the newspaper El Mercurio) and the assassination of Senator Jaime Guzmán.

Galvarino Apablaza was arrested on November 29, 2004 in Argentina. Chilean authorities requested his expulsion so he could be tried in Chile. Apablaza and some left-wing organizations managed to convince Argentinian authorities to give him political asylum.