On the night of April 30, 1997, Chile's leftist Manuel Rodriguez Patriotic Front (FPMR) held a clandestine press conference at the railroad retirees union local in Santiago to announce it is leaving the armed struggle and seeking to become a legal political organization. FPMR spokesperson Lorena Astorga announced that: "The FPMR renounces armed actions and the political content of its activity is no longer based on the priority of carrying out this kind of operation." Astorga said the FPMR will remain in clandestinity to avoid political persecution, but insisted: "We are no longer an armed apparatus." At the conference, the FPMR presented the most recent issue of its official publication 'El Rodriguista', which reveals details of the spectacular helicopter escape made by four FPMR members from a maximum security prison in Santiago last December 30 [see Update #362]; and read a letter sent by the fugitives to their comrades still in prison. The FPMR was formed in 1983 by Communist Party militants. [Clarin (Buenos Aires, Argentina) 5/2/97 from AFP, EFE, ANSA]
The FPMR now has a web site at http://www.cyberplus.ca/~labbe
Source: Weekly News Update on the Americas #379