Cabañas, Lucio (1936–1974)

The leader of a Mexican guerrilla group and promoter of the "revolution of the poor men," Lucio Cabañas Barrientos was born in El Porvenir, a municipality of Atoyac de Álvarez, one of the poorest regions of the state of Guerrero. He came from a family of coffee peasants, and as a child, he worked in the fields. A long family revolutionary tradition sparked his interest in politics. At the Rural Normal School in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero, he became a student leader. In 1960 he also became a local leader, in the movement headed by the teacher Genaro Vázquez Rojas and Guerrero's Civic Association to overthrow the state governor, Raú l Caballero Aburto. In 1962 Cabañas was elected general secretary of the Mexican Socialist Student Peasants Federation, and a year later, in Mezcaltepec, he fought against the forest companies that exploited the mountain range of Atoyac. In 1965, as an elementary school teacher in Atoyac, he helped remove the principal of the school for abusing the authority of her office and also became a member of the Mexican Communist Party. He participated in the Revolutionary Movement of Teachers and in the formation of the regional section of the Central Independent Peasant Organization. In 1967 he was an adviser in the movement against the principal of the "Juan Álvarez" elementary school. During a rally in Atoyac's civic plaza (18 May 1967) the judicial police tried to assassinate Cabañas, and in the melée that followed seven people died. Cabañas hid himself in the mountain range to prepare a guerrilla war to promote the "revolution of the poor against the rich." There he formed an armed group, the Peasant Brigade for Justice, and a secret support base, the Party of the Poor Men. His guerrilla war moved through three stages: (1) organizing the support bases (1967–1969); (2) financing their activities via bank robberies and kidnappings (1970–1971); and (3) attacking military objectives (1972–1974). The Mexican army conducted several campaigns that eventually wiped out the armed group. In 1974 Cabañas's guerrillas had kidnapped the official candidate to govern Guerrero, Rubén Figueroa. In its rescue mission the army surrounded the guerrillas and secured the release of Figueroa, but Cabañas fell in a confrontation in Tec-pan de Galeana, Guerrero. He later became a cult figure for the organizations of the radical Left.

See alsoGuerrilla Movements; Mexico, Political Parties: Partido Comunista Mexicano.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bartra Verges, Armando. Guerrero Bronco. Campesinos, ciudadanos y guerrilleros en la Costa Grande. México: Era, 2000.

Bellingeri, Marco. Del agrarismo armado a la guerra de los pobres. Ensayos de guerrilla rural en el México contem-poráneo: 1940–1974. México: Casa Juan Pablos-Secretaría de Cultura del Distrito Federal, 2003.

Suárez, Luis. Lucio Cabañas, el guerrillero sin esperanza. México: Roca, 1976.

                                          Adela Cedillo