The Puerto Polloan Civil Wars: Part I


FARPP guerrillas, 1982

In the course of the next week we will retrace the bloody and bitter history of the two Puerto Polloan Civil Wars. Today we look at the background and the first phase of the first.

Background (1897 - 1979)
In 1897, the mestizo elite of Puerto Pollo took advantage of the weakness of the colonial motherland, weakened by a brief but costly war abroad, and declared independence. Aside from a couple of bloodeless coup and a short-lived peasant revolt, for the next fifty years Puerto Pollo remained politcally stable under a succession of authoritarian presidential government, expression of the elite of planters and traders. Economy was dominated by cash crops, chiefly coffee, cocoa and sugar, and the country lingered in undervelopment: it had no mineral resources or industries, the population was agrarian, poor and illitterate and the only sizeable town was the capital Danjer Cove.
Everything changed in 1946, when a group of Puerto Polloan intellectuals, educated abroad, returned home and founded the Communist Party of Puerto Pollo. The Party quickly gained the favour of the denfrachised masses, also through the large trade unions it founded and controlled. Its steady growht allarmed the ruling elite and in 1969, among mounting paranoia, right-wing hawks in the government launched a covert plan of sabotage and harrasment against the communists. The following years saw tension rise as the government repression was met with anger by the communists, especially the youth in more radical, small groups. Starting in 1974, communist militants began to arm themselves to strike back at police and army abuses, both in demonstrations and by means of retaliation. At the 1979 elections the CPPP was forecast for a landslide victory: on July 17th, four days before the polls were to open, the Army staged a coup, backed and encouraged by the elite. The First Puerto Polloan Civil War had begun. 


First Phase (1979-1981)
The Army and the National Police began rounding up communist militants, real or suspected, and initially detained in Urraca Stadium in Danjer Cove. Many though fled to the internal counrtyside and forests, including the bulk of CPPP leadership: a failure that the junta would pay dearly. The CPPP and its offshoots, along a few non-communist oppositors, spent most of the following year hiding and re-organizing as a guerrilla force. Armed activity thus remained low until in 1980 they united under the moniker of the Fuercas Armadas Revolucionarias of Puerto Pollo (FARPP): a pre-condition set by foreign Communist powers - including Bruuma - for their support. Thus, weapons began to flow to the rebels both from cargos docking in Danjer Cove port, were FARPP held many sympathizers among dock workers, or by small boats ferrying from neighboring coasts. 
The civil war was from the start fought on two fronts, with different methods: in the countryside, the rebels fought a more conventional war, with mobile columns laying ambushes, attacking outposts and temporarily occupying villages. In Danjer Cove, they resorted to ways more akin to those of terrorist groups, with cells conducting assassinations and bombings before disappearing among civilians. The junta answers was universal: forced disappearances, summary executions, torture and mass incarceration. The only difference was that in the countryside it was carried out by the Army, in the city by Police and paramilitary squads.
Violence became a daily feature in Puerto Polloan life, while the economy spiralled down as the war disrupted agricolture and trade.


Puerto Polloan Army soldiers take cover during a firefight with FARPP rebels, 1981