Antonio Luis Sapienza Fracchia – författare

In 1964 a right-wing military coup seized power in Brazil. The Araguaia Guerrilla movement, formed by the Communist Party of Brazil in the late 1960s, launched an armed opposition to the US-backed military government with the intention of waging a Maoist-style people’s war from its base area along the banks of the Araguaia river. Between 1972 and 1974 the Brazilian military launched a brutal campaign to destroy the Araguaia Guerrilla in its jungle stronghold.While the idea of armed opposition to the military government of Brazil was popular amongst the Brazilian left-wing, it was the Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB) that actually formed such a movement. They selected as their base area the towns along the banks of the Araguaia River where tensions between locals and the government-backed mining operations already existed. The concept was that a rural people’s war would be waged from this base area, inspired by Mao’s campaign in the Chinese Civil War and the successful Cuban Revolution. Never a large organization, the Araguaia Guerrilla movement avoided much attention of the government until 1972 when the military launched a campaign that by 1974 would leave few survivors.Araguaia War examines the military regime in Brazil between 1964 and 1985, and the subversive groups, both urban and rural that appeared in that country in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The Brazilian military and police forces in the 60s and 70s are described in detail, along with their campaign against the armed opposition in Araguaia, in the states of Maranhão, Pará and Goiás, and the actions of the guerilla movement.

Operativo Independencia (The Independence Operation) offers a detailed military history of the massive and effective military response ordered by the constitutional government of President María Estela Martínez de Perón of Argentina. Decree No. 261/75 of 5 February 1975 had the objective of annihilating guerrilla terrorism of Argentina’s Marxist-Leninist so-called People's Revolutionary Army (Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo/ERP) and the left-wing Peronist group called Montoneros.Volume 2 of Operativo Independencia examines the operation between 1975 and 1976, including all the military and police operations in the Province of Tucumán and throughout the entire country, and details all the military and police units and aircraft deployed. In addition, the 1976 coup through which a Military Junta was established to rule the country and the beginning of the Dirty War against the subversive organizations, both in the countryside and the main cities are examined, along with the defeat of the subversive groups, and a final balance of the casualties and ‘disappeared’ of this conflict, along with the eventual fates of the military juntas once they left power.Operativo Independencia offers a unique military history of a very dark episode in the history of Argentina and avoiding the conventional narrative of depicting the participants solely as victims and perpetrators. This volume is richly illustrated with original photographs and specially commissioned color artworks.

Che’s Guevara's Final Adventure: The Guerrilla in Bolivia, 1967 is a detailed military history of the final campaign of Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, as he commanded the Bolivian National Liberation Army in a doomed campaign against the US-backed military regime headed by Air Force General René Barrientos.Between 1966 and 1967 Argentine-born Ernesto Guevara - known around the world as ‘Che’ - would lead the Cuban-backed Bolivian National Liberation Army in Ñancahuazú region of Bolivia, in what was known as the the Ñancahuazú Guerrilla. Bolivia at that time was governed by a military regime headed by Air Force General René Barrientos, who in November 1964 had overthrown the historic leader and constitutional president Víctor Paz Estenssoro and put an end to the nationalist-popular revolution that began in April 1952.At the beginning of the operations, Che's guerrillas obtained some positive results before the Bolivian army and troops of the security forces began a relentless pursuit, supported by aircraft of the Bolivian air force, which bombed and machinegunned the guerrilla camps. With US military help in the training of the Bolivian Army Rangers, it was possible to decimate the guerrillas and capture, and ultimately execute, Guevara in October 1967.Che’s Guevara's Final Adventure: The Guerrilla in Bolivia, 1967 provides a detailed day-by-day account of the last campaign of a figure who even today remains an instantly recognisable icon of the left-wing revolutionary movements of the Cold War era, and is illustrated throughout with original photographs and includes specially commissioned color artworks.

In 1910, less than a decade after achieving independence from Spain, Cuba began its first aeronautical activities and by 1913 the Cuerpo de Aviación del Ejército de Cuba (CAEC, Cuban Army Aviation Corps) had been created, well before many other Latin American countries established similar services. Cuban military pilots trained in the United States during the First World War and came close to being sent to the Western Front in France, however, the war ended before this could occur.The CAEC grew over the following years, and as Cuba supported the Allied cause during the Second World War benefited from the US Lend-Lease Program, and in the post-war years from other programs such as the American Republics Program (ARP) and the Mutual Defence Assistant Program (MDAP). These programs provided not only aircraft to the CAEC but also training for its pilots and mechanics.This volume examines the genesis of Cuban aviation, the organisation and evolution of the CAEC, Cuban Military Aviation in the Second World War, the failed operation of the Caribbean Legion in Cayo Confites, Cuban Naval Aviation and the CAEC in the late 1940s and early 1950s and includes a short biography of Fulgencio Batista. Annexes detail all the CAEC aircraft types from 1913 to 1952, when it was restructured to become Cuban Army Air Force (examined in a companion volume), as well as those of the Naval Aviation during the same period.Cuban Military Aviation Volume 1: Organisation and Development of the Cuban Army Air Corps 1913–1952 is illustrated throughout with original photographs and includes specially commissioned colour artworks.