Luis Augusto Turcios Lima (November 23, 1941 - October 2, 1966) was a Guatemalan army officer and leader of the Rebel Armed Forces (FAR). He died in 1966, in a car incident, when a bomb exploded inside his austin mini cooper.
Luis Turcios entered the military service at age 15, graduating as second lieutenant. He then received commando training at Fort Benning, Georgia. On his return, he participated in the 13th of November 1960 military uprising against President Miguel Ydígoras, after military service in Petén.
Eduardo Galeano writes about the mythic aspect attributed to Turcios Lima in his 1967 Guatemala: Occupied Country:
"The previous leader of the Rebel Armed Forces, Luis Augusto Turcios, was also a legendary figure for the peasants, who attributed supernatural virtues to him. He was a hot-blooded young officer who learned the technique of the guerrilla from the Yanquis themselves--in a course at Fort Benning, Columbus, Ga., on how to combat it. Dictator Peralta Azurdia put a price on his head and he put one on dictator Peralta Azurdia's. After he took to the hills in 1960, he mocked death a thousand times. Absurdly, death won because his car caught fire on the highway."
Famous quotes containing the words luis and/or lima:
“I cannot walk through the suburbs in the solitude of the night without thinking that the night pleases us because it suppresses idle details, just as our memory does.”
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986)
“The next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. There will, perhaps, be a Thucydides at Boston, a Xenophon at New York, and, in time, a Virgil at Mexico, and a Newton at Peru. At last, some curious traveller from Lima will visit England and give a description of the ruins of St. Paul’s, like the editions of Balbec and Palmyra.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)