Mano Blanca (White Hand, in English) claimed responsibility for targeting the Soviet Union's news agency, TASS, with a grenade attack in Guatemala City on May 18th, 1988. There are two differing accounts of the attack. One report states that two grenades exploded at the home of a TASS correspondent, Alejandro Trouchine, while another report (citing the Soviet news agency) claimed that the attack occurred at a TASS office. No one was hurt in the attack. Alejandro Trouchine stated that he had received a threatening letter signed "Mano Blanco" about 10 days prior to the attack. <P> <br /><br />The name Mano Blanca is a throw-back to a previous generation. Mano Blanca was the name of the one of the notorious "death squads" linked to the right-wing political party The Movement of National Liberation (MLN). These semi-official units clandestinely "disappeared" (murdered) the MLN's political opponents. Mano Blanca was one of several right-wing death squads that targeted left-wing guerrilla groups and leftist intellectuals and politicians. These groups allegedly were operated or assisted clandestinely by the Guatemalan military. A similar organization in El Salvador also went by the name Mano Blanca. The Guatemalan version was reportedly founded by Mario Sandoval Alarcon, an MLN politician, sometime in the mid 1960s. <P><br /><br />Mano Blanca death squad activity tapered off and then ended sometime in the early to mid 1980s. However, semi-official death squads continued to operate in Guatemala under different names, such as the Secret Anti-Communist Army (ESA) and Jaguar Justiciero. The numbers of those killed by these units dropped off significantly in the 1990s, though murders and "disappearances" continued to happen. Peace accords ended Guatemala's long civil war in 1996 and officially put an end to state-linked to death squads. Still, political kidnappings and murders (often in the name of "anti-crime") remain frequent in Guatemala, though it is difficult to ascertain who is behind the violence -- whether they are official, semi-official, or private vigilante groups. <P><br /><br />The 1988 TASS grenade attack does not seem to fit with the activities of the original Mano Blanca. No other attacks following this pattern were reported after 1988. Rather than being the work of a terrorist organization, the TASS bombing was most likely the work of an individual or small group of Guatemalan anti-communists. They most likely signed their threat "Mano Blanca" to instill maximum fear in the target. What links they may have had with the retired death squad are unknown. The amateurish and low-intensity scale of the attack suggests that the perpetrators were not former members of Mano Blanca and not operating under any organizational structure. <P><br />