Little is known about the Patriotic Resistance Army. The group claimed responsibility for a small bombing at a shopping center in the Honduran city of Tegucigalpa on March 15th, 1990. The blast injured three people, including one American. <P><br /><br />When compared to other Central American countries, Honduras suffered fairly low levels of political violence and terrorism in the second half of the 20th century. Full-scale leftist insurgencies did not materialize in Honduras as they did in Guatemala and El Salvador, and, consequently, neither did the rightist paramilitary groups that combated them. The 1980s, however, saw an increase in political violence in the country, though not to the levels of its neighbors. A few leftist groups did emerge, such as the Morazanist Patriotic Front, but their attacks remained few in number and small in scope. Small but dangerous attacks like the March 15th bombing, which were frequent in other parts of the region, were less common in Honduras. <P><br /><br />One of the policies that Honduran leftist groups specifically denounced was the presence of several thousand Nicaraguan Contras in the 1980s. The Contras, who were supported by the United States, were fighting the Nicaraguan Sandinista regime in a vicious civil war. Many Hondurans opposed hosting the Contras. Opposition was occasionally violent: several American targets were hit in the late 1980s, including offices of the Peace Corps and U.S. AID, a bus carrying American military personnel, and an American businessman. However, the conflict between the Contras and the Sandinistas ended in the electoral defeat of the Sandinistas in February 1990. Contra forces began to withdraw from Honduras and return to Nicaragua. <P><br /><br />Given the political context, it is difficult to ascertain the key motivations of the Patriotic Resistance Army. While opposition to the Contras was the most common motivation for this type of incident in Honduras during that era, the bombing occurred after the crisis was effectively over. And, though an American woman was injured in the bombing, it is not known if she was specifically targeted, or if she was another unfortunate victim. The group's name and target do not indicate anything concrete about the group's aims. <P><br />