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